Incertezza e rischio nel commercio marittimo. Le pratiche di avaria genovesi dagli studi di Giuseppe Felloni al database europeo AveTransRisk

This essay aims at investigating the evolution of General Average’s studies and the importance of this source in the context of maritime history, starting from the research path traced by Giuseppe Felloni in the late Seventies. He projected a paper template to record the information contained in the Average procedures preserved in the State Archives of Genoa. Then he processed these information for the historical study of Genoese maritime trade from both a micro- and macro-economic perspective. Recently, thanks to the AveTransRisk European research project, this work has been resumed through the creation of a digital template and an online database for the collection and analysis of data concerning General Averages procedures from the most important port cities of pre-industrial Europe.