{"id":7845,"date":"2025-12-16T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/?p=7845"},"modified":"2025-12-15T14:44:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T14:44:46","slug":"will-of-the-month-a-merchant-of-ragusa-and-300-pairs-of-stockings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/2025\/12\/16\/will-of-the-month-a-merchant-of-ragusa-and-300-pairs-of-stockings\/","title":{"rendered":"Will of the Month: A merchant of Ragusa and 300 pairs of stockings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When selecting previous wills to feature in our monthly series, we browsed testator metadata, looking for particular names or locations, or filtering by occupational, social, and marital status. All of this information can be searched for on The National Archives\u2019 Discovery<\/a> catalogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, thanks to the recent completion of our will transcriptions and the development of our database<\/a>, we\u2019re now able to find interesting wills by keyword searching their contents, and by looking for particular objects. As this new project development has coincided with December, we\u2019ve been looking for interesting wills by searching the transcriptions for Christmas-related words. This has included \u2018turkey\u2019, bringing up plenty of \u2018turkey-work\u2019 carpets, \u2018angel\u2019, returning results for the coin, and, one of our most widely-mentioned objects \u2013 stockings. We have also found plenty of testators with Christmassy names, and you can read more about them soon in a forthcoming festive blog post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the search-term \u2018stockings\u2019 that led us to this month\u2019s featured testator, and specifically, an intriguing reference to \u2018Three hundreth payer of Naples Silke stockinges\u2019 in the will of John Lupi, a merchant of Ragusa, whose business took him across Europe, but who died in London in 1604. His detailed will was translated from Italian, and throws light on the life and trade of a foreign Catholic merchant.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A painting of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), 1667. Dubrovnik archives, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Vistaderagusa1667.jpg<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

A \u2018Marchinnte of Ragusa\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ragusa refers not to the city in modern day Sicily, but to the former Republic of Ragusa, the area around Dubrovnik. A powerful maritime republic, there were many Ragusan merchants in London in the sixteenth century, but fewer from the 1590s when Anglo-Ragusan trade began to dwindle.[1]<\/a> Our testator John Lupi,  whose name may also have been rendered as Ivan Vukovic, may have been one of the last Ragusan merchants to have had significant business in England.[2]<\/a> He made his will because he was \u2018sicke of bodye of the Disease of the Stone\u2019, but promised that if it pleased God to \u2018delyver or ease me of this sicknes I will in tyme to come amende my lief and be a better Christian\u2019. He asked that his executor ensure that his business be completed, and that they settle the debts that he owed \u2018aswell here in England as beyonde the Sea\u2019.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lupi wanted all his \u2018Apparrell and Lynnen and the Pictures wc<\/sup>h are myne\u2019 to be delivered to his mother and sister in Ragusa, who would also receive intermittent payments from his investments, designed to be used \u2018for the helpe of theire lyvynge\u2019. He also mentioned, in passing, a daughter, and a \u2018naturall\u2019 or illegitimate son named John, who lived in England, and would receive only one third of the returns on these investments, and only after the deaths of Lupi\u2019s mother and sister. Lupi reflected on the fact that his will would not make everyone happy, but conceded: \u2018yf I had had<\/sup> more monye I woulde have used greater bountifulnes and contented everie one\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018an Image of the moste holye virgin of grace wt<\/sup>h my picture kneelinge\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Antonio Solario, Withypool Triptych, Virgin and Child with Saint Joseph and Donor (triptych, centre panel), 1514. Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives, (Accessed via wikimedia<\/a> commons).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Lupi was a Catholic, and left money for masses to be said in Ragusa for the remission of his sins. He asked that profits from \u2018the Shippe called the Trinitie\u2019 be used towards the making of \u2018a greate square fframe wc<\/sup>h maye serve for an Altar whereuppon he shall cause to be pictured by the handes of Mr John Crittes an Image of the moste holye virgin of grace wt<\/sup>h my picture kneelinge\u2019. This may be a reference to Flemish painter John de Critz, who held the role of \u2018Serjeant Painter\u2019 at the Court of James I.