Espelhos de Mercúrio: A representaçao do comercio nas Monarquías Ibéricas (1500-1800)

Espelhos de Mercúrio (Mercury’s Mirrors) approaches representations of trade and merchants in Iberian Monarchies during the Early Modern period. The papers collected in this volume, authored by researchers from different universities and research centres, show plural views on three guiding lines: the language of trade, mercantile organisation and institutions; mercantile identities and social representation of merchants; and the representation of trade in culture. From the image of commerce in Borbonic Spain to the myth of the decadence of Portuguese commerce in Asia in Linschoten's Itinerario; from the privileges granted to German merchants in 15th-century Portugal to the artistic and religious patronage agenda of the Genoese nation in Andalusia; from the Mesa do Bem Comum in Bahia to the Italian nation in Lisbon; from the ideology embodied in the decorative programme of the Stadhuis in Antwerp to the Spanish mercantile community in Portugal, and from the social and cultural dimensions of the tobacco trade – in this book we put Mercury in the mirror and investigate its reflections in the age of first globalisation.