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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Affaitati Giovan Francesco
1494–1529A merchant from Cremona who arrived in Lisbon around 1494, he entered the circuits linking the Iberian Peninsula, Italy and northern Europe and concluded contracts with the Portuguese Crown for sugar, spices and enslaved people. In 1526 he was involved in the contract concluded by Stefano Spinola with the king for 600 peças of enslaved people.
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Bardi Giacomo
1576Together with Stefano Lercaro he obtained the concession for the trade in enslaved people and raw materials with the port of Mina, in present-day Ghana.
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Castelletto Agostino
1656In June 1655 one of his ships, the Nostra Signora della Guadalupe, commanded by Giovanni Battista Piuma, was seized after arriving at Luanda: Portugal had rebelled against Spain and the Genoese, allies of Spain, were treated there as enemies. In December 1655 Castelletto asked the Overseas Council in Lisbon for free access to the port of Luanda; in a consulta of 9 January 1656 the Council approved the transit of the Genoese ships belonging to him and to Francesco Maria Rosso.
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Falconi Bernardo
1641–1646A Genoese sailor, he agreed to transport the Capuchin friars to the Congo in exchange for permission to capture and enslave Africans in order to sell them in the Americas.
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Ghinetti Piero
1470In 1470 he sent an enslaved African woman to Livorno to be sold to the Cambini.
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Ginori Lorenzo
1675A Florentine merchant and agent active in Lisbon, in 1675 he was commissioned by Cosimo III de' Medici to procure and send to Florence a young Black or Brazilian man skilled in the processing of sugar cane.
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Guidetti Giovanni
1461–1467Agent of the Cambini in Lisbon, in 1461 he sent three enslaved African women and a range of goods, including hides from Ireland and silks from the Iberian Peninsula, to Livorno on the ship Santa Maria di Nazarette. The three women — Isabell, Barbera and Marta — had been baptised and were destined for domestic work. Isabell was purchased by the Cambini, Barbera by Giovanni degli Albizzi (a member of an important Florentine noble family), and Marta by Ridolfo di Ser Gabriello (a Florentine merchant who lived in Pisa and was an agent of the Cambini in Pisa and Livorno). At the end of 1464, Guidetti sent three more women aboard the caravel Santo Spirito, one of whom was purchased by Piero and Giuliano di Francesco Salviati. The following year, another woman was sent aboard the Dispensiero and purchased by Stefano Mucini, a member of a Florentine family with significant trade interests between Tuscany and Portugal. In 1467, Guidetti sent three more African women aboard the Santa Maria Nunziata. One was sold to Benedetto di Ser Francesco Guardi and the other two to Niccolò di Paradiso Mazzinghi, a Florentine merchant who lived in Pisa. In 1474, Guidetti sent two more large consignments of enslaved people to Livorno: 26 people (25 women and one man) on the Santa Maria Nunziata, and nine women on the Santa Maria Grazia. Not all of them appear to have originated in Africa, as some were described as having light skin. The 25 women were sold in Pisa and Naples, while the man and the other nine women were delivered to Lena Vettori, Guidetti's wife.
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Lercaro Stefano
1576–1587In 1576 he invested, together with the Florentine Giacomo Bardi, in the Mina company, opened by the Casa da Índia to administer the trade in enslaved people and raw materials in Guinea, one of the most profitable in Portugal. Meanwhile he carried out diplomatic activities between the Republic of Genoa and Portugal, at times in direct contact with the king. In 1587 he obtained with his partner Giulio Spinola authorisation to open an exchange bank in Lisbon, which gave him a monopoly position, since the agreement excluded for ten years the opening of similar banks by others.
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Marchionni Bartolomeo
1470–1493Having settled in Lisbon in 1470 as agent of the Cambini bank of Florence, in 1486 he obtained from the Portuguese Crown the contract to import enslaved people from the Rio dos Escravos (Benin coast); in the same year he received from the Spanish sovereigns the licence to trade in enslaved people with Castile and Aragon. It has been calculated that between 1486 and 1493 Marchionni imported at least 1,648 of the 3,589 enslaved people who arrived in Lisbon, that is 45.9%. He then re-exported some of them to Seville (through Giannotto Berardi), to Valencia (through Cesare Barzi) and to Livorno (through Francesco Guidetti).
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Spinola Stefano
1526A Genoese merchant, in 1526 he concluded with the King of Portugal a contract for 600 peças of enslaved people, in which the Cremonese merchant Giovan Francesco Affaitati was also involved. He is a different person from his namesake Stefano Spinola, who in 1610 sold an enslaved person in Genoa to the Centurione enterprises.