Sugar, Salt, and Mills for the Grand Duke: Dutch Trade and Technological Innovation in Early Seventeenth-Century Livorno

Abstract This article examines the role of Dutch merchants, entrepreneurs, and artisans in the circulation of technological knowledge, skills, and commercial expertise between the Low Countries and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in the early seventeenth century. Focusing on projects promoted under Grand Duke Ferdinando I de’ Medici, it analyses attempts to introduce sugar refining, salt processing, and mill technologies into the port of Livorno. Rather than treating innovation as a simple transfer of techniques from one place to another, the article shows how technological circulation depended on the mobility of skilled actors, the mediation of commercial networks, and the support of political authorities. At the same time, it highlights the fragility of these processes: even under favourable legal and economic conditions, migrant ventures could fail or remain incomplete. By reconstructing the interactions between Dutch entrepreneurs, intermediaries, and Medici officials, the article argues that early modern technological innovation emerged from negotiation, adaptation, and the practical use of embodied expertise in a new environment. In this way, the Livorno case shows both the opportunities and the limits of migrant-driven innovation in the early modern Mediterranean and contributes to a broader understanding of how mobility shaped technological circulation on the ground.