The Puigcerdà family’s trading connections with the Greek Vergis family has
again seen complications, and unfortunately loss of profits due to the corsairs of Malta.1 In 1718, a ship with members of our family and the Vergis merchant family was taken by the Maltese near the island of Tinos in the Aegean. Our Greek friends again tried to explain that they were fellow Christians to the Maltese, but to no avail.2 With the war between the Venetians and Ottomans not yet finished, the Vergis family also claimed that Tinos still belonged to the Venetians. However, the Tribunale degli Armamenti took the opposite view, claiming that the island in fact belonged to the Ottomans. Furthermore, the Tribunale claimed that ships engaging in any sort of trade with the Turks were legitimate targets.3 Thus, the Tribunale would ultimately rule in favor of their corsairs, and our cargo would be lost. This incident has inflicted quite a financial blow on both our family and the Vergis merchants.
1 Molly Greene, Catholic Pirates and Greek Merchants: A Maritime History of the Mediterranean (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010), 38.
2 Greene, 190.
3 Greene, 192.
Experiments in the Past 