Abstract

Starting from the middle of the 17th century, Genoese commercial and financial operations spread on a network of global trade. Perhaps presumptuous and partly unrealistic, the Republic's so-called «navalista» politics gave impulse to a new economic upsurge for Genoese merchants. This growth found an already solid mercantile diaspora to America, the Mediterranean area, Africa and Asia: an intercultural network closely connected with the Armenian, Jewish and Muslim trades. Private initiatives received support from the Republic's strengthened maritime policy which created modern institutions at the forefront of mercantile and nautical techniques. In short, far from being a State/non-State with a weak institutional capacity, between the 17th and the 18th centuries the Republic of Genoa was a paragon of modernity in line with the great European powers.