What is a free port? The shaping of the concept in dictionaries, edicts and governance

What is a free port? ‘It is a maritime city that grants duty-free status on all goods it imports, whatever their origin’. This chapter discusses the nearly five centuries of history leading up to these apparently sterile definitions and highlights how free ports have been at the centre not only of economic debates but also of political and moral ones. Discussions on the topic of free ports created a pre-ideological discursive structure around freedom and trade in the sixteenth-century Mediterranean that influenced later practical developments and thought concerning commercial and political institutions. By analysing both legal-administrative and intellectual sources, this chapter highlights the communicative nature of these media as they shaped positive and negative images of the free port. From the very first edicts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, formal declarations also had a promotional role. To ensure the success of a free port, it was not enough to build new infrastructure or to reduce duties. It was also necessary to project an image of security and prosperity. The free port, from the beginning, was as much a tangible political-economic institution as it was a powerful intangible symbol.