Fabio P. Di Vita Greek Ships in Sicily During the 18Th Century

Fabio P. Di Vita Greek ships in Sicily during the 18th century: health practices and commercial relationships 1. Introduction The main aim of this work, conducted within the research project promoted by the Ionian University entitled Greek Shipping History, 1700 – 1821 , is to check the Greek mercantile traffic in the main sicilian harbours between the beginning of the 18th century and the first twenty years of the 19th century. To find useful archival documents I have researched in the archives of Palermo and Messina, where I have consulted the funds Suprema Deputazione Generale di Salute Pubblica , deposited in the archive of Palermo, and Deputazione della Salute, Regia Udienza and Consolato del Mare , conserved in the archive of Messina. By the analisys of the documents related to the working of the maritim sanitary system in the areas of Palermo and Messina it has been possible to check the presence of Greek ships, getting out useful elements as the name, the type and the flag of the ship, the name of the owner and/or the name of the captain, news about the crew, the origin of the ship and commodities transported. These news, opportunely rielaborated, permitted to verify, also, the sea-routes of the ships and the kind of commerce exercised by Greeks in these areas. It has been analyzed, also, the evolution and the way of work of the sicilian maritim health system in the Modern Age, examining important aspects as intervention and protection techniques, the subjects envolved in the administration of the Deputations, the economics resources, the costs of the offered services, the maritime activities needed to make possible operations of loading and unloading in the harbours of Sicily, and, in general, the received treatment for the ships coming from suspected areas. 2. The sicilian sanitary inspection system in the Modern Age Within sanitary politics adopted by old regime States to face damages producted by the diffusion of epidemic diseases, first of all the plague, have been realized in Italy, 1 between the 14th to the 15th century, sanitary magistratures whose installation put this country in a vangard position compared to european framework. In this context also South Italy, although with different way and time compered to the national framework, provided itself with permanent sanitary inspection system, given that 1656 and 1691 for Naples and 1743 for Sicily were the principal dates for legal production in this topic. The origin of Sopraintendenza della generale salute and the reorganization of the pre-existent citizen sanitary Deputations are due to neapolitan plague of 1656, while, at the end of the seventeenth-century emergency cicle, Conversano’s plague of 1691 marks the trasformation of Deputazione della Salute from a temporary institution linked to the birth of an emergency to a permanent one. In Sicily the decisive element for the institution of a permanent sanitary magistrature was Messina’s plague of 1743, which permitted the birth of Deputazione Generale della Salute , central organism with competence in all the island and with giurisdiction over local health Deputations. It’s clear, therefore, that also in South Italy the epidemical waves quickened the development of a legislation that was able to defend public health in a context of progressive assumption from State of competences traditionally afferent to associations, private charity and Church. Actually, since 1575 it was constituted in Sicily by Senate of Palermo, because of a pandemia of plague that only in Messina produced 40.000 victims, a sanitary magistrature that, even if formally indipendent from viceré and with wide giurisdiction, was in effect subjected to a state control by the Tribunale del Real Patrimonio . Another epidemic emergency, as the terrible Messina’s plague in 1743, led to the emanation of rules about the issue of bills of health, medical-political instructions to be respected in plague-stricken places, regulations for the ecclesiastic government to be practised in infected countries, privileges of the men working for the sanitary care, following one another the proclamations about sanitary cordons, dispositions to be observed along the coasts and in the lazarets and rules about the relationship between central and local Deputations. The epidemic of plague that conducted to the issuing of the above-stated dispositions in sanitary field was determinated by the landing in the harbour of a Genoese merchant ship from Morea, arrived in Messina in March 1743 after a call in Patras, where the disease raged. Actually some seamen died while the ship was sailing, 2 but this event was kept secret by the captain; it was also fatal the negligence of the Messina’s sanitary deputates who admitted in the citizen lazaret the Genoese ship although the access couldn’t be accepted because of its provenience from Levant. Died after few days both the captain and a seaman, the ship was put under close supervision and the viceré was informed about that. In spite of the strong oppositions from Palermitan sanitary Deputation, which wanted to interrupt commercial relationship with Messina, the Supremo Magistrato di Commercio , who had, since 1740, the control over public health in Sicily, gave only the order of burning the ship and the commodities and keeping people involved, not adopting the opportune measures to avoid the plague to increase rapidly. The same viceré Corsini, even if on the 26th of May issued a circolar order that forbade the landing in sicilian harbours of the ships coming from Messina, awaited until July to issue the necessary measures to protect population from the pandemia. The scrupulous observance of the measures of sanitary policy permitted to Palermo to be free from the infection so that the same Carl III, recognizing the functionality and the efficiency of Palermo’s sanitary Deputation, wanted to assign to it the supervision of the sicilian health, making it also indipendent from all sicilian magistratures. The documents related to the Magistrato di Salute , the regulations and the measures about the plague of Messina, the general statutes given to the magistrates of public health in the Kingdom of Sicily and the instructions of the lazaret of Messina have been published in 1749 within a collection intitled Governo Generale di Sanità del Regno di Sicilia e Istruzioni del Lazzaretto della città di Messina . Within this collection should be pointed out, at first, the dispositions given to the magistrates of public health in the Kingdom of Sicily about the treatment reserved to the ships coming from out of Kingdom. To every captain of these ships, as to each member of the crew, should have been asked, at the arrive in whatever harbour of Sicily and by sanitary custodian, the name, the origin, news about the journey, the load, the number and the sanitary status of the sailors on board. Checked the conformity of acquired answers to the bill of health of the ship, it needed to inform the chief of local sanitary magistrature, to obtain the permit to grant pratique to the ship. Given that, the ship was carefully examined, checking the conformity of done control with declarations given: if positive, it was granted pratique to the ship, if negative it must have taken the necessary 3 measures. In case the ship came from a place naturally suspected or so declared by the Suprema Deputazione Generale di Salute Pubblica , it was necessary warn, without delay, the chief of the local magistrature and put a boat to guard the ship. If occurred any deficiency in the bill of health, the ship had to be evicted, otherwise it needed to impose to the commodities and the crew the opportune quarantine to be spent in the lazaret of Messina. About the measures to eliminate the defects and the deficiencies that the bills of health given to the ships showed in the past, it must to be underlined that if the names of the crew and passengers in the bill of health were not distincted, the ships could have pratique only after a seven days contumacy; the same also in the case of ships coming from local harbours and/or having a clean and clear bill of health. To have bills of health which can absolve this function, it was put in circulation a new model of them and, to eliminate the inconveniences linked to the change of bills, it was ordered that it can be done only in the place in which the journey of the ship was finished. If a ship coming from an infected or suspected place was wrecked in whatever sicilian coast and it was discovered the presence of corpses in the sea, they had been buried in deep hollows, to be filled up with lime and earth, by the survivors to the disaster. In addition to victuals and any other necessary good, it had be given to the survivors a ship by which go away from sicilian coasts withouth any contact with local population in the period between the shipwreck and the eviction. In the case of the ship had be admitted to spend a contumacy period it was be necessary to pass it in a separate and distant place not only from other ships in same conditions but also from ships admitted to pratique. Having need of victuals this ship have had to send its launchs, opportunely escorted by cusodians, to the land and here it has been changed the necessary goods with requested money, taking care to dip the money in vinegar or salt water. If the ship which was in contumacy wanted to unload its commodities or to load other goods before the departure, it had been necessary the licence of the health magistrature, opportunely prefaced by a positive medical opinion, to check the commodities suspected of infection.

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