“Gelosia à riguardi di sanità”: come la Serenissima tentò di ostacolare l’ascesa dei porti di Trieste ed Ancona ad inizio XVIII secolo attraverso l’arma sanitaria

Abstract

During the Early Modern Age Italian States started conceiving and implementing a series of measures aimed at preventing (or containing) disease insurgence in their territory. All these norms were of course devised in order to protect the country’s health but also its economy. Nonetheless, they could also constitute a double-edged sword to be used by States against competing subjects. The present master’s thesis is going to deal with the use of public health-related issues as a weapon in the field of economic and geopolitical competition between port cities. To be more precise, the paper is going to focus on how the Republic of Venice used its health apparatus against the port cities of Trieste and Ancona in the first half of the XVIII century. The first chapter is going to give some historical background about the emergence of health measures in Italy, with a specific focus on Venice and its Provveditori alla Sanità. The following chapter is going to analyze the different reasons that led Venice to use health against its competitors: jealousy of trade on the one hand and the claims the Republic had on the Adriatic Sea on the other. The third and fourth chapter then are going to be focused on the two case studies, those of Trieste and Ancona. Thanks to archival records the work is going to give concrete examples of deliberate use of health measures against the two cities. Finally, the last chapter is then going to be devoted to a comparison between the two cases.