Transnational migration and entrepreneurship: Archival Research in Antwerp

In the summer of 2023 Felicia spent a week in Antwerp to further investigate the Flemish side of the multinational group of entrepreneurs and migrants from across the early modern Habsburg empire who combined Austrian state support with private, largely Flemish finance and mobile technological expertise notably from Hamburg to set up a vast proto-industrial sugar refinery business in Trieste and Fiume in modern-day Italy and Croatia. (for more on this see Investigating transnationalism and mercantilism in Austria). Many of these materials were preserved after the banker Proli’s bankruptcy and can be found in the Insolvente Boedelskamer in Antwerp’s Felix Archief, a real treasure trove of information.

Felix Archief Antwerpen

However, as many if not more relevant documents pertaining to this enterprise form part of the archives of the Plantin-Moretus family, which, by the eighteenth-century, had transformed their original Humanist printing business into an international merchant-banking enterprise. However, just as Felicia arrived, the Plantin-Moretus Museum’s reading room experienced a technical problem and closed to all visitors. Incredibly kindly, the Museum and Archive staff opened one of the Museum’s rooms and brought the archival materials there for one day, so that Felicia could take pictures of as many of the 13 boxes with hundreds of documents each as her camera and sore arms allowed.

copyright: Plantin-Moretus Museum

 Many, many thanks to Zanna Van Loon, Curator of rare books and manuscripts at the Museum Plantin-Moretus, and Nico De Brabander of the Reading Room for making this possible!

Plantin-Moretus Museum, courtyard.