Insurance was, undoubtedly, not known at the time when the later Hanseatic maritime laws were framed, else it would have been mentioned in them. Of these laws there are various editions. One of those most used is that by Kericke, which is inserted also in Heineccii Scriptorum de Jure Nautico et Maritimo Fasciculus. Cleirac has given a French translation of them. As little respecting insurance is to be found in Il Consolato del Mare. These maritime laws, highly worthy of notice, were originally written in the Catalonian dialect; and it seems very probable that they were drawn up at Barcelona. A part of them appears to have been framed in the eleventh, but the greater part in the thirteenth century; for the book itself proves, in more than one place, that they are not all of the same antiquity. The most correct edition is that published at Leyden in 1704[701]. Those writers who have pretended that insurance is mentioned in these Catalonian maritime laws have, perhaps, been led into this error, because, in an appendix to some of the common editions, there is a short account of insurance as once practised at Barcelona. As I have never seen this small treatise, I do not know whether it contains anything respecting the history of it. The oldest laws and regulations concerning insurance, with which I am at present acquainted, are the following. On the 28th of January 1523, five persons appointed for that purpose drew up at Florence some articles which are still employed on the exchange at Leghorn. These important regulations, together with the prescribed form of policies, which may be considered as the oldest[702], have been inserted, in Italian and German, by Magens, in his Treatise on Insurance, Average and Bottomry[703], published at Hamburgh in 1753. I should have been glad to have found in Italian authors some information respecting the antiquity of these regulations[704], a copy of which Magens says he procured from Leghorn; but I have hitherto sought for it in vain. Straccha however mentions a Florentine order of June the 15th, 1526, which forbids common insurance, unless the goods and commodities are specified[705]. There is still preserved a short regulation of the 25th May 1537, by the emperor Charles V., respecting bills of exchange and insurance, in which the strictly fulfilling only of an agreement of insurance is commanded. In 1549 the same emperor issued an express order, “Op ’t faict van der zee-vaerdt,” in which occur some articles respecting insurance[706], and additions were afterwards made to it in 1561. In the year 1556, Philip II., king of Spain, gave to the Spanish merchants certain regulations respecting insurance, which are inserted by Magens, with a German translation, in his work before mentioned. They contain some forms of policies on ships going to the Indies.