Further research findings enable the narrow and critical picture in Renaissance Secrets of Maggino Gabrielli to be redrawn significantly.
In September 1586, Maggino drew up a partnership contract with a nobleman from Lucca, Giovan Battista Guidoboni, authorizing him to acquire patents for Guidoboni's inventions in all of the Italian states and in France and Spain (see the entry in Renaissance Secrets on ‘Raising Silkworms’). The most striking of these inventions was a system for producing a second harvest of silkworms during the summer. Gabrielli was granted a sixty-year patent valid in all the Papal States by Sixtus V for this secret the following July. However, one half of all his future profits were awarded to the Pope's sister, Camilla Peretti. Recent research has shown that Camilla in fact established an experimental silkworm raising facility under Maggino at her satellite court—the Villa Montalto, near the Baths of Diocletian (a site now occupied by Roma Termini station). This villa (referred to as the papal vineyard) is illustrated in the background of one of the engravings in Gabrielli’s Dialogues on Useful Inventions for Silk (this image is reproduced on page 10 of Renaissance Secrets).
Gabrielli was granted a second patent in July 1588, for a process to make transparent glass and crystal using a distillate of certain wild herbs, native to the Roman countryside. This should be linked to his establishment of a glassworks in Rome, which supplied the window glass for some of the most important construction projects in the city, including the Lateran Palace, the Vatican Library and even the Palace of Sixtus V in the Vatican. Maggino even acquired exclusive rights in the Papal States to manufacture and supply carafes and other transparent glassware for measures of wine, oil and vinegar sold at retail, designs that combated fraud. He had 50,000 copies of the papal edict printed so these could be distributed by his commission agents.
Forced to flee Rome after the death of Pope Sixtus, Maggino settled in Tuscany with the protection of Grand Duke Ferdinand. He purchased a glassworks in Pisa and in November 1590 successfully petitioned to buy a papermill at San Niccolo a Calenzano. His partner in this enterprise was Jewish--Daniele Calo, son of Isaac, whose brother Donato, a second hand dealer, could supply the vast quantity of rags needed. Their contract also envisaged the establishment of silkworm raising on the property.
With just six weeks, he was forced to seek further investment to meet duties on the property from another Venetian Levantine Jew, Joseph di Moisè Benino. His troubles continued--next he partnered with Bernardino Naldini (June 1592), created a short-lived company with Maier Lombroso, another Levantine Jew in Florence (November 1592-June 1593). With the business deteriorating again, he partnered another inventor, Luca Colombini from Spoleto (January 1594). Colombini had obtained a privilege in 1591 for an oil mill, which increased productivity by fifteen per cent and a brick/lime furnace fuelled by sansa (the residual by-product of pressing olives). When Colombini moved his operation to Calenzano, Maggino had effectively created his own innovation centre.
The creation of a Jewish nation in Livorno was the outcome of concerted policies by the Medici Grand Dukes to capture the entrepreneurial talent of Sephardic refugees. Maggino played a leading role in this nascent community. He was appointed as the first consul of the Jewish nation in Livorno. He proved such a skillful mediator that the Medici even issued him with a passport to travel to the Levant in 1592 to attract Jewish traders to settle in the city. Meanwhile, Gabrielli rapidly established a network of companies in 1593 to manufacture silk and woollen cloths, gold thread and another glassworks, based in Florence, Pisa and Livorno--unfortunately all of which rapidly failed.
Select Bibliography.
In September 1586, Maggino drew up a partnership contract with a nobleman from Lucca, Giovan Battista Guidoboni, authorizing him to acquire patents for Guidoboni's inventions in all of the Italian states and in France and Spain (see the entry in Renaissance Secrets on ‘Raising Silkworms’). The most striking of these inventions was a system for producing a second harvest of silkworms during the summer. Gabrielli was granted a sixty-year patent valid in all the Papal States by Sixtus V for this secret the following July. However, one half of all his future profits were awarded to the Pope's sister, Camilla Peretti. Recent research has shown that Camilla in fact established an experimental silkworm raising facility under Maggino at her satellite court—the Villa Montalto, near the Baths of Diocletian (a site now occupied by Roma Termini station). This villa (referred to as the papal vineyard) is illustrated in the background of one of the engravings in Gabrielli’s Dialogues on Useful Inventions for Silk (this image is reproduced on page 10 of Renaissance Secrets).
Gabrielli was granted a second patent in July 1588, for a process to make transparent glass and crystal using a distillate of certain wild herbs, native to the Roman countryside. This should be linked to his establishment of a glassworks in Rome, which supplied the window glass for some of the most important construction projects in the city, including the Lateran Palace, the Vatican Library and even the Palace of Sixtus V in the Vatican. Maggino even acquired exclusive rights in the Papal States to manufacture and supply carafes and other transparent glassware for measures of wine, oil and vinegar sold at retail, designs that combated fraud. He had 50,000 copies of the papal edict printed so these could be distributed by his commission agents.
Forced to flee Rome after the death of Pope Sixtus, Maggino settled in Tuscany with the protection of Grand Duke Ferdinand. He purchased a glassworks in Pisa and in November 1590 successfully petitioned to buy a papermill at San Niccolo a Calenzano. His partner in this enterprise was Jewish--Daniele Calo, son of Isaac, whose brother Donato, a second hand dealer, could supply the vast quantity of rags needed. Their contract also envisaged the establishment of silkworm raising on the property.
With just six weeks, he was forced to seek further investment to meet duties on the property from another Venetian Levantine Jew, Joseph di Moisè Benino. His troubles continued--next he partnered with Bernardino Naldini (June 1592), created a short-lived company with Maier Lombroso, another Levantine Jew in Florence (November 1592-June 1593). With the business deteriorating again, he partnered another inventor, Luca Colombini from Spoleto (January 1594). Colombini had obtained a privilege in 1591 for an oil mill, which increased productivity by fifteen per cent and a brick/lime furnace fuelled by sansa (the residual by-product of pressing olives). When Colombini moved his operation to Calenzano, Maggino had effectively created his own innovation centre.
The creation of a Jewish nation in Livorno was the outcome of concerted policies by the Medici Grand Dukes to capture the entrepreneurial talent of Sephardic refugees. Maggino played a leading role in this nascent community. He was appointed as the first consul of the Jewish nation in Livorno. He proved such a skillful mediator that the Medici even issued him with a passport to travel to the Levant in 1592 to attract Jewish traders to settle in the city. Meanwhile, Gabrielli rapidly established a network of companies in 1593 to manufacture silk and woollen cloths, gold thread and another glassworks, based in Florence, Pisa and Livorno--unfortunately all of which rapidly failed.
Select Bibliography.
The information presented here is based on the following sources:-
Ariel Toaff, Il Prestigiatore di Dio. Avventure e miracoli di un alchimista ebreo nelle corti del Rinascimento (Milan, 2010).
Dora Liscia Bemporad, Maggino di Gabriello "Hebreo Venetiano". I Dialoghi sopra l'utili sue inventioni circa la seta (Pisa, 2010).
Daniel Jütte,’Handel, Wissenstransfer und Netzwerke. Eine Fallstudie zu Grenzen und Möglichkeiten unternehmerischen Handelns unter Juden zwischen Reich, Italien und Levante um 1600’, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 95:3 (2008), 263-90.
Evelyn Lincoln, ‘The Jew and the worms: portraits and patronage in a sixteenth century how-to-do manual’, Word & Image, 19: 1-2 (2003), 86-99.
Ariel Toaff, Il Prestigiatore di Dio. Avventure e miracoli di un alchimista ebreo nelle corti del Rinascimento (Milan, 2010).
Dora Liscia Bemporad, Maggino di Gabriello "Hebreo Venetiano". I Dialoghi sopra l'utili sue inventioni circa la seta (Pisa, 2010).
Daniel Jütte,’Handel, Wissenstransfer und Netzwerke. Eine Fallstudie zu Grenzen und Möglichkeiten unternehmerischen Handelns unter Juden zwischen Reich, Italien und Levante um 1600’, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 95:3 (2008), 263-90.
Evelyn Lincoln, ‘The Jew and the worms: portraits and patronage in a sixteenth century how-to-do manual’, Word & Image, 19: 1-2 (2003), 86-99.
Luca Molà,’ Energia e brevetti per invenzioni nell’Italia del Rinascimento’ in Simonetta Cavaciocchi (ed) Economia E Energia, Secc. XIII-XVII: Istituto internazionale di storia economica F. Datini (Florence, 2003).
