Abstract

A small but wealthy and powerful group of Italian merchants lived in early sixteenth-century London, representing the international banking and mercantile firms of Genoa, Florence, Venice, Lucca, and other northern Italian city-states. Though favourites at the royal court, with direct access to the ears of the king himself, these Lombards (as the English termed them) were highly unpopular with their English mercantile rivals. London merchants’ hostility drew obviously from the economic competition the Italians posed, but their animosity was cultural as well as commercial. One particular bone of contention was that Italian merchants did not play by English rules regarding sexual relationships: they were accused of seducing the wives and daughters of respectable men. The Italians may have pursued such seductions not simply for sexual gratification but also as a strategy to embarrass and shame their English counterparts. At the same time, it is also clear that there were quite different sexual ethics at work among the English and Italian mercantile elites that signified incompatible reactions to sexual situations.