Genoese trade networks in the southern Iberian peninsula: trade, transmission of technical knowledge and economic interactions

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a research project undertaken at the University of Granada, and in collaboration with several European research groups. We aim to investigate the process of interaction and integration between different economic areas in the western Mediterranean during the late Middle Ages. The southeast of the Iberian Peninsula has been analysed as a case study. Genoese merchants were particularly active within this area; they played a key role in connecting diverse trading areas (including Seville, Granada, and Valencia), thanks to their complex trading network. They controlled a wide range of production activities in key places, playing an important role in the transmission of technical know-how, and thereby promoting the reorganization of production activities. This complex process is exemplified by the production of high-quality pottery (regarded as a luxury item).

Técnica, áulica y distinción social en la cerámica medieval

“…Al-Idrisi aclara cómo se llamaba a estas lozas doradas al mencionar un "guidār mudhahhab" o plato dorado, ya que guidār o al-guidār, como en portugués, y tabak, son los vocablos andalusíes documentados por fuentes escritas referidos a este objeto 71 . Sin embargo, la difusión se ampliará con una verdadera distribución comercial destinada al mercado de la burguesía emergente en el s. XIII a través de las redes de comerciantes ligures y toscanos 72 . Esta será la misma que fomentará, en el siglo siguiente, que los magnates impulsen la instalación de alfares mudéjares en Manises y Paterna (Valencia) para realizar prestigiosas cerámicas que la propia documentación mercantil denominará "malagueña", "obra de Málica" u "operis terre picte Manizes consimilis operis Maleche" (1326) 73 , en una competencia directa con las cerámicas nazaríes que compartirán cargamentos mientras desde la corte granadina se siguen realizando obsequios de embajada con elementos suntuarios de valor extraordinario Fig.…”