Only last week, our Prime Minister Mario Draghi, during his intervention at the Verso Sud forum, held in Sorrento to discuss the role of our Southern regions in the future development of Italy, emphasized the importance of the Mediterranean in our economy, and how we should return to focus on it as we used to do throughout our history.

Needless to say, he must have thought about ancient Rome, which was so dearly attached to the Mediterranean to call it mare nostrum, “our sea,” but he certainly also had our Repubbliche Marinare (Maritime Republics) in mind which, during three hundred years, between the 10th and the 13th century, dominated trade across the Mediterranean and brought prosperity to their people.