<p>Cattaneo de Cattaneis, son of Raffaele Cattaneo, was a slaveholder and citizen of Genoa active during the second half of the fifteenth century. He was born sometime before 1441 and belonged to the Ghibelline faction. Over three decades he held a steady succession of public offices within the Genoese Republic and its colonial administration: he served as consul in 1466, <em>anziano </em>in 1470 and again in 1494, <em>sindicatore </em>in 1487 and 1491, and <em>partitore </em>in 1474. His responsibilities extended to key financial and colonial posts, including <em>officiale di Gazaria</em> (1473, 1488), <em>officiale de Camera</em> (1477), <em>officiale di Vittovaglie</em> (1496), and <em>officiale di Sanità</em> (1497), as well as <em>clavigero </em>of both Santa Croce (1466) and the <em>Cattino </em>(1484), demonstrating sustained involvement in fiscal oversight, provisioning, and Black Sea governance.</p>
<p>Alongside his civic career, Cattaneo remained active in the slave and insurance markets that underpinned Genoa’s Mediterranean and Black Sea commerce. In 1471 he acted as guarantor for the sale of an enslaved Tatar woman, Maddalena, by Francesco Cattaneo, and in 1488 he served as procurator for Angelo Cattaneo in the sale of an enslaved Bosnian woman, Margarita. In 1473 he underwrote, for 200 Genoese lire, an insurance policy taken out by his father Raffaele on an enslaved Circassian woman, Maddalena, approximately thirty-two years old and six months pregnant, covering the risk of death in childbirth. These activities reveal his integration of public authority with private commercial practice, particularly in the management of enslaved labor and maritime risk. He was the father of Agostino Cattaneo, who continued the family’s political and economic prominence into the next generation.</p>
