“Una piccola epitome di Inghilterra”. La comunità inglese a Livorno nel XVII secolo

Stefano Villani in “‘A little epitome of England:’ The English Community of Leghorn in the Years of Ferdinand II: Religious and Political Questions,” begins by describing the “prehistory” of the English community of Livorno since 1570s, he then identifies the turning point of the first phase of the life of this “nation” in the year 1621. In that year, thanks to the formal intervention of King James I, the consul of the English nation was designated by the Levant Company, and not, as previously, by Trinity House. This decision reflects the increased status of Livorno as the major hub for British commerce in the Levant. In this essay the religious and political debate that characterized England during the half-century from 1620s to 1670s is shown to have also dominated the growing mercantile community in Livorno. In March 1667, in an attempt to obtain the Pope’s consent for the presence of a chaplain to the English nation, the English diplomatic representative John Finch wrote (in Italian) to Edward Courtney – rector of the English College in Rome – requesting he use its good offices with the Congregation of the Holy Office. The letter threatened possible retaliation against Catholics in England with Finch describing Livorno as “a small epitome of England” (“piccola epitome d’Inghilterra”). This is perhaps the best definition of the English nation in Livorno that over the years had acted as a microcosom of the divisions and conflicts of the motherland. It was composed of Catholics and Protestants, royalists and parliamentarians, partisans of Charles II and supporters of Cromwell, of members of the Church of England and Nonconformists. The increasing number of British ships in the Mediterranean that stopped at Livorno in the second half of the 1600s brought not only tin and herrings but also Quakers, English Bibles and revolutionary ideas. This lively and conflictual context is the background to the business of the English nation, and this is the first attempt to reconstruct it. If the tolerance theorist Henry Robinson, who lived in Livorno in 1630s, surely elaborated his views drawing on his experiences in Italy, Villani highlights that the long struggle for religious freedom that the English community of Livorno engaged in with the political and religious Tuscan authorities contributed in some measure to creating the unique identity of that city, atypical in the European political landscape because of its composite and multi-ethnic nature