Managing financial time: Genoese bankers, the Spanish monarchy and the logistics of silver in the early seventeenth-century Mediterranean[El gobierno del tiempo financiero: los banqueros genoveses, la monarquía hispánica y la logística de la plata en el Mediterráneo de inicios del siglo XVII]

Financial history has paid considerable attention to the dependence of the Spanish Monarchy's bankers on the arrival of Spanish American silver in Seville, but less to the conditions under which it was exported to Italy. By emphasising the timing requirements of the financial business, this article analyses the logistical organisation that the king's most prominent Genoese bankers put in place with the aim of synchronising Mediterranean silver transfers by galleys with the periodic collection of Spanish American silver in Spain and the calendar of the Piacenza exchange fairs. An examination of the situation during the War of Monferrato (1613-1617) shows that, by securing the Habsburg Empire's endorsement, Genoese financiers obtained highly favourable access conditions for the vessels of their fellow citizens the Genoese galley contractors. By adapting to the financiers' schedule and guaranteeing high regularity and predictability, their naval services proved to be a key instrument for Genoese dominance in the Mediterranean distribution of silver, which, in turn, helps to better explain Genoese hegemony in the European credit markets of the early 17th century