The English in Livorno: Portuguese colonial goods and cross-cultural trade in the early seventeenth century

Abstract

This article examines the role of the trade in Portuguese colonial commodities and the interactions amongst English merchants and corsairs with the Portuguese community of Livorno as a gateway that facilitated the English incursions into the Mediterranean during the first two decades of the seventeenth century. Through the employment of different typologies of primary sources and focusing on experience-sharing and social interactions amongst these groups, this study seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of the relation between commercial networks and the integration of foreign communities within key nodal points of trade in the Early Modern world.