[4]<\/a> He asked that his executor send the altar to \u2018Ragusa to be sett in the Churche of my ladye of grace\u2019. It is unclear whether this altarpiece was actually made, or if and where it survives, although the Church of Our Lady of Mercy in Dubrovnik appears to contain several paintings. From the description of this design, we can infer that it may have been similar to the earlier Withypool Triptych (above) an altarpiece painted by Antonio Solario and commissioned by English merchant Paul Withypool, who, in a similar manner to Lupi\u2019s request, is depicted in the middle of the painting, kneeling before the virgin and child.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This commissioned altarpiece was not the only religious painting mentioned in Lupi\u2019s will – he left the supervisor of his will, Octavio Gerini, \u2018the Picture of our<\/sup> Lorde beinge in my Chamber\u2019. Lupi also made another striking bequest to Gerini: \u2018my Parrett wc<\/sup>h I praye him to accepte for a token of amitie not havinge any thinge to leave him wc<\/sup>h is of worthe in his behalf and to pardon me for godes sake\u2019. Lupi acknowledged that his parrot, which could have been any type of exotic bird, was not a bequest of any value, but it may have been of personal significance, and its bequeathing was a gesture of friendship.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A painting of a domesticated parrot, perhaps similar to the one mentioned in Lupi’s will. Parrot or Ara rouge sur son perchoir, seventeenth century, attributed to Tommaso Salini, File:Exposition Phantasma (Le Voyage \u00e0 Nantes 2014) (14792256749).jpg<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u2018Three hundreth payer of Naples Silke stockinges\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018Three hundreth payer of Naples Silke stockinges\u2019 that first drew our attention to this will made up some of the goods that Lupi was involved in trading. They formed part of the merchandise stored \u2018In the howse of London\u2019, which included \u2018over ffower hundreth payers of Copper or brasse styrropes\u2019, \u2018Three hundreth and threescore Jarres of Spanishe wine\u2019, \u2018ffourtie and fyve peece of Callicoe clothe\u2019 and \u2018Twenty and eighte ordinarie Carpettes and many other Pares come from Venice\u2019. Lupi mentioned several other Venetian, Neapolitan, and Ragusan merchants in his will: he was involved in the large-scale trade of a variety of commodities from across Europe and beyond. It is not clear where or how these supplies of stockings, stirrups, wine jars, calico cloth or carpets would be sold or dispersed from the store in London, but many of these commodities were the types of household goods mentioned in other English wills. Indeed, it is these very types of goods, their arrival in England, and their mention in wills across the country, that we are particularly interested in analysing over the course of this project.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Man’s stockings or boot hose, 1590-1630, English; linen embroidered with green silk thread \u00a0https:\/\/collections.vam.ac.uk\/item\/O78739\/pair-of-stockings-unknown\/<\/a> \u00a9 Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2025<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Lupi\u2019s detailed will is 2800 words long, and provides some fascinating insights into the life of a European merchant who found himself dying far from home. In setting out his wishes he provided details of his final sickness and strong faith, his close connections with other merchants and his home of Ragusa, his illegitimate English son, his parrot, and his commissioning of an altarpiece that contained his likeness. Yet it is his discussion not of his own possessions, but of the stock that he traded which provides the most interesting insight into the life of goods in early modern England: what was being imported, where such things came from and when they arrived. The wills of merchants like Lupi can provide an invaluable glimpse at the type of goods that were present or being traded in early modern England, and the types of objects that were \u2018in demand\u2019 in the English market. As the members of the project team continue to analyse our transcriptions of early modern wills, we hope to continue to explore the stories that originated from Lupi\u2019s inventory of his stock: to trace where similar Naples stockings or Venice carpets may have ended up in England, who owned them and who they were bequeathed to, and what the possession of these foreign commodities might have meant.<\/p>\n\n\n