Institute for Mediterranean Studies

Aristea Gratsea

Postdoctoral researcher
Centre of Maritime History

Dr Aristea Gratsea studied classics in the Department of Philology of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and specialized in historical analysis of unpublished sources (Ionio University/ Department of History). She compiled her PhD dissertation (The maritime activity of Candia during the 15th and 16th century) in the University of Crete (Department of History and Archaeology) with granted fellowship by the State Scholarships Foundation (IKY). Since 2022 she is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies (FORTH) and a Research Fellow at the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice. Her post-doc research is entitled “Shipping and trade in Venetian Crete; The case study of Curcumeli’s company (16th century)”. The focus is on the organization and structure of Curcumeli’s company in order to draw conclusions about the business strategies of Greeks in the shipping enterprises of early modern period and more precisely about the function of a business company from Venetian Crete. Her research is based on unpublished archival sources of the Archives in Venice (State Archive, the Archive of the Hellenic Institute and the Archive of the Museo Civico Correr). Her research interests mainly concern the maritime economic and social history, the history of trade and shipping institutions, the mercantile networks in the Mediterranean and the practices of accumulating and investing funds during the late Middle Ages and the early modern period.