Between necessity and virtue. Commerce and merchants in Labyrintho de comercio by Juan de Hevia Bolaños (1617)

Abstract

This article studies one of the best-known legal Spanish treatises of the early modern period, the Labyrintho de comercio terrestre y naval by Juan de Hevia Bolaños (Lima, 1617). In addition to its contribution to commercial law, the treatise approached the reader with a rhetoric rich in images. Hevia Bolaños presents the merchants and other agents of Transatlantic and colonial trade as predominantly moral subjects who would hold a daily battle against the
temptations of greed. This analysis shows how this treatise offered a textual repertoire in which the agents of the Spanish Transoceanic commerce could inscribe themselves as useful and virtuous subjects of the body politic. Ultimately, this study sheds light on how early modern books destined for practical purposes such as this one informed the connections between the global trade networks and the Spanish monarchy.