European Studies, School of Modern Languages and Cultures HKU

Abstract: This paper will offer a brief introduction to the late medieval history of Genoa, a city-state with a remarkable constitutional order and a peculiar economic culture. In order to understand the role played by the Genoese people in Global history (and in particular in the Spanish Americas), it is necessary to discuss what kind of colonial and entrepreneurial experience the Genoese brought with them, as well as the local issues affecting their relationship with Spain from the outbreak of the Italian Wars, in 1494, to the beginning of the Hispanic-Genoese alliance, in 1528. The paper will discuss the global consequences of this alliance presenting a case study from Chile, which in the 1540s was a remote periphery of the Spanish world.

Bio: Matteo Salonia holds a PhD in History from the University of Liverpool. He has taught at the University of Liverpool and Manchester Metropolitan University. Currently, he is Lecturer in Early Modern Iberian History at King’s College London. His research focuses on late medieval and early modern economic history and on the intellectual history of the sixteenth-century Habsburg Empire. His book Genoa’s Freedom: Entrepreneurship, Republicanism and the Spanish Atlantic was published in 2017 by Lexington Books.

4 April 2018

SMLC seminar: Local Causes and Global Consequences: the 1528 Hispanic-Genoese Alliance, from the Mediterranean to the Pacific Dr. Matteo Salonia (King’s College London) Date: 4 Apr 2018 (Wed) Time: 4:30 pm - 6:00pm Venue: CRT 4.36, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
Abstract: This paper will offer a brief introduction to the late medieval history of Genoa, a city-state with a remarkable constitutional order and a peculiar economic culture. In order to understand the role played by the Genoese people in Global history (and in particular in the Spanish Americas), it is necessary to discuss what kind of colonial and entrepreneurial experience the Genoese brought with them, as well as the local issues affecting their relationship with Spain from the outbreak of the Italian Wars, in 1494, to the beginning of the Hispanic-Genoese alliance, in 1528. The paper will discuss the global consequences of this alliance presenting a case study from Chile, which in the 1540s was a remote periphery of the Spanish world. Bio: Matteo Salonia holds a PhD in History from the University of Liverpool. He has taught at the University of Liverpool and Manchester Metropolitan University. Currently, he is Lecturer in Early Modern Iberian History at King’s College London. His research focuses on late medieval and early modern economic history and on the intellectual history of the sixteenth-century Habsburg Empire. His book Genoa’s Freedom: Entrepreneurship, Republicanism and the Spanish Atlantic was published in 2017 by Lexington Books.