Abstract

Throughout the early modern period, the eastern Alpine area was one of the lumber supply areas of northern Italy. Venice and the Republic conditioned the market as a center of consumption (population and industries), a commercial hub in the Mediterranean basin, and a state authority capable of formulating specific legislation on its forests. Among the main protagonists of the timber industry were the merchants who, thanks to the river and the streams used for transport, were able to build and maintain those links between the mountains and the plains essential for effective trade, accumulating substantial wealth, and exercising an indisputable power both in the areas of production and in the markets of outlet. Due to the peculiarities of the market and the supply chain, timber merchants (especially the Venetian ones) were forced to maintain multiple residences, establish vast parental alliances (also across the Alps, in the imperial territories), maintain relations with various institutions, from communities to states. This strategy involved a conscious government of the time that invested in the geography of their movements, their relations with institutions, and the transmission of the knowledge necessary to give continuity to their business. From a comparative perspective, the contribution focuses on the case of four generations of the Bianchini family of Venice, reconstructing their progressive rise in the timber trade in the eastern Alpine area during the first half of the sixteenth century and their sudden decline over the course of a century.