Sharing risk: General Average, 6th-21st Centuries

Conference in Genoa, Archivio di Stato, 16-18 May 2019

The conference is dedicated to the analysis of the historical evolution of General and Particular Averages. These are mechanism for the redistribution of costs in maritime trade which are still used today to proportionally redistribute amongst all interested parties (ship owner, freighter and cargo owners) the expenses which can befall ships and cargoes from the time of lading until their unloading (due to accidents, jettison, capture and unexpected expenses). Within the project Average-Transaction Costs and Risk Management during the First Globalization (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries) - (ERC Consolidator Grant n. 724544), the conference will present its preliminary results for the medieval and early modern developments in Europe and the Islamic world.

16 May 2019

15.30 Coffee Welcome

16.00 Official Welcome

16.20 Guido Laura Giuseppe Felloni, The intellectual heritage of a scholar and mentor

16.45 Maria Fusaro (Exeter) Average-Transaction Costs and Risk Management during the

First Globalization (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries)

17.30 Ron Harris (Tel Aviv) General Average and All the Rest: The Law and Economics of

Early Modern Maritime Risk Mitigation

18.30 Guided Tour to the Exhibition "Condividere il rischio: La documentazione delle avarie marittime a Genova (sec. XVII-XVIII)"

17 May 2019

9.00-10.30 Sharing Risk

Giovanni Ceccarelli (Parma), Risky narratives: framing general average into risk-

management strategies

Ana Maria Rivera Medina (UNED), The mutualization of maritime risk in the Hispanic world

(1400-1550)

Marta García Garralón (Exeter-Centro Asociado UNED Madrid), General Average and the

Hispanic Monarchy in the Early Modern Age (1500-1800)

10.30-11.00 Coffee Break

11.00-12.30 Sharing Legal Spaces and Institutions

Gijs Dreijer (Exeter-VUB), Voluntary normativity? The legal development of General Average

in the Southern Low Countries (15th-16th centuries)

Andrea Addobbati (Pisa), Principles and Rules on General Average: Notes on Legislation and

Case-law between Middle and Modern Ages.

Jake Dyble (Exeter-Pisa), Foreign Shipping and the Tuscan Authorities (1640-1795)

12.30-14.00 Lunch Break

14.00-15.30 Genoa

Antonio Iodice (Exeter-Genoa), General Average in Genoa: Rules and Practices

Luisa Piccinno (Genoa), The economic structure of maritime trade calling at the port of

Genoa through the analysis of GA data (XVII-XVIII centuries)

Andrea Zanini (Genoa), Financing and risk sharing in Genoa’s maritime trade: strategies and

practices (18th century)

15.30-16.00 Coffee Break

16.00-17.30 Byzantium and Islam

Daphne Penna (Groningen), General Average in Byzantium

Hassan Khalilieh (Haifa), Islamic Laws of General Average

Nicholas Foster (SOAS, London), Transformation and Takāful: Creating Islamic Insurance

General Discussion (17.30-18.30)

18 May 2019

9.00-10.30 Mature systems

Maria Fusaro (Exeter), Risk and Profit: Shipping and Trading in the Republic of Venice (12th-

17th C.)

Walter Panciera (Padova), Adriatic Sea-protests in the 18th Century: Sources and Early

Results

Lewis Wade (Exeter), ‘In the time of the Ordonnance’: Maritime Averages, Insurance and the

State in Post-Colbertian France, 1686-c. 1700

10.30-11.00 Coffee Break

11.00-12.30 Calculations and Finance

Sabine Go (VUA), Accounting for Maritime Misfortunes

Nadia Matringe (LSE) What calculating means: Negotiating numbers and managing social

relations in early modern trade

Simon Schaffer (Cambridge) Newtonian calculations

12.30-13.30 Round Table on the present and future of GA moderated by Adrian Leonard: Maria Fusaro, Nick Foster, Jolien Kruit, Francesco Siccardi, Jonathan Spencer

13.30-14.30 Lunch and Closure of the Conference

Local Secretary: orietta.bertonasco@unige.it

Tel. +39 0102095221