Merchants’ Routes 2.0: From Archives to the Web – 4th MICOLL Workshop

What: 4th International Workshop of the ERC CoG MICOLL: “Merchants’ Routes 2.0. From Archives to the Web”.

Where: Genoa State Archives (Piazza Santa Maria in Via Lata, 7) and Società Ligure di Storia Patria (Palazzo Ducale, Piazza Giacomo Matteotti, 5, Genoa)

When: 22 and 23 January 2026

We are thrilled to announce the upcoming 4th International Workshop of the ERC MICOLL project, titled “Merchants’ Routes 2.0. From Archives to the Web”.

Scheduled for January 22-23, 2026 in Genoa, this event represents a pivotal moment of reflection for our project. It serves as a bridge between the tangible history preserved in archives and the digital future of historical research, focusing on the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period.

This workshop is not only a milestone for MICOLL but also features the participation of the team from the IUSTITIAM project (Justitia Mercatoria. Places, Spaces and Iconographies of Mercantile Justice in Europe), funded by the Italian Ministry of Education and Research (MUR). Together, we will explore how commercial law, language, history and geography intertwine.

The workshop will be hosted in two incredibly significant locations for maritime and commercial history:

Thursday, January 22: The Archivio di Stato di Genova, surrounded by the very documents that narrate the history of Mediterranean trade.
Friday, January 23: The Società Ligure di Storia Patria at the magnificent Palazzo Ducale.

This workshop is designed to be deeply interdisciplinary, fostering a dialogue between historians, jurists, archivists, and digital humanities experts.

We are honored to host the Directors and representatives of the archives from the four key cities of the MICOLL project: