ABSTRACT
The etymology of the word risk is uncertain, but we know where, when, and under which circumstances it was coined. When entering the new trade routes, which the crusades had opened all over the Mediterranean, merchants encountered a formidable obstacle in the biblical and canonical ban on usury. Implicitly arguing that theirs was a special case, which entitled them to take interest on maritime loans, they coined the neologism risk for the dangers to which their ships were exposed at sea. Italian poets transferred the word to their own special case, the risk of encountering death in the beloved lady’s gaze, and French and English lexicographers transported it up North, but it did not reach Shakespeare, who, like Lloyd’s International, still speaks of perils, and ventures, not of risks. A turning point is the work of John Locke. After having fathomed the term within the context of finance he gives it a theological spin by claiming that there is no risk involved if we assume that human reason and divine revelation are one and the same. Following Bernoulli’s proof that probability calculus can be used to predict the future risk turns out to be calculable. Reason takes the place of divine providence.
