1. In Venice, the masser was responsible for the part of the cargo belonging to the ship, such as victuals and provisions including ropes, wood, and miscellaneous material necessary for repairs. There was no equivalent of this role on English ships, and thus no term in English. On the roles on board early modern vessels, with a comparative table for different European languages (which highlights the different structures and the associated problems in translating such terminology), see https://www.exeter.ac.uk/research/centres/maritime/research/modernity/roles/.

2. Giuseppe Boerio, Dizionario del dialetto veneziano (Venice: Santini, 1829), 552: “Schiavina: coperta da letto di lana ruvida e ben grossa”; Pietro Contarini, Vocabolario portatile del dialetto veneziano (Venice: Tipografia dell’Ancora, 1888), 66: “Felzada: coperta da letto a pelo lungo.”

3. Archivio di Stato di Venezia (hereafter “ASV”), Giudici del Proprio (hereafter “GdP”), Inventari e stime, busta (hereafter “b.”) 2, register (hereafter “reg.”) 3 (1628–1644), carta (hereafter “c.”) 29r, January 20, 1634 mv. For dates between January 1 and the end of February, the formula mv (more Veneto), indicates the use of the Venetian-style calendar. It is thus necessary to add a unit to the figure of the year: for instance, January 1649 mv=January 1650.

4. On Venetian ships, the scrivano was in charge of the administrative and financial running of the vessel. He took care of all the ship’s books and paperwork, which made this the only role on board given exclusively to those with high levels of literacy. On “Italian” ships, he also acted as public notary. Once again, there is no exact equivalent in English, where the closest approximation is “purser” (though it is important to note that this is not exactly the same role).

5. ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 2, reg. 3 (1628–1644), cc. 81r–84v, here c. 82r; “un paro di scarpe nove negre alla moda.”

6. The secondary literature on this subject is vast; a good starting point is Geoffrey M. Hodgson, “1688 and All That: Property Rights, the Glorious Revolution and the Rise of British Capitalism,” Journal of Institutional Economics 13, no. 1 (2017): 79–107, and the bibliography cited therein.

7. On the economic dimension, see Ioanna Iordanou, “Pestilence, Poverty and Provision: Re-evaluating the Role of the Popolani in Early Modern Venice,” Economic History Review 69, no. 3 (2016): 801–22. For the political dimension, see Maartje van Gelder and Claire Judde de Larivière, eds., Popular Politics in an Aristocratic Republic: Political Conflict and Social Contestation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Venice (London: Routledge, 2020).

8. The court of the Giudici del Proprio is one of the six Corti di Palazzo for which documents survive. For more details on the Corti, see Maria Fusaro, “Politics of Justice/Politics of Trade: Foreign Merchants and the Administration of Justice from the Records of Venice’s Giudici del Forestier,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée modernes et contemporaines 126, no. 1 (2014): https://doi.org/10.4000/mefrim.1665. Anna Bellavitis used the Proprio records to trace who effectively reclaimed inheritances and to investigate the issue of dowry restitutions; see Anna Bellavitis, Famille, genre, transmission à Venise au xvi^e siècle (Rome: École française de Rome, 2008), especially chapter 2, “La succession et la loi,” 35–54.

9. See, for example, how the study of such laws highlighted the peculiarities of the Soviet legal order: L. Neville Brown, “Inheritance and the Communist Legal Order,” Soviet Studies 14, no. 3 (1963): 295–313.

10. On the challenges of harmonizing different national legal systems’ approaches to inheritance within the European Union, see Alfonso-Luis Calvo-Caravaca, Angelo Davì, and Heinz-Peter Mansel, eds., The EU Succession Regulation: A Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

11. For an interesting analysis of societal changes regarding families, and their legal repercussions, see Mark E. Brandon, States of Union: Family and Change in the American Constitutional Order (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013).

12. See María Belén García Lopez, “Los Autos de bienes de Difuntos en Indias. El caso del sevillano Baltasar Tercero,” Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos (2010): https://doi.org/10.4000/nuevomundo.59829; Francisco Fernández-López, “El procedimiento y los expedientes de bienes de difuntos en la Casa de la Contratación de Indias (1503–1717),” Tiempos Modernos 30, no. 8 (2015): http://www.tiemposmodernos.org/tm3/index.php/tm/article/view/391. An interesting take on the Iberian case, with important general methodological considerations, can be found in Tamar Herzog, “Early Modern Citizenship in Europe and the Americas: A Twenty Years’ Conversation,” Ler história 78 (2021): 225–37.

