Jovo Kurtović

Jovan "Jovo" Kurtović and/or Giovanni Curtovich (Začula, Bosnia and Hercegovina, 1718 - Trieste, Kingdom of Italy, 12 August 1809) was a Serbian shipping magnate in the eighteenth century who lived and worked in Trieste.[1]He is credited, together with Johann I. de Verpoorten, a Flemish merchant, for establishing maritime trade with the United States of America, not long after the British surrender.[2] He became one of the most famous shipping tycoons of his time with several homes to his name and a fleet of merchant ships which sailed the seven seas.[3][4]

Biography

Jovo Kurtović was already a prominent merchant in Trebinje, Hercegovina before he came to settle indefinitely in Trieste in 1737. Shortly after arriving in Trieste, he soon brought three of his brothers over from Hercegovina getting one to set up a branch of the business in western Turkey at Smyrna, the other in Amsterdam and the third one in Vienna, and Prague.[5] [6]They were in a way Jovo's trading ambassadors, through whom, for a short while, they gained a lot of wealth with more of their shops appearing around town and several residential buildings.[7]

Giacomo Casanova was commissioned by the Venetian government to investigate and report on Kurtović's economic progress in Trieste. To what extent Casanova's report was positive or negative rests on the reputation of its author?[8][9]

In 1782 Kurtović sent a ship from Trieste to Philadelphia, then America's largest port. The Kurtović vessel was one of the first to begin to trade with the new republic which then was only a year old, and the ship was a sensation for Philadelphians who never received a foreign vessel like it before.[2]

Jovo Kurtović who lived to the age of 91 and died in Trieste, then part of the Napoleonic empire, in 1809,[10]was kum (godparent) to numerous Serbs of Trieste: Cvetko Jovanović, Antonia Kvekić, Josif Miletić, Jovan Nikolić, Dimitrije Rajović, Stefan Riznić, Dragutin Teodorović, and Petar Teodorović.[6]

Jovo was the first Serbian president of the Greco-Illyrian (Serbian) Saint Spyridon Church parish, and benefator of the two communities[11]and one of the founding fathers of commercial trade in Trieste.[12]Although he was married three times and had many children, none survived him. He bequeathed his wealth to his nephew Maksim Kurtović while he was still alive.[1]

See also

References
  1. Pavlowitch, Stevan K. (June 1961). "History of the Serbian Orthodox Church community of Trieste". The Slavonic and East European Review. 39: 541–544.
  2. Medaković, Dejan; Milošević, Đorđe (July 26, 1987). Serbs in the history of Trieste. Jugoslovenska revija. ISBN 9788674130056 – via Google Books.
  3. https://www.telegraf.rs/zanimljivosti/zabavnik/2979662-kad-je-trst-bio-nas-evo-koje-srpske-porodice-su-zivele-u-ovom-gradu-i-to-u-najlepsim-vilama-foto
  4. http://slobodnahercegovina.com/galerija-znamenitih-hercegovaca-jovan-kurtovic-jedan-od-dobrotvora-crkve-svetog-spiridona-u-trstu/
  5. Bosetti, Gilbert (2006). De Trieste à Dubrovnik: Une ligne de fracture de l'Europe. ISBN 9782843100802.
  6. studio, Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica F. Datini Settimana di (July 26, 2009). Economic role of the family in the European economy from the 13th to the 18th centuries. Firenze University Press. ISBN 9788884539106 – via Google Books.
  7. Bosetti, Gilbert (July 26, 2006). De Trieste à Dubrovnik: une ligne de fracture de l'Europe. ELLUG. ISBN 9782843100802 – via Google Books.
  8. Medaković, Dejan; Milošević, Đorđe (July 26, 1987). Serbs in the history of Trieste. Jugoslovenska revija. ISBN 9788674130056 – via Google Books.
  9. Eeckaute-Bardery, Denise (July 26, 2000). Les oubliés des Balkans: comptes rendus, suppléments. Publications Langues'O. ISBN 9782858311040 – via Google Books.
  10. Medaković, Dejan; Milošević, Đorđe (July 26, 1987). Serbs in the history of Trieste. Jugoslovenska revija. ISBN 9788674130056 – via Google Books.
  11. Eeckaute-Bardery, Denise (July 26, 2000). Les oubliés des Balkans: comptes rendus, suppléments. Publications Langues'O. ISBN 9782858311040 – via Google Books.
  12. Codignola, Luca (July 26, 2019). Blurred Nationalities across the North Atlantic: Traders, Priests, and Their Kin Travelling between North America and the Italian Peninsula, 1763–1846. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781487504564 – via Google Books.
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