Connections Between Distant Spaces. The Insurance Maritime Market in the Western Mediterranean Basin: the case of Southern Italy from the 16th to the 19th Centuries

The insurance institute represents an important aspect that has influenced maritime traffic of men and goods in the Mediterranean from the old ages to the present. The concept of insurance took its first steps with the expansion of maritime commerce and evolved through the movement of men and the expanding knowledge of sea-related activities. It satisfied the needs of the market which, because of the multiple and continuous economic connections among the regions, became more and more demanding and at the same time riskier. Beginning in the 16th century, the Kingdom of Naples developed and strengthened its commercial activities that were mainly channeled through the port of the Capital. A port that, as other big markets like Ragusa, Ancona, Messina, Barcellona, Marsiglia, was considered a fundamental stage in the Mediterranean maritime network. However, the insurance institute could not remain static in a dynamic, evolving commercial market. If at first written and non-written rules disciplined the insurance practice in Naples, over time the written rules acquired a predominant role, even though mainly for fiscal reasons. Shortly after Genoa, the 'Real Compagnia di Assicurazioni Marittime' was founded in Naples in a monopoly regime. Only later were insurance companies introduced in Spain. However, insurance, above all maritime, could not be tethered in a rigid monopoly when in other areas of Europe the first steps toward the industrial revolution had revealed how limiting this system was. In early and mid-nineteenth century, in Naples, as elsewhere in the peninsula, a diversification took place in the activities carried out by the new insurance companies opening right after the Restoration. The new insurance companies assumed a more extensive role in finance by offering credit in absence of a specialized credit system. The need for credit, which expanded as the domestic and foreign markets developed as a consequence of the first Industrial Revolution, led to the utilization of social capital, discounted promissory notes, advance of capital and maritime foreign exchanges. The insurance institute proved to be a very flexible, transnational instrument, anticipating the big insurance and financial companies, and assuming all the characteristics of an ante-litteram globalizing product of modern economy.