13. The position of the female spouse has always lain at the core of different approaches to the division of inheritance; for a comparative view, see Reinhard Zimmermann, “Das Ehegattenerbrecht in historisch-vergleichender Perspektive,” Rabels Zeitschrift für auslänidisches und internationales Privatrecht 80, no. 1 (2016): 39–92. For a Europe-wide survey that pays attention to the connections between kinship and inheritance, see David Warren Sabean, Simon Teuscher, and John Mathieu, eds., Kinship in Europe: Approaches to Long-Term Development (1300–1900) (New York: Berghahn, 2007), and the bibliography cited therein. These issues are also crucial to the question of intestate succession, as the primary casebook on the topic in common law makes clear: “The law and practice of intestate succession is central to the jurisprudence of both property and family law and is a core area of professional practice.” See C. H. Sherrin and R. C. Bonehill, eds., The Law and Practice of Intestate Succession, 3rd edn. (London: Thomson, 2004), 1.

14. On the differences between “movable” and “immovable” assets in the early modern period, see Anna Bellavitis, Identité, mariage, mobilité sociale. Citoyennes et citoyens à Venise au xvi^e siècle (Rome: École française de Rome, 2001), especially chapter 4, “Les lois,” 141–66; Renata Ago, Economia barocca. Mercato e istituzioni nella Roma del Seicento (Rome: Donzelli, 1998).

15. Peter Sahlins, Unnaturally French: Foreign Citizens in the Old Regime and After (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004); Simona Cerutti, “À qui appartiennent les biens qui n’appartiennent à personne ? Citoyenneté et droit d’aubaine à l’époque moderne,” Annales HSS 62, no. 2 (2007): 355–83; Peter Sahlins, “Sur la citoyenneté et le droit d’aubaine à l’époque moderne. Réponse à Simona Cerutti,” Annales HSS 63, no. 2 (2008): 385–98.

16. See the stimulating considerations of Ron Harris, “The Encounters of Economic History and Legal History,” Law and History Review 21, no. 2 (2003): 297–346.

17. Throughout this article I shall use the word “seafarers” to refer to all those who traveled and worked on ships. The registers at the basis of my analysis, although naturally heavily populated by seamen (that is, those for whom ships were a place of work), also contain documentation regarding traveling merchants and other passengers. Venice had a long tradition of ships carrying passengers: Benjamin Arbel, “Daily Life on Board Venetian Ships: The Evidence of Renaissance Travelogues and Diaries,” in Rapporti mediterranei, pratiche documentarie, presenze veneziane. Le reti economiche e culturali (xiv–xvi sec.), ed. Gherardo Ortalli and Alessio Sopracasa (Venice: Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 2017), 183–219, especially pp. 206–208 on the operational issue of handling deaths at sea.

18. Amongst the classic early treatises, see Nicolaus de Ubaldis, Tractatus de successionibus ab intestato (Rome: Antonii et Raphaelis de Vulterris, 1473), with five editions published across Europe between 1473 and 1488; Giuseppe Casaregi, “Elucubrationes ac Resolutiones in aliquot, & ad integra Statuta de Decretis ac de Successionibus Ab Intestato,” in Discursus Legales de Commercio, 3 vols. (Venice: Ex typographia Balleoniana, 1740), 3:37–140. A useful anthology of the treatises on the topic most commonly referenced in the early modern period is Tractatus Illustrium in utraque tum Pontificii, tum Cæsarei iuris facultate Iurisconsultorum. De Ultimis Voluntatibus (Venice: Annali tipografici della Societas Aquilae se Renovantis, 1584).

19. Maria Fusaro, “Representation in Practice: The Myth of Venice and the British Protectorate in the Ionian Islands (1801–1864),” in Exploring Cultural History: Essays in Honour of Peter Burke, ed. Melissa Calaresu, Filippo De Vivo, and Joan-Pau Rubiés (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 309–25. The implications of this for real estate property are discussed in detail in Spyridion Flogaïtis, Système vénitien de successions ab intestat et structures familiales dans les îles Ioniennes (Geneva: Droz, 1981). Along very similar interpretative lines, interesting considerations on the survival of Dutch ab intestato laws in British Guyana can be found in B. E. J. C. Belmonte, The Law of Inheritance ab Intestato Shown by 96 Examples of Cases Under the South and North Holland Law of Inheritance ab Intestato […] (London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1908).

20. Ayushi Singhal, “Finally, Hope! Female Intestate Succession Under Hindu Law,” Economic and Political Weekly 51, no. 11 (2016): 15–17.

