Signs of Trust in the Italian Renaissance

Abstract

TRUST PLAYS A FUNDAMENTAL ROLE IN HOW INDIVIDUALS , communities, and institutions interact. Crises of trust have always affected communities. Earlymodern Italy is no exception. Governments, communes, and duchies trusted condottieri and podestà among other professionals to protect them. Fede (faith, trust) was an essential social condition for trade. In 1732, Ergas and Silvera, two Sephardic traders based in Livorno, wrote to another Sephardic merchant in Venice that what mattered to them most was to be able to rely on a “trustworthy and diligent person” (persona de confianza y deligente). Ideally, fede or trust was also accompanied by fiducia—or expectation that contracts, agreements, and all manner of friendships would be honored. In turn, fiduciawas ideally sustained by trust and a series of more or less flexible forms of contract that would protect both individuals and property. Failure to demonstrate trustworthiness often resulted in loss of honor. This was the case in the fifteenth century for Lodovico and Gianfranco Strozzi, whose insolvency, in the words of their cousin Alessandra Strozzi, brought a stain on their lineage that “could last forever.” Scholarship has focused on early modern rituals of trust (oath, membership, handshake, or kiss), but we know less about how trustworthiness was signaled and received.