Includes bibliographical references (p. [211]-230) and index.

Preliminary Material / M. Van Gelder -- Introduction / M. Van Gelder -- Chapter One. Venice / M. Van Gelder -- Chapter Two. Unlocking The Venetian Market: Changing Trade Relations In The 1590s / M. Van Gelder -- Chapter Three. Combining The New With The Old: Netherlandish-Venetian Trade After The 1590s / M. Van Gelder -- Chapter Four. The Community Of Netherlandish Merchants In Venice / M. Van Gelder -- Chapter Five. Individual And Collective Strategies / M. Van Gelder -- Chapter Six. At Home In Early Modern Venice / M. Van Gelder -- Conclusion / M. Van Gelder -- Bibliography / M. Van Gelder -- Index / M. Van Gelder.

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Trading Places is winner of the triennial Historical Research Award of Italy Studies (2012). This book deals with the Netherlandish merchant community in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Venice. It examines the merchants’ commercial activities, their social and communal relations, as well as their interaction with the Venetian state, which was accustomed to protect its own trade. The Netherlandish merchants in Venice, as part of an extensive international trading network, were ideally placed to connect Mediterranean and Atlantic commerce. They quickly became the most important group of foreign merchants in the city at a time of rapid economic changes. Drawing on a wide variety of primary sources, this book shows how these immigrant traders used their strong commercial position to secure a place in Venice. It demonstrates how the changing balance of international commerce affected early modern Venetian society.