Eighteenth-Century Critics of Tuscan GA
The structural advantages enjoyed by the master went unremarked upon during the seventeenth century. Already at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Giuseppe Casaregi seems to make a critical allusion to this phenomenon when he remarks that ‘I do not believe that these expenses [those usually placed into Common Average] ought to be made good by the merchants or the owners of the goods, which are done more for the fitting out and repairing of the ship than for the sake of saving the merchandise’. It was not until the 1780s, however, that there were robust criticisms of the way that GA was routinely carried out. Virgilio Andrea Sgazzi, a failed merchant turned accountant, laid out his views on GA (as well as a great many other topics) in a series of ‘reflections’ which he sent to the governor of Livorno in 1785.
1 Addobbati, Commercio, rischio, guerra, p. 226. Sgazzi considered that the
Consoli were not up to the job of administering GA, and abetted the abuses of shipmasters by agreeing to believe whatever story was put before them. Masters could thus hide routine expenses by pretending that they had been made for the benefit of all. Sgazzi instead suggested that a group of judges should be drawn up on a case-by-case basis, with the judges in question to be specialists in the particular commodities involved.
Sgazzi’s ideas had little immediate impact, but the governor of Livorno did pass on his reflections to the city’s energetic auditor, Francesco Giuseppe Pierallini.
2 Marcella Aglietti, I governatori di Livorno dai Medici all’unità d’Italia (Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2009), pp. 105, 129, 149–5, 157, 160–70. Pierallini’s precise role was in fact that of
auditore consultore, providing advice on political and economic matters.
3 Marcella Aglietti, ‘Il governo di Livorno: profili politici e istituzionali nella seconda metà del Settecento’, in Adriano Prosperi (ed.), Livorno 1606–1806: un luogo dell’incontro tra popoli e culture (Turin: Allemandi, 2009), 95–106, at p. 96. During his tenure he not only effectively appropriated the mediating and consulting role traditionally carried out by the governor himself, but even appropriated a substantial portion of the governor’s archives, moving it into rooms adjoining his own personal apartments.
4 Aglietti, I governatori di Livorno, p. 166. His review of insurance practices was undertaken at the behest of the Tuscan secretary of state in 1785, and Pierallini decided to go to Pisa personally to conduct his investigation into GA procedures at the Consular court.
5 ASL, Governo civile e militare, 977, f. 27r.More insightful and better informed than Sgazzi, Pierallini realised that existing GA procedures suffered from two systematic problems: a problem of transparency and a problem of proof.
6 Addobbati, Commercio, rischio, guerra, p. 226; ASL, Governo civile e militare, 977, ff. 18r–32r. The problem of proof was the one that we have already observed based on the seventeenth-century sea protests. It was often impossible to prove or disprove the master’s version of events, and while the
consolato had to be corroborated by the testimony of witnesses, these were usually members of the crew, who, unsurprisingly, duplicated their master’s testimony.
7 Addobbati, Commercio, rischio, guerra, p. 229. Current Tuscan procedures made matters worse. Although the accident had to be publicised within 24 hours of arrival, the deadline for presenting the
consolato proper was a far more generous three months. By the time the three months had expired, any witnesses who were not members of the crew would no longer be available for cross-examination. The result was that many ordinary expenses might be masked as extraordinary ones. Ascanio Baldasseroni, writing in the same year, was likewise perturbed by this issue. It seemed, he remarked acerbically, that the masters had discovered the secret of the Galley of Salamis, the ship of Theseus which was ‘preserved’ in Athens for more than a thousand years without decaying because all its component parts were continually and surreptitiously replaced: ‘In our times’, meanwhile, ‘such miracles happen only to the detriment of insurers’.
8 Baldasseroni, Delle assicurazioni marittime, vol. 3, p. 15. Indeed, Baldasseroni seems to have taken the issue of fraudulent GA particularly to heart, mentioning its injurious effect on insurers on at least four separate occasions and in particularly strong terms.
9 Baldasseroni, Delle assicurazioni marittime, vol. 1, pp. 212, 266, 269, vol. 2, p. 239.Pierallini thought he had identified a further problem: Sgazzi was indeed correct in supposing that collusion existed and that it favoured the masters, but he was wrong to put the blame squarely at the feet of the
Consoli. Rather it was the attorneys who represented the conflicting interests who were primarily at fault. Since there were only four attorneys dealing with Averages – namely ‘Papanti, Castinelli, Braccini’ and, ‘beginning to involve himself in these sorts of cases, Vannucchi’ – they came into frequent contact with one another, sometimes on one side, sometimes on another.
10 ASL, Governo civile e militare, 977, f. 29v. Furthermore, fees for court officials and attorneys alike were linked to the size of the GA case in question. The master’s attorney would receive a fee of one piece of eight for every 1,000 pieces of passive mass (i.e., the value of all the cargo, half of the ship, and a third of the freight). The chancellor would receive payment at two thirds of this rate. The merchant’s proctor would be paid the same, but only if there had been a deduction in the damages requested by the master; otherwise, he would receive nothing. The fee of the curatore would amount to a quarter of the amount paid to the chancellor and merchant’s attorney. Two officials attached to the Pisan customs house would carry out the eventual calculation
ex officio. For this, they would be paid a flat fee of two pieces. In short, everyone’s fee, apart from the calculators’, was determined by the value of the cargo, ship, and freight of the case in question.
Since the attorneys of the receiving merchants would only receive a fee if they succeeded in getting the GA payment reduced, the other attorneys would help out their colleagues in the knowledge that the shoe would soon be on the other foot.
11 ASL, Governo civile e militare, 977, f. 29v. Thus, according to Pierallini, the attorneys for the shipmaster would agree to deduct a nominal portion of the fees and their colleagues opposite them would agree to waive through the greater part of the damages.
12 Addobbati, Commercio, rischio, guerra, p. 227. A single list of exceptions listing all possible objections pertaining to the awarding of the GA was produced by the attorney of the receiving merchants in order to maintain form.
13 ASL, Governo civile e militare, 977, ff. 27r–28v. The result would be presented to the
Consoli as a happy consensus. This suited the master, who had a lot to lose if he was found liable, and who was therefore deeply invested in the outcome. The receiving merchants on the other hand, whose portion was small and usually covered by insurance, did not have the same incentive to raise objections.
14 Addobbati, Commercio, rischio, guerra, p. 227. According to Pierallini, Livornese merchants, already generally reluctant to attend to disputes and willing to entrust everything to their attorneys, were even less willing to burden themselves as individuals with a ‘communal affair’ like GA.
15 ASL, Governo civile e militare, 977, f. 29r. In any case, in the event of any complaint from the merchant side, the attorneys could always shrug and cite the judgement of the
Consoli: hence a lack of transparency abnegated individual responsibility. Here too, however, procedures could be somewhat improved to partly remedy the situation. Pierallini thus advised that the
Consoli refrain from giving a judgement based on ‘consensus’ unless it was signed by all the interested parties – a change which was in fact enacted.
16 Addobbati, Commercio, rischio, guerra, p. 228.The problem of transparency and the more general problem of coordination between the merchants is therefore a question which we should pose to the evidence of the court records. The final section of this chapter will therefore consider the problem of merchant representation and coordination, especially in light of a superficial reduction in the care paid to safeguarding merchant interests.