Micoll

Our conference “Have the Gods Fallen?” may be over, but the discussions, ideas, and friendships that emerged during these days will stay with us for a long time.
This group photo was taken on the beautiful terrace of the German Center for Venetian Studies at Palazzo Barbarigo, which provided a truly extraordinary setting for the opening of the conference.
Our sincere thanks go to Director Richard Erkens and Vice Director Albrecht Cordes for their warm hospitality and generous support.
These have been unforgettable days, filled with stimulating interdisciplinary discussions, new perspectives, and inspiring encounters with colleagues and friends from different countries.
Many more photos and, above all, video content, will be shared soon.

Stay tuned and follow the MICOLL page for updates. The conversation is far from over! 📚🌍✨

The Keynote speech by prof. Albrecht Cordes is already online. Enjoy!

International Conference ERC MICOLL - 1st Day: Keynote speech by Albrecht Cordes at DSZV International Conference ERC MICOLL - 1st Day 17 June 2026: Keynote...

We are delighted to announce the upcoming international conference : “Have the Gods Fallen? An Interdisciplinary Reconsideration of Lex Mercatoria and Commercial Revolution”.

From 17 to 19 June 2026, scholars from legal history, economic history, art history, linguistics, and digital humanities will gather in Venice, at the Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani - DSZV, and on the island of San Servolo, at the Venice International University - VIU, to reassess some of the most influential concepts in the history of European commerce.

The conference aims to revisit longstanding assumptions about lex mercatoria and the so-called Commercial Revolution, exploring the complex interactions between merchants, legal institutions, courts, states, languages and commercial practices from the Middle Ages to the modern period.

Bringing together established scholars and early-career researchers, the event seeks to foster an open and genuinely interdisciplinary discussion on the foundations of commercial law.

MICOLL’s external expert Francesca Fusco is taking part in the XVIII SILFI Congress at the Auditorium Maximum of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, presenting her research on the Italian translation of the 1807 Code de commerce.

A wonderful occasion also to meet again our friend and colleague Matthias Heinz, with whom MICOLL shares many research paths on the circulation of italian terminology across Europe.

https://silfi.org/silfi2026/

The Via Querinissima has officially obtained the prestigious certification as a “Cultural Route of the Council of Europe”, one of the most important European recognitions dedicated to transnational cultural itineraries promoting shared heritage, intercultural dialogue, and cooperation across borders.

The route retraces the extraordinary fifteenth-century journey of the Venetian merchant Pietro Querini, whose shipwreck in the Lofoten Islands created an unexpected bridge between the Mediterranean and Northern Europe. Today, Via Querinissima connects places, archives, museums, landscapes, traditions, and communities across several European countries, transforming a historical voyage into a contemporary project of cultural exchange and shared memory.

The certification confirms the European significance of the initiative and acknowledges years of collaborative work carried out by an international network of institutions, universities, local authorities, and cultural associations. The official diploma award ceremony will take place during the Advisory Forum of the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe, scheduled from 22 to 25 September 2026 in Yerevan, Armenia.

Stefania Gialdroni serves on the Scientific Committee of the Via Querinissima project, contributing her expertise in medieval and early modern commercial law, mobility, and cultural exchanges across Europe.

The recognition resonates strongly with several of MICOLL’s core research themes: the circulation of merchants, legal practices, commercial languages, and cultural models across European spaces and maritime routes between North and South, East and West.

This new certification also confirms the growing importance of cultural routes as laboratories for interdisciplinary research, sustainable tourism, and public engagement capable of connecting academic work with wider European audiences.

On 21 May 2026, Stefania Gialdroni will take part in the presentation of Elena Maccioni’s volume "I tribunali mercantili nei comuni italiani. Giustizia, politica, economia (secoli XII-XV)" (Viella, 2024), hosted by the Università degli Studi di Genova. The event is funded by the ERC project PatriFem, led by prof. Denise Bezzina, who was previously a member of the MICOLL team before launching her own ERC project.

A wonderful example of how ERC projects generate long-lasting collaborations, shared intellectual paths, and new research communities across Europe.