ABSTRACT
The revival of interest in the research and study of the ,Genoese guilds in recent years has focused on a series of important factors. Among these are the work on the statutes of the individual guilds, which favoured the institutional structure; 1 the collective research on notarial apprenticeship contracts, in order to reconstruct the different professional characteristics and the presence of possible 'craftsman careers';2 the examination of registrations to discover whether or not family monopolies existed,3 and the analysis of the individual economic sectors in order to discover the relationships between the world of work and the holders of capital.4
