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