On an Eighteenth-Century Sephardic Trade Manual from Constantinople

Through the gate opened by Hoshev Mahshavot, one of the first books written in Ladino on a non-religious subject, this study will take you to the little-known world of the Constantinople Jewish traders of the early eighteenth century, their international networks, the goods that they sold and bought, the language that they used, the way mathematics and trade were taught… What were the sources of inspiration for this manual? What was the state of knowledge of math and the sciences in Europe and the Ottoman Empire? How much interaction was there between authors of similar books in different communities? While addressing these and other questions, you may be surprised to find out, for example, that math could also be taught by means of anecdotes, refrains, poems; or that trade was considered to be a science related to philosophy, and other interesting facts. You will hopefully enjoy this brief excursion to the past.