Networks of commerce and maritine structure of the kingdom of Granada: ports and scales in the bassomediaeval marine traffic

Abstract

In the middle of century XV, the kingdom of Granada is integrated in the european mercantile platforms, structured around the great axes of navigation that control the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. This general, recognized and accepted affirmation, does not count on elements sufficient to define the strategies and formulas to sustain this incorporation. A assembly of Italian documentation coming from genoveses archives (notarial documentation and ship’s logs of 1478), helps us to contribute to new elements of analysis about the characteristics and commercial direction of Málaga and Almuñécar, two of the more active ports of the kingdom. Our attention will be focused on the harbor structuring that articulates the coastal network, where the main ports act of “double” platforms of connection with the great routes of navigation and as operational bases from which the foreing merchants organize his performance within the kingdom.