People database
People from the Italian peninsula involved in the Atlantic slave trade and slavery, 15th–19th centuries. Search by name or filter by role, place, network and period.
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Berardi Giannotto
1482–1495He was a Florentine merchant who lived in Seville and ran the Seville branch of the Medici bank. Along with Marchionni and Giovanni, his brother, he obtained permission to trade enslaved people from the Canary Islands and the African coast in the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile. He also played a key role in financing exploration and conquest enterprises, including the conquest of the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands with the Genoese banker Francisco de Riberol, and Columbus's first voyage. During his second voyage, it was precisely to Berardi that Christopher Columbus sent the first known shipment of enslaved indigenous people to cross the Atlantic. In 1495, he signed an agreement with the Spanish monarchs to dispatch twelve caravels to the West Indies to supply Hispaniola. However, he did not live to see the results as he died in January 1496, before the caravels set sail. Moreover, the caravels never reached the New World as they were wrecked in the Strait of Gibraltar a few days after setting off. Following his death, the company was inherited by Amerigo Vespucci, who sold it a few years later to another Florentine entrepreneur, Donato Nicolini. Nicolini then entrusted Piero Rondinelli with the management of the Seville business.
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In August 1494 he transported 65 enslaved people from Tenerife from La Gomera to Valencia on behalf of Alfonso Sanchis, treasurer of the king.
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Palmaro Francesco
1484–1507Resident in Valencia from 1484, he bought 87 enslaved Guanche people from Tenerife and resold them on the peninsula. He also bought from Alonso de Lugo, who had conquered the island, the ingenio (sugar plantation) of Agaete.
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Pinelli Francesco
1480–1493A Genoese merchant, he lived in Valencia from 1470 to 1491. His family had moved to the Iberian Peninsula as early as 1435, chiefly as exporters of wool to Genoa. In 1480, together with the Spanish merchant Diego de Soria, he won the contract as collector and depositary of the papal tithe for the Castilian conquest of the Canaries. There followed a small but steady flow of Pinelli's employees in Seville who sold enslaved people from the Canaries. Between 1489 and 1491 the two, together with Sánchez, lent the sovereign 25 million maravedís for the conquest of the Kingdom of Granada. They also acted as intermediaries in the sale of enslaved people from Málaga and the Canaries. In 1493 Pinelli and other Genoese resident in Andalusia granted Columbus a large loan, in exchange for the subcontract to supply all the goods needed for the second voyage.
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Riparola Franceso
1492–1515Known as Francisco de Riberol, he financed he Spanish conquest of La Palma and Tenerife, led by Alonso Fernández de Lugo, alongside other Genoese merchants, including Matteo Vigna and Francesco Palmario. He settled in La Palma, where he traded enslaved Guanche people and owned plantations on which they worked.