Note su Francesco Terriesi (1635-1715). Mercante, diplomatico e funzionario mediceo tra Londra e Livorno

[Notes on Francesco Terriesi (1635-1715). Merchant, diplomatic and civil servant of the Medici between London and Leghorn]. The article reconstructs for the first time the biography of Francesco Terriesi, whose diplomatic newsletters from London were often used as a source for reconstructing the history of the Catholic restoration of James II and the Glorious Revolution. Presumably Francesco Terriesi moved to London around the spring of 1668, most likely to promote a project of the Grand Duke of Tuscany to set up in the English capital a Florentine silk trading house. Between 1670 and 1679 Terriesi was frequently employed to carry out sensitive tasks for the Medici court, obviating the inability always shown by the official Tuscan diplomatic representative Giovanni Salvetti Antelminelli to meet demands that went beyond the handling of ordinary administration. Terriesi was asked to perform tasks that could be defined in modern terms, with an anachronism, those of a cultural attaché. It was chiefly through him that famous intellectuals such as Henry Neville, the mathematician Samuel Morland and the diplomat and historian William Temple maintained close ties with the Grand Ducal court of Florence. Terriesi was frequently commissioned by the Grand Duke to buy English books, and he himself pointed out in Florence the most interesting things published in England. It was through him that Neville’s English translation of Machiavelli and several books of John Milton arrived in Italy along with controversial religious works in English, dictionaries, and antiquarian works, among others. He was regularly commissioned by the Grand Duke to purchase medals, paintings, and maintain contact with artists such as Samuel Cooper and Richard Gibson. Demonstrating the trust he was vested with it was through him that presents and gifts were delivered to court figures. Since 1670 Terriesi was also tasked with providing Florence with regular information on “public affairs” to enrich the insipid weekly newsletters sent by the official resident Giovanni Salvetti Antelminelli. After being away from England for over a year in October 1678 Terriesi was formally accredited in London as an agent eventually taking over Salvetti Antelminelli’s diplomatic functions. From 23 February 1680 he also replaced him the informer to the State Secretariat of Florence. On the well established model for the Tuscan diplomats in England, he started sending a weekly newsletter, written impersonally and unsigned always accompanied by a short cover letter addressed directly to the First Secretary of State, Francesco Panciatichi, usually consisting of a few lines of concise service communications. After the Glorious Revolution, Tuscany decided to proceed with only an informal recognition of the new regime. It was clearly a compromise and Terriesi’s situation became very precarious. He asked permission to return to Italy and sent his last dispatch from London on 13 March 1691. Significantly, in February 1695, less than four years after his return to Tuscany, Terriesi was appointed Customs Supervisor (provveditore della dogana) of Livorno. In his new function Terriesi was able to capitalize on the knowledge gained over many years in London; it was not coincidental that someone with twenty years of experience in England was chosen for this position The port of Livorno was the central node for the English trade in the Levant with a thriving and vibrant British community that dated to the end of the 1500s. A superintendent of customs who could interact without intermediaries with the merchants of the British Factory of Livorno and the captains of the British ships calling at the port was clearly a plus. In accordance with his testament Francesco Terriesi was buried in the church of San Ferdinando at Livorno. The church was built to house the barefooted Trinitarian Fathers della Crocetta, a religious order dedicated to the redemption of Christian captives of the Turks, active in Livorno in the second half of 1600s. The article, which also describes Terriesi’s relationship with Gregorio Leti, highlights how to interpret the cultural, political and economic relations between England and Italy in the seventeenth century. In this context it is essential to investigate the role of such mediating figures as Terriesi who shows how in Baroque Italy, in the mercantile milieu, there functioned intellectuals attentive to European cultural and political novelties, often overlooked by the professional “intellectuals.”