21. “La disparità consiste nella predilezione del sesso maschil a conservator delle famiglie in ciò che attiene a’ fondi immobili nella Città di Venezia” (the disparity [compared to Roman law] consists in the preference for the male sex as keeper of the family’s [property], in so far as what pertains to real estate in the city of Venice): Vettor Sandi, Principi di Storia Civile della Repubblica di Venezia dalla sua fondazione sino all’anno di N.S. 1700 (Venice: Sebastiano Coleti, 1755), part 1, vol. 2, 842, with a general summary of the regulations for intestate succession at pp. 842–48. See also ASV, Compilazione delle leggi, prima serie, b. 204, cc. 63–101 [modern numbering in pencil], 214–21.

22. ASV, Compilazione delle leggi, prima serie, b. 204, cc. 63–101 [modern numbering in pencil], contains a set of cases illustrating such inheritances; it is worth noting that the exempla discussed (with texts and genealogical tables) almost all concern land ownership and real estate.

23. Sandi, Principi di Storia Civile, part 1, vol. 2, 805: “per la loro coerenza al diritto comune, o sia civile Romano, successore il fisco nella mancanza de’ legittimi eredi, e de’ propinqui” (in coherence with ius commune, or civil Roman law, the public [revenue] will inherit in the absence of legitimate heirs or relatives).

24. On the increasingly common practice of seamen drafting a will prior to departure in sixteenth-century England, see P. E. H. Hair and J. D. Alsop, eds., English Seamen and Traders in Guinea, 1553–1565: The New Evidence of Their Wills (Lewiston: Mellen, 1992), 73–96. From the fourteenth century, there was a notable increase in will-making throughout Europe, including at the lower levels of society; see Samuel Cohn, “Renaissance Attachment to Things: Material Culture in Last Wills and Testaments,” Economic History Review 65, no. 3 (2012): 984–1004, and the bibliography cited therein. On British seamen’s wills as evidence of their material culture, see Beverly Lemire, “‘Men of the World’: British Mariners, Consumer Practice, and Material Culture in an Era of Global Trade, c. 1660–1800,” Journal of British Studies 54, no. 2 (2015): 288–319, especially pp. 296–97, 302–303, and 311–15.

25. Thomas Kuehn convincingly argues that “intestacy was a real functioning device of property transmission—and not merely for the humble. Important and wealthy Florentines, Cosimo de’ Medici amongst them, died intestate”: Kuehn, Heirs, Kin, and Creditors in Renaissance Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 91.

26. Maria Fusaro, “The Invasion of Northern Litigants: English and Dutch Seamen in Mediterranean Courts of Law,” in Law, Labour and Empire: Comparative Perspectives on Seafarers, c. 1500–1800, ed. Maria Fusaro et al. (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2015), 21–42.

27. On notaries on board ships, for Venice, see Giorgio Zordan, “Le leggi del mare,” in Storia di Venezia, vol. 12, Il mare, ed. Alberto Tenenti and Ugo Tucci (Rome: Instituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1991), 621–62, here pp. 647–48; for Genoa, see Emily Sohmer Tai, “Held to Account: Medieval Scribes at Sea,” Mediterranean Studies 25, no. 2 (2017): 164–88, here p. 166. For a wider comparative perspective, see Riniero Zeno, Documenti per la storia del diritto marittimo nei secoli xiii exiv (Turin: Lattes, 1936); and Josée Valérie Murat, “L’écrivain de navire en Méditerranée au xiv^e siècle,” Rives méditerranéennes (2002): https://doi.org/10.4000/rives.82.

28. For a recent survey of scholarship on vacant successions, see the contributions in Alessandro Buono and Luca Gabbiani, eds., “Sous tutelle. Biens sans maître et successions vacantes dans une perspective comparative, xiii^e–xx^e siècles/Under Guardianship: Properties Without Owner and Vacant Successions in a Comparative Perspective, 13th–20th Centuries,” special issue, L’Atelier du Centre de recherches historiques 22 (2020): https://doi.org/10.4000/acrh.10893.

29. Maria Francesca Tiepolo et al., eds., Archivio di Stato di Venezia. Estratto dal vol. IV della Guida Generale degli Archivi di Stato Italiani (Rome: Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali, 1994), 988–89 on the Giudici del Proprio and 937–38 on the Ufficiali al Cattaver. On the increase of vacant inheritances due to the great plague, see Sandi, Principi di Storia Civile, part 1, vol. 2, 805.

