Risky Markets Marine Insurance in Renaissance Florence (Brill's Studies in Maritime History, 8)

Risky Markets explores a crucial moment in marine insurance history, when tools to tackle risks are in the making. It accounts for one of the earliest attempts of a specialized insurance market is carried out in Renaissance Florence. Contents 6 Foreword to This Edition 8 Tables and Charts 14 Abbreviations 17 Introduction 18 1 Note on Dates, Names and Currencies 26 Chapter 1 Institutions: Contracts and Legislation 30 Chapter 2 Trade and Insurance: Routes 49 Chapter 3 Trade and Insurance: Goods 64 Chapter 4 Trade and Insurance: Seacraft 77 Chapter 5 The Premium: Structural Factors 101 Chapter 6 The Premium: Contingent Factors 120 Chapter 7 The Florentine Insurance Market Within the European Context 138 Chapter 8 The Market and Its Operators: Demand 155 Chapter 9 The Market and Its Operators: Supply 177 Chapter 10 The Market and Its Operators: Techniques and Organisational 204 Chapter 11 The Market and Its Operators: The “Risk Experts” 222 Chapter 12 Institutions Again: Informal Safeguards 239 Conclusions 256 Appendix 1 264 Appendix 2 266 Appendix 3 275 Bibliography 360 Index 373 "Risky Markets explores a crucial moment in the history of insurance, when tools designed to tackle sea risks were in their first making. Renaissance Florence is the setting for one of the first attempts to develop a market specialized in protecting maritime trade. Drawing on a unique collection of sources, the book provides a wide ranging account about the players, institutions, business practices and organizations of the insurance business, shedding light on the forecasting techniques underwriters used. Ceccarelli shows that the market was a small club where trust relations and shared codes of conduct prevail over competition. In a world without probability this was the way by which a business community managed transforming uncertainty into a calculable risk"-- Provided by publisher