Under Uncertainty. Coping with Risks in the Mediterranean Maritime Business (Italy, 16th-19th centuries) - PRIN 2022 Prot. 2022SSZFT7

This project proposes to examine uncertainty in a new light, a theme which has returned to the centre of debate with the pandemic, the global trade crisis, and the recent Russian-Ukraine war, all of which invites comparison with a premodern scenario. The team, which is made up of experts in the international history of risk and the maritime economy, proposes a step change in approach for a field of considerable interest which seems to have exhausted its potential. We suggest reducing the weight given to risk and insurance in the study of the early modern maritime economy and focusing on a wider conception of uncertainty and the instruments used to manage it in the Mediterranean with a comparative perspective between different markets. The project will develop along 3 Work Packages. 1. Rethinking Uncertainty (WP1) Knight’s distinction between uncertainty and risk will be enriched by means of decision theory, cognitive sciences, and the sociology of ignorance in order to incorporate the spectrum of implicit knowledge. This framework will be tested in historical context in the light of the geo-political and scientific turns that herald the early modern era. We will likewise study: the meeting/collision of concepts such as risk, fortune, and probability; the perception of the uncertain in mercantile cultures and practices; the determinants of maritime risk on empirical grounds. 2. The Risky Business Database (WP2) WP2 will benefit from the symbiotic relationship with the NWO-funded project Risky Business (RB), a database housing information on the tens of thousands of insurance contracts stipulated between the 15th and 19th century. We will contribute by providing substantial Italian archival series to RB, while using its data (which will become open-access during 2022) to develop our project. 3. Responses to uncertainty: taxonomy and multilevel interactions (WP3) WP3 will classify the multifaceted responses to maritime uncertainty at the core of the project. Starting from decision theory, risk management, and business ecosystems management, we will build a taxonomy to apply to historical analysis. Categories such as self-protection, self-insurance, risk-shifting, etc., will be used to understand the possible interactions between insurance and navigating in convoy, mercantile networks and sea loans, as well as the use of apparently eccentric tools such as the ex-voto. Reactions to uncertainty will be observed in the light of spatially large-scale phenomena, such as the integration of insurance markets, entrepreneurial networks, maritime war, and smuggling. Given that a maritime economy is not a closed system, it is necessary to study these dynamics at a macro level where ecosystems interact with one another. To do this we will focus on the points of contact between maritime systems where such dynamics are more evident thanks to economic and institutional peculiarities.