MedRoute: Tales from the Ports
What happens to 2 meat loving Englishmen in 17th century Malta when they want a hearty meal on a day of fasting? What does a distraught French mother do in her quest for divine help to heal her daughter in 18th century Izmir? Or find out what happens when a widowed merchant hires a wet-nurse to look after his baby in Livorno.
This short video is about some frictions in everyday life in Izmir, Malta, Livorno. It looks at how foreigners lived and were permitted to live by the authorities in Mediterranean port cities between 1650 to 1750.
Tales from the Ports part II
When the French King turned Marseille into a Freeport and invited foreign merchants to live and trade in the city, two Jewish merchants were among the many who heeded his call. But the local merchants of Marseille were not about give up control of the lucrative trade in wool cloth, silk and spices.
There were plenty of goods moving across the Mediterranean between ports in the Ottoman Empire and Europe during the 100 years from 1650 and 1750. But for foreign merchants, settling in ports like Livorno and Marseille was difficult. Slaves were the only visible group of resident foreigners living in Marseille until the mid 18th century.
This is a short film about how the authorities in two ports encouraged or harassed the newcomers.