Abstract
For over twenty years, the Jewish "projector" Daniel Rodriga sought to convince the Venetian government that it could revive its declining commerce with the Levant, which had once been the source of the greatness of Venice, and thereby also greatly increase its diminishing customs revenues, by issuing a charter allowing Levantine and Ponentine Jews (the euphemism used for Iberian New Christians) to settle in Venice as Venetian subjects. Finally, in 1589, the Venetian government responded favorably, as the Senate approved, for ten years, a slightly changed version of a charter-text that Rodriga had proposed. The Venetian government was pleased with the results, and consequently, at Rodriga's request, it routinely renewed the charter for another ten years in 1598. Five years later, in 1603, Rodriga died, but the special privileges which he had secured for Jewish merchants in Venice were to remain in effect until the end of the Republic in 1797. This article will examine the complex discussions and negotiations over the renewal of the second charter of 1598, which are of special interest because they yield considerable insight into many complex issues, including the general attitude of the Venetian government toward the Jewish merchants, the economic activities of the merchants, their relationships with the Jewish moneylenders living in Venice, the arrangements for their residence in the ghetto, and a sharp conflict regarding jurisdiction over them between two Venetian magistracies. Thus this article serves as a contribution to Jewish history, to Venetian history, and to economic history.