Badoer, Giacomo,
Venetian merchant who operated in Constantinople in 1436–40. His account books, kept in double-entry form, are one of the few sources to describe Constantinopolitan commerce in this period. Badoer's books show that this merchant, whose activities were of medium size, had an annual turnover of merchandise valued at approximately 126,000 hyperpyra. They reveal Constantinople as an active trade center functioning primarily as an entrepôt. They illuminate the flow of merchandise (raw materials, wax to the West, silk cloth from the West), the activities of Byz. bankers, and the participation of Byz. merchants in trade. This was large in terms of the number of merchants and sea captains, but small in terms of capital engaged; it is seen also to have been a deficit trade with Western merchants. The account books show that the Byz. who traded with Badoer were engaged primarily in retail trade and were only tangentially concerned with foreign trade. The source has also been used to extrapolate the value of total Venetian trade in Constantinople, the importance of Genoese merchants (seen as paramount), and the types of ships used to transport merchandise.... ...
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