Giuseppe Pasquale Ricci (died 1791) was a leading figure in late-18th-century

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...

, at the time a free port within the Habsburg Empire. Ricci came from a merchant family from

Livorno Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 158,493 residents in December 2017. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn (pronou ...

, and probably came to Trieste initially as a merchant, in the early 1750s. He married Marianna Grossel, daughter of a merchant from

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the ar ...

, in 1754. He quickly developed a network of contacts and forsook business for a career as a government official. By 1761, Ricci was Commerce Councilor of the Intendancy (Trieste's ''de facto'' government), in which capacity he recommended in a report to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

that

Greeks The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...

and Jews should be invited to the city to develop its commerce, on the strength of those groups' reputations as merchants. In 1763 he proposed a commission to study manufacturing and factories on the Habsburg littoral; he was appointed head of the commission, serving from 1763 to 1776. He held a number of other posts in the Trieste administration as well, among them: government delegate to the non- Uniate Greek community, president of the tribunal of the mercantile exchange, president of the police commission, provisional health magistrate, and interim governor. He was

ennobled Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy (class), aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below Royal family, royalty. Nobility has often been an Estates of the realm, estate of the realm with many e ...

in 1776, and made patrician by the Trieste city council in 1779. He died in Trieste in 1791.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ricci, Giuseppe Pasquale 1791 deaths Politicians from Trieste Year of birth unknown People from Livorno 18th-century Italian businesspeople