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.
Advanced search
-
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.
-
Cei Galeotto
1532–1560Born in Florence in 1513, like Soderini he was forced to leave the city because of his father's republican ideas. His father was executed and the family's large patrimony was confiscated. In 1532, he moved to Seville. In 1539, he sailed for Santo Domingo aboard the Concepción. After a few weeks, the ship put in at Cape Verde to purchase enslaved people to be transported to the Antilles. A total of 250 people were embarked (Cei bought 40 of them) at a price of 36 ducats each. During the voyage, 12 people died of smallpox. Prior to departure, he entered into a two-year accomandita with Luigi Ricasoli, a fellow Florentine based in Seville. Under this agreement, Ricasoli would supply Cei with goods to sell. Cei began selling his merchandise, but Ricasoli's death interrupted the shipments from Spain. After concluding his business with the Ricasoli heirs, he embarked on a caravel bound for Venezuela and Cabo de la Vela. In the nearby pearl-fishing area, he purchased three indigenous people to work as fishermen, who earned him 400 ducats in about ten months. In September 1542, he returned to Santo Domingo, where he resumed living with Giovanni Soderini and Mauro Fantoni. Over the next few years, he participated in various colonisation expeditions in Venezuela and the New Kingdom of Granada, reaching as far as Bogotá. In 1553, he returned to Seville, where he resumed and expanded his commercial activities to include Italy, Germany, and France. He returned to Florence in 1560, where he held several public offices, and he died there in 1579.
-
Dal Borgo Federico
1539Agent of the Strozzi company in Seville, in 1539 he received from the sovereign the licence to transport enslaved people and goods to America.
-
Del Nero Neroso
1584–1586He sent to America 900 enslaved people under the São Tomé contract on behalf of his contractor, Giovanni Battista Rovellasca. He had been an employee of Lorenzo Del Rosso, also a slave trader.
-
Del Rosso Lorenzo
1548–1570In 1548 Lorenzo del Rosso and Francisco “Rucho” obtained a licence to transport thirty-five enslaved Africans to the Indies, paid for in all 105,000 maravedís, equivalent to 280 ducats, and received silver in return. Between 1569 and 1579 Del Rosso transported a further 230 enslaved people to the Americas.
-
Lapi Francesco
1536He was a partner in the Florentine Strozzi company and represented it in Seville. In 1536, he received authorisation from the sovereign to send goods, accompanied by enslaved people, to the West Indies.
-
Ricasoli Luigi
1526In December 1526 Luigi Ricasoli and Giovanni Orsucci form Lucca, after declaring that they had resided in Spain for more than fifteen years, obtained from the sovereign the right to send goods accompanied by enslaved people to the West Indies.
-
Owner of the ship San Pedro, used in the slave trade by Cesare Baroncini.