the venetian economy 277
Italian states. To these reasons were added the aggressive mercantilist
policy of the northern European powers that facilitated national exports
by impeding imports; the dumping practiced in certain cases by compet-
ing merchants; the growing difficulties which Italian manufactures faced
in accessing supplies of raw materials (particularly Spanish wool); the
greater efficiency of seagoing vessels with respect to the traditional prac-
tices of Italian navigation; and, finally, the cost of money, which seems to
have been lower beyond the Alps.
Much of Cipolla’s diagnosis was confirmed in a fundamental study by
Domenico Sella looking at the 17th-century Venetian economy. Sella argued
for the contraction of Levantine demand owing to monetary fluctuations
and the fall in purchasing power of more middling clientele; the growing
inefficiency of Venetian maritime services (as shown by Tenenti)47 shaken
by piracy and by Anglo-Dutch technological superiority; not to mention
the competition not only from foreign merchants but also from the cloths
of the terraferma. Moreover, the routines of traditional exchange had been
thrown into crisis by “northern” merchants who arrived rich in silver cur-
rency, which was in great demand in the eastern markets. Again in the
Venetian case, the negative role of the guilds, high taxation, and the cost
of labor are all called into account.48 The same Venetian authorities in the
Levant proved incapable of perceiving the shifts underway in the political
relations between the periphery and the capital of the Ottoman Empire.49
Sella’s book came out only a few years after an important conference held
in Venice, whose objective was to place Venetian decline in a wider Euro-
pean context.50 Eminent scholars had discussed and analyzed the 17th
century through the Venetian prism and had made Venice a symbol for a
century of crisis.
Foreign competition, diminishing labor productivity due to the aging
workforce, and the economic policies of the government were the causes
indicated by Rapp as well, as he once more confronted the theme of Vene-
tian decline, though with several clarifications. The American scholar rec-
ognized that the Venetian economy had experienced a decline in relation
to the international market in the 17th century, but he rejected the con-
47 Alberto Tenenti, Naufrages, corsaires et assurances maritimes à Venise (1592–1609)
(Paris, 1959); Alberto Tenenti, Piracy and the Decline of Venice, 1580–1615, trans. Janet and
Brian Pullan (Berkeley, 1967).
48 Sella, Commerci e industrie.
49 Daniel Goffman, Izmir and the Levantine World, 1550–1650 (Seattle, 1990), pp. 105–18.
50 Aspetti e cause della decadenza economica veneziana nel secolo XVII (Venice, 1961).