La colonia genovesa en Valencia durante la guerra civil catalana: el secuestro de sus bienes en 1472

Abstract

The trade of the Genoese in Valencia has till now been considered one of the most dynamic activities of the local economy. It has been esti­mated that the Ligurian trade, both in terms of commercial houses establis­hed in the city as well as in terms of what was traded in the market, was enormous. However, no documentation adequate enough to test the truth of this affirmation had been available. Thanks to the confiscation of Genoese goods in 1472, as a result of the suspicions of king Juan de Navarre over Ligurian aid to the Catalan rebels in the Civil War, we have been able to offer a partial but significant evaluation of the commercial importance of the Genoese houses based in fifteenth-century Valencia. Contrary to com­mon opinion, Genoese trade was not as extensive as claimed in cited histo­rical studies, either in terms of merchandise or in terms of houses based in the Valencian capital.