23. Journal of the deputation of the ship La Santissima Concezione captained by Sebastien Gay of Marseille

This register was compiled by merchant Raffaello Del Vernaccia, nephew of Ugolino Del Vernaccia. Raffaello Del Vernaccia was appointed member of the commission that was supposed to record the bottomry loans invested on the voyage that the ship Santissima Concezione, captained by Marseillais Sebastien Gay, was to make from Livorno to Alexandria in Egypt in 1702. The other members of the deputation were prominent Jewish merchants from the Vesino & Cordovero firm based in Livorno. Angelo Vesinho (Vesino or Visino), with his father David, was active in trade with North Africa and in important money transfers from England and in 1703 he was involved in the bankruptcy of his own company. The document mentions some of the major Jewish economic operators of Portuguese and Spanish origin present in Livorno between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Salvadore and Lazzaro Recanati, Salamon Nunez de Paz, Gabriel de Medina or the London-based silversmith Abraham Lopes de Oliveira (1657–1730). The list also included Moises Aghib, whose family was of North African origin and had come to Livorno in the seventeenth century, specialising as ship owners and in the coral and precious wood trade between Livorno, Cairo, Marseilles and Aleppo.
Bottomry, or bottomage, is a contract by which a person (the lender or ‘cambista’) gives a sum of money to the owner of the vessel or the loaded goods, or even to the captain, who undertakes to return it together with the legal interest and with a certain premium (maritime profit) if the goods (vessel, accessories, cargo or freight), bound as security for the said sum, arrive successfully at the place of destination, after the voyage for which the loan is agreed.

(Matteo Calcagni)