30. Boerio, Dizionario del dialetto veneziano, 379.

31. Alessandro Buono, “La manutenzione dell’identità. Il riconoscimento degli eredi legittimi nello Stato di Milano e nella Repubblica di Venezia (secoli xvii e xviii),” Quaderni storici 148, no. 1 (2015): 231–66, here pp. 234 and 241; Buono, “Le procedure di identificazione come procedure di contestualizzazione. Persone e cose nelle cause per eredità vacanti (Stato di Milano, secc. xvi–xviii),” in Procedure, metodi e strumenti per l’identificazione delle persone e per il controllo del territorio, ed. Livio Antonielli (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino Editore, 2014), 35–65.

32. ASV, Compilazione delle leggi, prima serie, b. 320, c. 42v [modern numbering in pencil], July 27, 1630: “Elezion d’un massaro dell’offitio appresso cui restino depositate le robbe, et haveri de morti intestati in nave, o per mare” (Election of a clerk for the office where are deposited the goods and possessions of those who died intestate on ships, or at sea). Full text in ASV, Compilazione delle Leggi, seconda serie, b. 20, cc. 15r and 273r–274r, July 27, 1630; another copy in ASV, GdP, capitolari, b. 1, c. 207v.

33. For England, see Lloyd Bonfield, Devising, Dying and Dispute: Probate Litigation in Early Modern England (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 15–42; for Italy, see Kuehn, Heirs, Kin and Creditors, and Bellavitis, Famille, genre, transmission; for France, see Jacques Chiffoleau, “Les testaments provençaux et comtadins à la fin du Moyen Âge : richesse documentaire et problèmes d’exploitation,” in Gli atti privati nel tardo Medioevo. Fonti per la storia sociale, ed. Paolo Brezzi and Egmont Lee (Rome: Istituto nazionale di studi romani, 1984), 132–52; Martha C. Howell, “Fixing Movables: Gifts by Testament in Late Medieval Douai,” Past & Present 150 (1996): 3–45.

34. On this increase, see Bellavitis, Famille, genre, transmission, 73–89.

35. Maria Fusaro, Political Economies of Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean: The Decline of Venice and the Rise of England, 1450–1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Fusaro, “The Invasion of Northern Litigants,” 25–27, and the bibliography cited therein.

36. Jean-François Chauvard, “Adaptabilité versus inaliénabilité. Les dérogations des fidéicommis dans la Venise du xviii^e siècle,” Annales HSS 70, no. 4 (2015): 849–80, here pp. 858–59. For a thorough analysis of these issues and their wider societal implications in Venice, see Chauvard, Lier et délier la propriété. Tutelle publique et administration des fidéicommis à Venise aux derniers siècles de la République (Rome: École française de Rome, 2018).

37. With only one exception, as Giacomo Calina, “known as Rastagari,” was a passenger on the Maltese (and not Venetian) vessel San Francesco e San Domenego e Santa Theresia: ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 4 reg. 10, c. 19r–v, November 16, 1646.

38. The exceptions are: Giacomo da Bortolo, pilot on the galleon “Pater nominato Sant’Anna,” ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 2 reg. 3, c. 7r, March 22, 1630; Francesco Cosada, seaman on the saetta La Madonna di Carmeni, ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 4 reg. 10, c. 25r, March 27, 1647; and Nicolò de Francesco de Nicolò Casi, seaman on the San Simeon, ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 4 reg. 10, c. 55v, April 8, 1660.

39. Santa Maria della Salute was a very common name for Venetian ships, and it has not been possible to identify this one with certainty. It was probably the “mercatile armato” mentioned by Guido Candiani in his I vascelli della Serenissima. Guerra, politica e costruzioni navali a Venezia in età moderna, 1650–1720 (Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 2009), 23 and 26.

40. On Bernardo Morosini, see Kenneth M. Setton, Venice, Austria and the Turks in the Seventeenth Century (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1991), 147. An analysis of the specific challenges of the 1647–1649 blockade of the Dardanelles and Morosini’s leadership can be found in Guido Candiani, Dalla galea alla nave di linea. Le trasformazioni della marina veneziana (1572–1699) (Novi Ligure: Città del silenzio, 2012), 89–91; see also Candiani, I vascelli della Serenissima, 1–30.

41. ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 4, reg. 10, c. 40v, September 23, 1649.

