Description
Book SynopsisThis case study sketches the trans-professional and transnational careers of two upwardly mobile and cosmopolitan actors in the incoming “Century of the Genoese.” These examples of biography in history are analytically framed within the stream of research on social mobility in medieval and early modern Italy, and then compared with the organizational and institutional behavior of some Atlantic entrepreneurs of the sixteenth century. This
framework also takes into account the dualism and transactional focus of the Genoese polity with the aim of reassessing the historical reasoning on entrepreneurship proposed by business historians who responded to the “Schumpeter’s plea” in this regard.
Table of ContentsIntroduction — The city-state: a polity with a transactional focus — Bartolomeo da Framura: contractor on the rocks of alum fields — Gioachino da Passano: trusted men of king Francis I of Valois — Entrepreneurial agency, Culture and institutions: Lessons from the case.— Giving a historical face to entrepreneurship: Issues for debate — Summary and concluding remarks .
