Commercio e politica doganale a Venezia nel Seicento

In the progressive change of the commercial balance in the Mediterranean, the Republic of Venice was assigned to a secondary role, while wide spaces were occupied by the Atlantic powers. In the XVIIth century they imposed theirselves in the Middle East markets, exploiting a web of connections with important centers also in the Italian peninsula. The ports of Libourne and Ancona, by overall the activity of the foreign traders, achieved remarkable relations, becoming proud competitors of Venice, that started up regionalization of its area of influence. The hinges of that one, therefore, were reduced to Adriatic basin, to continental dominions and to South German provinces, while the presence of the Venetian fleet in East Mediterranean courses thined out slowly, also by worsening of the pirateries. In a decline picture the problematics that were tieded to the commercial politic took a great importance, because they did not exhaust their importance into the economic horizon only, but they spreaded to the matter about the historical identity of the lagoon capital, which until the Modern Era had a primary role in the maritime trades. The strategy of the venetian nobility was inspired by the principlies of the Mercantilism, whose fundamental points were in the economic policy of the old Republic. But the protectionist measures taken by the Venetian govern did not allow a substantial balance and worsened the old sore of the illicit trades. The venetian manufactures met many difficulties in the foreign markets by the hard concurrency of the manufactures of the new nations (France, Dutch, England), that provided with power fleets, that were able regulary links between their ports and the Mediterranean one, pulling down the navigation costs. The reactions of Venice to maritime predominance of north men exhausted theirselves in a series of incentives to national shipyards, but they did not prove for opposing the backward of Venetian fleet. The Venetian Republic, unable to compete with big Atlantic fleets in a theater that crossed the border of European horizons, beckwardes to preserve of its supremacy in Adriatic sea, opposing the ports of Ancona, Goro, Ragusa, Trieste. In this great challenge the customs policy took a primary role for the Venetian nobility, that in majority remained faithful to protectionistic rules, resuming them after the disappointment experience of the free port (1662-1684). The partial reduction of the customs tariff did not cure the smuggling neither inverted the decline of the Venetian port, which, although some small signals of recovery, was condemned to an order of size more less than the big Europeans powers.