42. On this complex issue, see Fusaro, “The Invasion of Northern Litigants”; Carla R. Phillips, “The Labour Market for Sailors in Spain, 1570–1870,” in “Those Emblems of Hell”? European Sailors and the Maritime Labour Market, 1570–1870, ed. Paul C. van Royen, Jaap R. Bruijn, and Jan Lucassen (St. John’s, Newfoundland: International Maritime Economic History Association, 1997), 329–48; Karel Davids, “Seamen’s Organizations and Social Protest in Europe, c. 1300–1825,” International Review of Social History 39, sup. 2 (1994): 145–69, and the bibliography cited therein.

43. Recopilación de leyes de los Reynos de las Indias (Madrid: s.n., 1680), book 2, tit. 32, http://www.gabrielbernat.es/espana/leyes/rldi/text/l2/0102032.pdf.

44. Delphine Tempère, Vivre et mourir sur les navires du Siècle d’Or (Paris: PUPS, 2009), 53–55. On the peculiarities of wills for those serving in the military for the Iberian Crown, especially those involved in the campaigns in Flanders, see Antonio González Valverde and José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, “El derecho y el azar testamentario: mérito, promoción social, normativa y tiempos en la sucesión del maestre de campo don Juan de Rivas, castellano de Cambrai (1596–1616),” RiMe Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea 8, no. 3 (2021): 263–98, especially pp. 273–76 and 288–91 and the bibliography cited therein.

45. In 1572, a special investigation was commissioned by the Spanish navy to make sure that the system was working; see José Luis Soberanes Fernández, “El juzgado general de bienes de difuntos,” Revista Chilena de Historia del Derecho 22, no. 1 (2010): 637–60, here pp. 646–47. Soberanes Fernández also underlines the constant legislative attention paid to these issues in Spain and its colonies.

46. Hair and Alsop, English Seamen and Traders, 76–77: “St. Botolph Aldgate also lay within the jurisdiction of the Archdeaconry and Commissary courts of the diocese of London, and hence mariners’ wills are also frequently found in the records of both courts.”

47. ASV, Compilazione delle Leggi, prima serie, b. 204, c. 103 [modern numbering in pencil], April 1, 1670: “restar debbano nella Cassa al mag. del Armar et ciò debba farsi in ordini a tutti li Marinari, Galeoti, Soldati, o altri Morti nella Militia che non avessero eredi” (these should remain in the coffers of the Magistrato all’Armar, and this should be done for all seamen, galleots, soldiers, or other dead men of the militia who do not have heirs).

48. The Governatore di Nave was one of the highest patrician officers in the Venetian fleet.

49. I wish to thank Silvia Gasparini for our conversation on these issues.

50. Zorzi de Zacheria, boatswain (nochier) on the berton Fontana: ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 2 reg. 3, c. 76v, January 16, 1638 mv. On will-making amongst the Greek community in Venice, see Ersie C. Burke, The Greeks of Venice, 1498–1600: Immigration, Settlement, and Integration (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016).

51. Costantino de Parisi, ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 2 reg. 3, c. 80r, November 2, 1639 (no further details about this individual are given).

52. Piero de Zuanne, gunner on the galleon Padre Eterno, ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 2, reg. 3, c. 10v, October 2, 1629; Michielin de Candia, penese (ship-loader) of the San Pietro et San Giacinto, ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 2, reg. 3, cc. 15v–16v, January 7, 1629 mv; Bernardo q. Zuan Paolo Pasquinelli, passenger on the Narda et Mussa, ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 2, reg. 3, c. 37r, August 27, 1634; Stefano Rozamalato, probably a Flemish gunner on the berton San Giovanni Battista, ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 2, reg. 3, c. 45r, October 31, 1636.

53. In the cases where an oral will is mentioned, for instance, the inheritance procedure should have passed from the Proprio to the Giudici dell’Esaminador, who were in charge of oral wills (known in Venice as “testamenti per breviario”); see Sandi, Principi di Storia Civile, part 1, vol. 2, pp. 838–89; and Tiepolo et al., Archivio di Stato di Venezia, 997.

54. ASV, Compilazione delle Leggi, prima serie, b. 320, c. 198r [modern numbering in pencil], another copy at c. 199r–v, April 23, 1515: “hanno terminato et terminano tal causa spettar al prefato oficio di Proprio per vigor delle leze sopra ciò disponente sopra li beni de morti de fuori ab intestato et così comanda sia exeguito” (it has been decreed that this case falls under the jurisdiction of the office of the Proprio because of the power of the law regulating the estate of those dead intestate, and so let this be done). On jurisdictional conflicts between the different Corti di Palazzo, see Fusaro, “Politics of Justice/Politics of Trade.”

