Lodisio Centurione
- Resource class
- Person
- has name
- Lodisio Centurione
- has description
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Lodisio Centurione was a Genoese nobleman, merchant, magistrate, and slaveholder active in the second half of the fifteenth century. He was the son of Barnaba de Columnis (Scotto) sometime before 1421 and was admitted into the Centurione albergo in 1453, adopting the Centurione surname and establishing the Centurione-Scotto branch within Genoa’s governing elite. Already serving as Sindicatore in 1445, he went on to hold repeated terms as Anziano (1455, 1467, 1479), elettore (1457), and Provisor (1481, 1486), as well as major fiscal and maritime offices including Officiale de Banchi (1462), Officiale di Vittovaglie (1463, 1478), Officiale di Moneta (1469), Officiale del Sale and Officiale di Mercanzia (1472), and Officiale del Mare (1482). He also served as deputato per rapresaglie (1466), an ambassador to the pope (1471), and Protettore dell’Ospitale (1486, 1492), aligning with the Ghibelline faction and participating directly in monetary, commercial, and maritime administration.
His commercial activities show his involvement in the slave market that linked Genoa to the Black Sea and western Mediterranean. In February 1456 he participated in the sale of an enslaved Circassian man, Martino (aged about forty), sold by Giacomo de Bargalio to Domingo Albiac of Tortosa; Lodisio received the purchase price in Giacomo’s name, acting as financial intermediary. In May 1456 he served as guarantor for the lease of an enslaved Circassian woman, Lucia (about twenty-one years old), whom Antonio Usodimare had sub-leased to the Catalan merchant Gil Rois. The lease derived from an earlier contract drawn in Caffa in July 1455, under which Lucia had promised five years of service in exchange for eventual freedom.
Through such transactions Lodisio illustrates his activity as a merchant-administrator embedded in credit networks, leasing arrangements for enslaved persons, and cross-Mediterranean commercial exchange. He married Isabella Lomellini and was the father of Agostino Centurione and Argenta Centurione.
- has name from source
- Lodisio Centurione Scotti
- Luiggi olim Scotto… quondam Bernaba
- Luiggi [Centurione] olim Scotto quondam Bernabe
- has patrilineal name
- Lodisio Centurione q. Barnaba de Columnis
- has gender
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male
- has regional provenance
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citizen of Genoa
- has social category
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nobiles
- has earliest known date of activity
- December 24, 1420
- has latest known date of activity
- January 1, 1492
- has parent
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Barnaba de Columnis
- has spouse
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Isabella Lomellini