Page 99 - Mellinato, Giulio, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime Port Cities: The Northern Adriaticin a Comparative Perspective. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 99
The Free Port Debate: Economic Policies, International Equilibria and Mythologies ...
free port began. These project, however, had been stopped by the upris-
ings of 1820–1821. Afan de Rivera proposed the creation of a free port in
Nisida, to be placed side by side with a series of storage warehouses in
Pozzuoli and a lazeret in Capo Miseno. A strong emphasis – as in Gioia’s
thought – was placed on the importance of the free port as an institu-
tion capable of promoting both development and state control over mat-
ters such as public health and epidemics. However, Afan de Rivera’s pro-
posal on free ports aroused many critical responses between 1833 and
1836, of which the most significant were those by Lodovico Bianchini,
Mario Luigi Rotondo, and Matteo de Augustinis (Di Salvia 2000, 87–114).
De Augustinis (1833, 11) acknowledged Gioia and Sismondi as the theore-
ticians of the modern concept of the free port. At the same time, he at-
tributed the political paternity ‘to the prestige of two great authorities,
Colbert and Napoleon’ (Augustinis 1836, 238). In conclusion, however, he
condemned free ports as protectionist and monopolistic measures. In his
reasoning, there were only two specific cases in which the establishment
of a free port could be a positive measure. The first case was when the na-
tion suffered a serious natural disaster and could therefore exceptional-
ly resort to the free port, although, according to Augustinis, the very ex-
ample of Messina, declared a free port in 1728 and then again in 1783 after
the earthquake, had not been particularly successful. The second excep-
tion was when a nation was in conditions of backwardness and scarcity of
population; then the free port could become an engine for not only eco-
nomic, but also cultural development: such had been the case of Odessa.
According to Augustinis, Naples in the 1830s was not in either of the two
situations: the free port, therefore, was not the solution to be adopted for
reviving the kingdom’s economy.
However, the positive image of the free port as spring of develop-
ment not only for the economy, but also for the society and the urban fab-
ric, largely persisted and continued to be an important element in the po-
litical and economic debates. The prospective of establishing a free port
remained a sort of recipe for revitalize cities in crisis. Only later, in the
changed climate of the 1860s, free ports come widely under attack: for in-
stance, inside the Italian public discourse, even Trieste would have been
seen in a quite different light. It transitioned from the paradigm of the
successful and thriving city to a model not to be imitated. Within the
Risorgimento context, it became the symbol of ‘a politically despotic or
economically ill-advised government’ itself (Boccardo 1861, 4:127; Biundi
99
free port began. These project, however, had been stopped by the upris-
ings of 1820–1821. Afan de Rivera proposed the creation of a free port in
Nisida, to be placed side by side with a series of storage warehouses in
Pozzuoli and a lazeret in Capo Miseno. A strong emphasis – as in Gioia’s
thought – was placed on the importance of the free port as an institu-
tion capable of promoting both development and state control over mat-
ters such as public health and epidemics. However, Afan de Rivera’s pro-
posal on free ports aroused many critical responses between 1833 and
1836, of which the most significant were those by Lodovico Bianchini,
Mario Luigi Rotondo, and Matteo de Augustinis (Di Salvia 2000, 87–114).
De Augustinis (1833, 11) acknowledged Gioia and Sismondi as the theore-
ticians of the modern concept of the free port. At the same time, he at-
tributed the political paternity ‘to the prestige of two great authorities,
Colbert and Napoleon’ (Augustinis 1836, 238). In conclusion, however, he
condemned free ports as protectionist and monopolistic measures. In his
reasoning, there were only two specific cases in which the establishment
of a free port could be a positive measure. The first case was when the na-
tion suffered a serious natural disaster and could therefore exceptional-
ly resort to the free port, although, according to Augustinis, the very ex-
ample of Messina, declared a free port in 1728 and then again in 1783 after
the earthquake, had not been particularly successful. The second excep-
tion was when a nation was in conditions of backwardness and scarcity of
population; then the free port could become an engine for not only eco-
nomic, but also cultural development: such had been the case of Odessa.
According to Augustinis, Naples in the 1830s was not in either of the two
situations: the free port, therefore, was not the solution to be adopted for
reviving the kingdom’s economy.
However, the positive image of the free port as spring of develop-
ment not only for the economy, but also for the society and the urban fab-
ric, largely persisted and continued to be an important element in the po-
litical and economic debates. The prospective of establishing a free port
remained a sort of recipe for revitalize cities in crisis. Only later, in the
changed climate of the 1860s, free ports come widely under attack: for in-
stance, inside the Italian public discourse, even Trieste would have been
seen in a quite different light. It transitioned from the paradigm of the
successful and thriving city to a model not to be imitated. Within the
Risorgimento context, it became the symbol of ‘a politically despotic or
economically ill-advised government’ itself (Boccardo 1861, 4:127; Biundi
99
