Integración y movilidad social de las naciones italianas en la Corona de Castilla: genoveses, florentinos y venecianos en la Andalucía bajomedieval

Abstract

The Atlantic ports of Andalusia were privileged centres to develop foreign merchant’s commercial interests, as a huge bibliography and a consolidated tradition of studies has established. The present paper focuses on a matter that has not been equally and conveniently deepened, the degree of social mobility of the Italian nations –Genoese, Florentines and Venetians– established within the urban societies of the Crown of Castile at the end of the middle ages. Considered as nations in the medieval sense of the term, we first determine the importance of economic success to enable the insertion in the local élites, the urban oligarchies that controlled economical and political power resources, and determined the contacts with the Castilian nobility and the Crown. In second place, we take into consideration the instruments to measure social ascent. Third and last, from the data gathered we try to establish if group dynamics can be identified inside Italian communities, or if we are facing isolated and exceptional cases. The comparative perspective resulting offers a complex picture in which the Genoese community was the only foreign nation to achieve an effective process to integrate in upper social networks of the territory.