Dr Maja Perić Investigates Historical Correspondence in Antwerp and Brussels

At the end of June, Senior Assistant Dr Maja Perić conducted her first field research as part of her project work, spending time in Belgium. There, she visited three different archives that hold extensive correspondence from Antwerp entrepreneurs who were involved in the operations of the Rijeka sugar refinery and the associated company.

Her first visit was to the reading room of the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp (Leeszaal Museum Plantin-Moretus). The Plantin-Moretus family, renowned during the early modern period for their printing press (now a UNESCO World Heritage site), also played a significant role in investments connected to the founding of the sugar refinery and the Company in Rijeka and Trieste. The archival material stored in the museum’s reading room includes more than a thousand letters exchanged between key figures in Rijeka and Antwerp during the mid-18th century.

She also visited the Felixarchief in Antwerp, which holds a collection of boxes containing correspondence from the De Proli family archive. The De Proli family played a prominent role in negotiations with the Viennese court and other relevant institutions regarding the Company’s establishment. In addition to letters, the boxes contain numerous accounts, calculations, and several official documents and directives issued by the city of Antwerp in the 18th century concerning shares and the Company’s founding.

Finally, Dr Perić visited the Belgian State Archives in Brussels (Algemeen Rijksarchief), where she found records of negotiations between Aldegonde de Proli and Vienna concerning the organisation of the Company’s founding process.

The photographed correspondence will offer better insight into how the circulation of Enlightenment ideas functioned as a transnational phenomenon and how, among other things, the Viennese court ensured that the expertise of Flemish merchants could be applied to other parts of the vast Habsburg Monarchy, particularly in Rijeka.