Gino Luzzatto
He initially worked as a teacher in southern Italy before joining an economic institute in Trieste and later relocated to the University of Venice in 1922, where he eventually became a rector.
[1] Under the initial influence of Werner Sombart, whose main work he translated, Gino Luzzatto's scientific pursuits gradually shifted towards the study of urban economies, particularly focusing on the late Middle Ages, with Venice being his primary area of interest.
After completing his doctoral degree, he relocated to Florence and joined the Istituto Superiore Giovanni Marinelli, where he became deeply involved in the research conducted by the geographer Giuseppe Pennesi (1851-1909) concerning voyages of discovery.
During this period, he engaged in writing studies on modern history, including a piece on Brigantism in Basilicata following the establishment of the Italian state in 1860.
[8][note 1] Subsequently, he decided to enroll in law at the University of Urbino, not intending to change his professional career but rather to cultivate a systematic approach and provide a counterbalance to the methods of the time.
[10] In 1902, Luzzatto was among the first to start working for the magazine Le Marche, which primarily focused on local studies under the editorship of Amedeo Crivellucci (1850-1914).
For the first time, Luzzatto's research interests and capabilities became apparent, particularly in his investigations into the "subjugation" of the rural nobility by the municipalities in the Marche region.
[11] He frequently explored themes such as the concentration on the markets and crafts in urban areas, the displacement of the feudal rural nobility to the communes, and the development of local laws through their own authority.
However, after his work on the Servi,[note 2] his attention gradually shifted toward urban history, specifically examining the dominance of the Curtes, the farm landlords, within the context of his studies.
After 1918, he acknowledged his previous excessive focus on materialist perspectives and admitted to underestimating the importance of morality, both at the collective and individual levels.
In Italy, he recognized the close relationship between protectionism and colonialism, which not only protected unjustified economic benefits to certain sectors but also diverted attention from social problems.
[15] In 1919, Luzzatto moved from Bari to Trieste, where he began to teach economic history at the Istituto Superiore di Scienze Economiche e Sociali, part of the University of Ca' Fòscari in Venice.
During that year, he also served as the director of the Institute and published a translation of Werner Sombart's Modern Capitalism, which amounted to 418 pages.
However, the university made efforts to resist, organizing a series of lectures on the theory of civil liberties under the guidance of Luigi Armanni.
Starting from 1932, Luzzatto noted that it became too risky to openly criticize the regime, and the constant surveillance threatened to destroy the students' freedom of thought that the intimidated lecturers were meant to teach them.
Despite being a prominent figure in the Giustizia e Libertà group, Luzzatto found a lack of inspiration from political activity throughout Italy's fascist period.
In a letter to his colleague Corrado Barbagallo in January 1938, Luzzatto voiced his concern that the Fascists were not simply interested in intimidating, but were executing a well-prepared plan to accomplish "concrete results".
[20] A constant feature in Luzzatto's work was his emphasis on individual and specific sources, such as council decisions, court judgments, wills, treaties, international agreements, and theoretical treatises.
In contrast to Fabio Besta's research, which aimed to highlight the balance and harmony of the state and financial system to the old Venetian tradition.
Luzzatto's examination of the 1379 census revealed a significant division within the nobility, with a small wealthy group and a larger segment facing poverty.
In 1961, Luzzatto wrote an article on the economic situation of Jewish communities between the March on Rome and the Italian racial laws, covering the period from 1922 to 1938.
[27] On the one hand, Luzzatto dealt with didactic writings; on the other, he focused mainly on the 12th and 13th centuries, a time when aristocratic forms of rule were less prevalent and small merchants contributed significantly to the overall wealth of the city than that of big capital.
[29] Following the downfall of the dictatorship, Luzzatto's reappointment on September 1, 1943, was prevented by the Republic of Salò, a short-lived revival of the fascist regime.
His articles covered various subjects, including the "crisis of social democracy"[34] and the works of Achille Loria in the Rassegna mensile di Israel.
[36] In 1952, he resumed the position of director of Nuova Rivista Storica, which he had left a decade earlier due to the impact of racist laws.
His book "Storia economica di Venezia dall'XI al XVI secolo" published in 1961, has become a fundamental reference in the field.
[46] In 1988, Carlo Cipolla recognized Luzzatto as one of the most significant economic historians, alongside Marc Bloch and Henri Pirenne.
Unlike focusing solely on institutional and legal history, Luzzatto extensively utilized sources that originated within the economic sphere itself.
Consequently, Luzzatto rejected the limited perspective of evaluating society through legal and institutional history, as advocated by Georg von Below in Germany.
Furthermore, Luzzatto's work influenced the Anglo-Saxon academic sphere and, since the late 1970s, the German-speaking world, including scholars such as Gerhard Rösch.
