Introduction

This essay considers the definition of a social network model by focusing on commercial companies established by Milanese merchants on the Iberian Peninsula from the second half of the sixteenth century onwards, with particular attention of their settlement in Lisbon. In defining the purpose of the study, we examine the merchants' socio-economic profile and the group to which they belonged, studying their origin, their economic rise within their community, their investment strategies and their cooperation through different types of relationships.

In subsequent paragraphs, we analyse how the Milanese merchants' activities developed and how they were structured and progressively integrated within a commercial network which transcended regional and national boundaries. We then provide a descriptive analysis of the commercial and financial activities developed by merchant groups in order to understand better the mechanisms through which they became integrated in different market areas, and also how they adapted to the economic and political changes which characterized the regions in which they established their companies. The analysis focuses on the pepper trade, which represents the main business through which Milanese merchants attained a position of status in the economy of the Iberian Empire and strengthened their ties to the Crown.

Attempts to define an image that might represent social networks have so far usually produced a general ‘sociometric’ concept of network which does not adequately ‘problematize’ social actors, in other words the individual, or agents, who were connected within social networks.