[698] Auszug der Historie des Allgemeinen und Preussischen See-rechts. Konigsberg, 1747, 4to, p. 32. [699] De Jure Mercatorum et Commerciorum. [700] Entitled, ’T boek der Zee-rechten. Amst. 1664, 4to. [701] The title runs thus: Il consolato del mare, nei quale si comprendono tutti gli statuti et ordini, disposti da gli antichi per ogni cosa di mercantia et di navigare. Leyden, 1704, 4to. [702] In that old treatise, Le Guidon, inserted in Cleirac, it is remarked, chap. i. art. i. that in old times insurances were made without any writings: they were then called _Assecurances en confiance_; Confidential insurances. [M‘Culloch, in his Dictionary of Commerce, art. _Insurance_, observes respecting this passage, that “Beckmann seems to have thought that the practice of insurance originated in Italy, in the latter part of the fifteenth or the early part of the sixteenth century. But the learned Spanish antiquary, Don Antonio de Capmany, has given, in his very valuable publication on the History and Commerce of Barcelona (Memorias Historicas sobre la Marina, &c., de Barcelona, t. ii. p. 383), an ordinance relative to insurance, issued by the magistrates of that city in 1435; whereas the earliest Italian law on the subject is nearly a century later, being dated in 1523. It is however exceedingly unlikely, had insurance been as early practised in Italy as in Catalonia, that the former should have been so much behind the latter in subjecting it to any fixed rules; and it is still more unlikely that the practice should have escaped, as is the case, all mention by any previous Italian writer. We therefore agree entirely in Capmany’s opinion, that until some authentic evidence to the contrary be produced, Barcelona should be regarded as the birth-place of this most useful and beautiful application of the doctrine of chances.” Had M‘Culloch consulted the treatise on Bills of Exchange, given in a subsequent part of the work (vol. iii. p. 430), he would have found that Beckmann, in noticing the curious memoirs of Capmany, with which he had _then_ become acquainted, distinctly mentions “An ordinance of the year 1458 respecting insurance, which required that underwriting should be done in the presence of a notary, and declared _polices o scriptores privades_ to be null and void.”] [703] Versuche über Assecuranzen, etc. Hamb. 1753, 4to. [704] I found nothing on the subject, either in Delia decima--e della Mercatura de’ Fiorentini, fino al secolo xvi. Lisbona e Lucca, 1765, 1766, 4 vols. 4to, which contains a variety of useful information respecting the history of the Florentine trade, or in Mecatti, Storia Chronologica della città di Firenze. In Napoli 1775, 2 vols. 4to. [705] Stracchæ aliorumque Jurisconsultorum de Cambiis, Sponsionibus, &c., Decisiones. Amst. 1669, fol. p. 24. [706] It may be found in Ordonantien ende Placcaeten ghepubliceert Vlaenderen. Antwerp, 1662, fol. i. p. 360.