55. This was Capitania Spasigiera, who died in the waters off Grado on an unnamed ship. Unfortunately we have no more details, though from the inventory of her belongings, she does not appear to have been a wealthy woman: ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 4, reg. 10, c. 40r, January 4, 1648, a nativitate.

56. Sandi, Principi di Storia Civile, part 1, vol. 2, p. 833: “preferenza sua [della dote] a tutti li creditori dappoi contraenti” ([dowry] should be preferred to all other subsequent creditors).

57. Some of those remaining might well also have been seamen, but as there is no mention of their role on board in the documentation they have not been counted as such. The others were passengers or merchants.

58. ASV, Compilazione delle leggi, prima serie, b. 320; at the beginning of this file there is a small fascicolo, without date or numeration, which sums up the procedure with all the relevant legislative references. On the Giudici del Proprio dowry restitution procedure, see Sandi, Principi di Storia Civile, part 1, vol. 2, pp. 842–48; Bellavitis, Famille, genre, transmission, 55–72; Linda Guzzetti, “Dowries in Fourteenth-Century Venice,” Renaissance Studies 16, no. 4 (2002): 430–73; Daniela Hacke, Women, Sex and Marriage in Early Modern Venice (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004); Isabella Cecchini, “A World of Small Objects: Probate Inventories, Pawns, and Domestic Life in Early Modern Venice,” in “The Material Culture of Debt,” special issue, Renaissance and Reformation 35, no. 3 (2012): 39–61; Cecchini, “Material Culture in Sixteenth Century Venice: A Sample from Probate Inventories, 1510–1615” Working Paper no. 14 (Department of Economics, Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, 2008), http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1133883.

59. This was generally attributed to the influence of Byzantine law; see Anna Bellavitis, “Patrimoni e matrimoni a Venezia nel Cinquecento,” in Le ricchezze delle donne. Diritti patrimoniali e poteri familiari in Italia (xiii–xix secc.), ed. Giulia Calvi and Isabelle Chabot (Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier, 1998), 149–60.

60. Important early modern polemics against dowry exchange include Moderata Fonte [Modesta Pozzo], The Worth of Women, Wherein Is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men [1660], ed. and trans. Virginia Cox (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997); Arcangela Tarabotti, La semplicità ingannata di Galerana Baratotti (Leiden: Sambix [Jean and Daniel Elzevier], 1654); and Tarabotti, Paternal Tyranny [1654], ed. and trans. Letizia Panizza (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).

61. On women’s dowry and its socioeconomic value across different societies in early modern Europe, see Bellavitis, Identité, mariage, mobilité sociale; Howell, “Fixing Movables”; Jutta Sperling, “The Economics and Politics of Marriage,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, ed. Allyson M. Poska, Jane Couchman, and Katherine A. McIver (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013), 213–33; and Sperling, “Women’s Property Rights in the Wider Mediterranean: Toward a Trans-Regional, Trans-Religious Approach,” in Gender Difference in European Legal Cultures: Historical Perspectives, ed. Karin Gottschalk (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2013), 139–51; all with a comparative approach and rich bibliographic references.

62. Jutta Sperling, “Dowry or Inheritance? Kinship, Property, and Women’s Agency in Lisbon, Venice, and Florence (1572),” Journal of Early Modern History 11, no. 3 (2007): 197–238, here pp. 208 and 216.

63. Bellavitis, Famille, genre, transmission; Sperling, “Dowry or Inheritance?” 208 and 214.

64. Nadalin Drughiero, masser of the Santissima Madona del Rosario, ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 2, reg. 3, c. 7v, April 15, 1630. The inheritance was mostly personal clothes and objects.

65. This is a different ship from the one mentioned above. This name was, alas, very common.

66. Paolo Martin, patron and co-owner of the ship Madonna del Rosario, ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 2, reg. 3, cc. 38r–39v, November 9, 1635.

67. There are three Pietro Priulis recorded at this time in Venice, so the name of his grandfather is added for ease of identification. I thank Vittorio Mandelli for his exquisite (and typical) generosity in sharing his unpublished database on the Venetian patriciate. All information about Priuli comes from this database.

