Compagnie iberiche a Milano nel secondo Quattrocento

Abstract

The study of temporary settlements of foreign merchants in medie­val and Renaissance Europe needs also to consider their relations with political power; in this context if we found data about traders of the King­dom of Aragon in Lombardy, however few, they would be of importance if they helped us to analyse what political support the merchants could expect and how it worked. We have news of Majorcan merchants in Milan in the middle of the fourteenth century, when the King of Aragon allied with Milan and Venice allied against Genova; nevertheless, more occupied in maritime trade, Catalan merchants didn't extend their business range towards the interior of northern Italy till the second half of the fifteenth century, when the conquest of the Kingdom of Naples by Alfonso el Magnánimo brought many Catalan merchant-bankers to the southern capital. Some of those firms, the bigger ones, had business relations with Milanese firms and also sent repre­sentatives to Milan, encouraged by the alliance, consolidated by marriage ties, between Ferdinando I, king of Naples, and the Sforza dukes of Milan. A well documented example is that of the Valencian firm of the heirs of Martin Ruiz, who obtained the privilegium civilitatis of Milan in 1486 through the intervention of Simonot Bellprat, treasurer of the King of Naples and now ambassador et the Sforza Court; after a few years the Ruiz had to flee from Valencia because they were conversos, and chose to settle in Milan.