The Rise and Fall of Entrepreneurial Leadership on the Night Of

chapter seven

The Miracle of Paolo Rabia: The Rise and Fall of Entrepreneurial Leadership

On the night of April 18, 1421, a Venice-bound cargo boat plied the waters of the Gulf of Quarnaro in the northeastern Adriatic. It was captained by Giacomo Frumento and came from Candia. The craft was Venetian and was on the return leg of its journey. On board there was a San Giovanni’s member, a merchant and manufacturer of woolens by the name of Paolo Rabia. Paolo was the junior partner in the Rabia woolens manufactur- ing company, headed at the time, and for a long time to come, by his father, Francesco Rabia. Judging from Paolo’s presence, the ship must have made the outbound run to Candia loaded with, among other things, woolen cloth, Venice’s principal export to the Levant. It was early in the navigational season and the first leg of the journey may have been completed the previous year. Candia would have been Paolo’s natural destina- tion, for it was the Cretan entrepot for the Venetian trade in the Levant.1 The way stations on the route, Dalmatia, Venetian Greece, and Corfu, also consumed Venice-produced cloth but the Candian marked dwarfed them. Candia was also good for filling the hold on the way back, for Crete exported much sought-after malvasia and other sweet wines, as well as cheese and other products.2 The Rabia did not limit themselves to woolens. The vessel was following the standard course on the home journey, about to turn west-northwest from the north Dalmatian and Istrian shores and sail across the head of the Adriatic directly to Venice’s port. Around midnight, however, as the ship was negotiating the treacherous channels

1 On the Venetian commerce in woolens in the Eastern Mediterranean, Crete, and Corfu see Eliyahu Ashtor, “Exportation de textiles occidentaux dans les Proche Orient musulman au bas Moyen Age (1370–1517),” Studi in memoria di Federigo Molis, vol. 2 (Naples: Gianini, 1978); Silvio Borsari, “Il mercato di tessuti a Candia (1373–1375),” Archivio veneto, Ser. 5, 143 (1994), 5–30. 2 That’s what a Filomati ship on the Candia line was carrying in October 1420 on its home trip to Venice, see Andrea Nanetti, ed., Il Codice Morosini: Il mondo visto da Vene- zia 1094–1433 (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’ alto medioevo, 2010), vol. 2, 878, # 898. See also Ugo Tucci, “Il commercio del vino nell’economia cretese,” in Gherado Ortalli, ed., Venezia e Creta (= Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, Iraklion-Chanià, 30 settembre–5 ottobre 1997) (Venice: Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 1998), 183–206. 124 chapter seven of the Gulf, a storm broke out. It was a gale force onslaught that caused the sailors on the craft to despair. In hindsight, they should have known what they were in for at that time and in that place. The Gulf of Quarnaro is a fragmented and dan- gerous navigational zone between Istria and northern Dalmatia. Several maritime channels wind through the maze forming the archipelago of Quarnaro, with its four large and thirteen smaller islands and numerous islets, shoals, reefs, shallows, and other underwater obstacles. Despite its mild and comparatively warm climate, the area is buffeted by sudden outbursts of strong winds and frequent sea storms. The sea waters maintain an average annual temperature of three degrees Celsius higher than that of the air, and about that much higher, especially in winter, than the Adriatic and the lagoon waters at Venice. The difference is conducive to turbulence. The wind system too can be quite erratic. The most powerful air current is the already discussed bora. That dry, freezing blast that descends upon the Gulf from the north and northeast originates in the Velebit mountain chain, a segment of the Dinaric Alps, and is especially violent in winter and spring. From the mountain chain it falls unobstructed onto one of the principal navigational channels, the deep water corridor along the main islands of Krk (Veglia), Rab (Arbe), and Pago, known as Velebitski Canal (Canale della Morlacca) but appropriately nicknamed Canale del Maltempo. The bora is often preceded by two other northerlies, the tra- montana and the borìn, a milder version of the bora. The maestrale, a light, steady current, blows landwards from the Adriatic. Besides the ubiq- uitous breeze, the picture is completed by the wet, warm sirocco, which brings scarce but substantial rains, especially in November, January, and March. The sirocco also tends to generate strong north-bound currents, which in the narrow channels of the archipelago reach up to three knots. To complicate matters, the principal air current, the bora, varies its direc- tion. In the north of the Gulf it follows the axis of the canal between the archipelago and the mainland. In its central part it turns eastwards, and in the southern segment it returns to steady current from the north. In the absence of the bora, the southerly maestrale is steady and strong enough to power a sail from October to April but tends, like the sirocco, to carry heavy rain, especially in winter. Strong outbursts of southerlies, unlike the bora, tend to be of short duration, and subside quickly.3

3 After the excellent summary of Alberto Rizzi, Guida della Dalmazia: Arte, Storia, Portolano. Vol. 1. Dalmazia Settentrionale (Trieste: Italo Svevo, 2007), 71–81: “Il Golfo di Quarnero.”