68. Venice, Biblioteca Museo Correr, Provenienze Diverse Venier, reg. 71, c. 1, December 4, 1618. The canonical age of admission was twenty-five. However, each year on December 4 (the feast of Saint Barbara) the names of thirty young patricians were selected by lots and admitted in a process known as the “grazia della Barbarella.” See Claudia Salmini, “Il Segretario alle voci: un primo contributo sulle origini dell’incarico e la formazione dell’archivio,” in Venice and the Veneto During the Renaissance: The Legacy of Benjamin Kohl, ed. Michael Knapton, John E. Law, and Alison A. Smith (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2014), 47–69, here p. 59. I wish to thank Silvia Gasparini for our conversations on this issue.

69. ASV, Segretario alle Voci, Pregadi, reg. 15, c. 147, March 14, 1645.

70. Cypress wood (like cedar and juniper) repelled insects and was thus suited to storing papers and cloth; see Lucy Razzall, Boxes and Books in Early Modern England: Materiality, Metaphor, Containment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 6.

71. Pietro Priuli, governator of the San Zorzi, ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 4, reg. 10, cc. 32v–37r, April 23, 1647.

72. Cecchini, “A World of Small Objects,” 51–54.

73. On devotional rings, see Maya Corry, Deborah Howard, and Mary Laven, eds., Madonnas and Miracles: The Holy Home in Renaissance Italy (London: Philip Wilson, 2017), 112 (“rings often incorporated holy and protective inscriptions or images”) and 122. I thank Mary Laven for our conversations on this issue.

74. For interesting reflections on the status of clothes as assets amongst the English laboring poor, see Alexandra Shepard, “Poverty, Labour and the Language of Social Description in Early Modern England,” Past & Present 201 (2008): 51–95, here pp. 61–63. This analysis was further developed in Shepard, Accounting for Oneself: Worth, Status and the Social Order in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). It is worth noting that that this analysis focuses on the self-representation of witnesses in courts, whereas descriptions related to intestate successions lack that element, and are therefore more “objective.” On markets for clothes on board ship, see Lemire, “‘Men of the World,’” 300.

75. See, for example, the case of Piero da Luca, sergeant major on the galleon Madonna del Rosario, who clearly had a penchant for silver lace and gold embroidery, and possessed quite a large number of silver items for his everyday use: ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 4, reg. 10, c. 17r, August 29, 1646. For interesting considerations on how increased participation in the continental armies affected the material culture of even common soldiers, see Maria Ågren, “Contracts for the Old or Gifts for the Young? On the Use of Wills in Early Modern Sweden,” Scandinavian Journal of History 25, no. 3 (2000): 197–218, here p. 207.

76. Laurence Fontaine, ed., Alternative Exchanges: Second-Hand Circulations from the Sixteenth Century to the Present (New York: Berghahn, 2008), which discusses the complexity of these markets over the longue durée. Beverly Lemire, in her investigation of British seamen and soldiers in the long eighteenth century, arrives at the same conclusions in Lemire, “‘Men of the World,’” especially pp. 292–93. On the assessment of paupers’ goods for the purposes of poor relief, see Joseph Harley, “Pauper Inventories, Social Relations, and the Nature of Poor Relief Under the Old Poor Law, England, c. 1601–1834,” Historical Journal 62, no. 2 (2018): 375–98.

77. The economic importance of this kind of transaction has diminished in developed societies but remains central in developing countries, and thus presents us with interesting possibilities of comparative analysis between premodern Europe and developing countries today.

78. A discussion of such instances can be found in Maria Fusaro et al., “Entrepreneurs at Sea: Trading Practices, Legal Opportunities, and Early Modern Globalization,” International Journal of Maritime History 28, no. 4 (2016): 774–86.

79. On intra-ship commercial partnerships on British ships, see Lemire, “‘Men of the World,’” 297–99.

80. These types of items were commonly purchased by seamen for trading at that time. Lemire, “‘Men of the World,’” 299, gives an English example: “in Sicily, [Edward] Barlow found that silk stockings were ‘reasonable and cheap,’ buying ‘five pairs … for thirty shillings, goods easy to sell or barter.’”

81. Ventura di Gerolamo, shipwright of the galleon Cigala, ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 2, reg. 3, cc. 26v–28v, January 27, 1633 mv. As a comparison, 70 percent of house rents in Venice were below 30 ducats per year. For details and bibliography, see Fusaro, Political Economies of Empire, 226–28; Jean-François Chauvard, La circulation des biens à Venise. Stratégies patrimoniales et marché immobilier (1600–1750) (Rome: École française de Rome, 2005).

82. Francesco Andrianni, scrivanello on the galleon Padre Eterno, ASV, GdP, Inventari e stime, b. 2, reg. 3, cc. 12v–13v and 17r–v, August 7, 1630.

83. Giuseppe Casaregi started his treaty by explaining exactly how “citizenship” affected intestate successions; see Casaregi, Elucubrationes ac Resolutiones, 3:37–140.

84. “Charles II, 1677: An Act for Prevention of Frauds and Perjuryes,” in Statutes of the Realm, vol. 5, 1628–80, ed. John Raithby (s.l: Great Britain Record Commission, 1819), 839–42; British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/statutes-realm/vol5/pp839-842. Details on nuncupative wills are available in Eardley Mitford, The Law of Wills, Codicils and Revocations, with Plain and Familiar Instructions for Executors, Administrators, Devisees, and Legatees […] (London: W. and J. Stratford, 1796), 2–3.

85. Grotius also discussed Giasone del Maino’s work on this issue with his brother-in-law Nicolaas van Reigersberch; see Martine Julia Van Ittersum, “The Long Goodbye: Hugo Grotius’ Justification of Dutch Expansion Overseas, 1615–1645,” History of European Ideas 36, no. 4 (2010): 386–411, here pp. 400–401.

86. Fernández-López, “El procedimiento de bienes de difuntos,” gives a detailed step-by-step overview of the procedure for the repatriation of the inheritance, once transformed into cash, and the hunt for legitimate heirs back in Spain.

87. Fusaro, “Politics of Justice/Politics of Trade.”

88. As evidenced in the cases discussed in ASV, Compilazione delle leggi, prima serie, b. 204, cc. 84, passim cc. 63–99 [modern numbering in pencil].

89. Germano Maifreda, “Settecento globalizzatore? Idee economiche versus politiche della cittadinanza nella Lombardia delle Riforme,” in “L’economia come cultura. Dinamiche e contaminazioni tra Castiglia e Lombardia asburgica,” ed. Giuseppe De Luca and Gaetano Sabatini, special issue, Cheiron 1 (2016): 119–54, here pp. 142–46.

90. For a critical and analytical summary of these issues, see Germano Maifreda, “Un ‘diritto non meno strano che barbaro.’ Aspetti e temi del dibattito sull’albinaggio nell’Italia dell’Ottocento,” Storia economica 12, no. 1/2 (2009): 215–30. See also Maifreda, “Immigrants: Asset or Threat? Foreigners, Property and the Right of Escheat in Enlightenment Milan,” Eighteenth-Century Life 41, no. 2 (2017): 122–38.

91. As quoted by Sahlins, “Sur la citoyenneté et le droit d’aubaine,” 1.

92. Maifreda, “Immigrants: Asset or Threat?”

93. Cerutti, “À qui appartiennent les biens qui n’appartiennent à personne ?”

94. Simona Cerutti and Isabelle Grangaud, “Sources and Contextualizations: Comparing Eighteenth-Century North African and Western European Institutions,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 59, no. 1 (2017): 5–33, here pp. 14–15.

95. Tamar Herzog, Defining Nations: Immigrants and Citizens in Early Modern Spain and Spanish America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 4–5.

96. Harris, “The Encounters of Economic History.”

97. Erik Thomson, “Commerce, Law and Erudite Culture: The Mechanics of Théodore de Godefroy’s Service to Cardinal Richelieu,” Journal of the History of Ideas 68, no. 3 (2007): 407–27, here p. 422; Maifreda, “Un ‘diritto non meno strano che barbaro.’”

98. Fusaro, “Politics of Justice/Politics of Trade.”

99. For a sharp panoramic view on the political background and economic developments, see Piero Del Negro, “L’ultima fase della Serenissima: nota introduttiva,” in Storia di Venezia, vol. 8, L’ultima fase della Serenissima, ed. Piero Del Negro and Paolo Preto (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1998), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/l-ultima-fase-della-serenissima-nota-introduttiva_%28Storia-di-Venezia%29/. On the partial recovery of maritime trade in the eighteenth century, see Massimo Costantini, “Commercio e marina,” in ibid., https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/commercio-e-marina_%28altro%29/. On the harbor, see Walter Panciera, “L’acqua giusta.” Il sistema portuale veneziano nel xviii secolo (Rome: Viella, 2021).

100. Daniel Panzac, La république de Venise et les Régences barbaresques au xviii^e siècle. Un exemple de relation Nord-Sud en Méditerranée occidentale, ed. Salvatore. Speziale (Paris: Publisud, 2015).

101. On these issues, see Maria Fusaro, The Making of a Global Labour Market, 1573–1729: Maritime Law and the Political Economy of the Early Modern Mediterranean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).