Showing posts with label Bardi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bardi. Show all posts

Sunday, September 17, 2023

Giovanni Boccaccio

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 - 1375) was eight years old when Dante died, but he revered the man and wrote a biography about him. He even gave a series of lectures in Florence on Dante's works—a first for a non-Classical Era writer. He was more than just a fan of another, however, becoming a treasured poet in hid own right.

Like Dante, Bocaccio wrote in Tuscan vernacular rather than Latin, and he wrote in prose, telling stories that captured the imagination and inspired others, including Geoffrey Chaucer.

Boccaccio grew up in Florence. His father worked for the banking/trading company of the Bardi; Giovanni worked there for a brief time, deciding that it was not a profession to his liking. His father came head of a branch in Naples, taking the family there, and Giovanni persuaded his father to let him study law at what is now the University of Naples (where Thomas Aquinas had been 100 years earlier). Six years of studying canon law taught him that he liked that profession no more than he liked banking.

Two good things came from his time in Naples. One was his love for Fiametta. That was not her name; simply what he called her in his writings. If she existed, she was really Maria d'Aquino, illegitimate daughter of King Robert the Wise of Naples, whom he saw and with whom he fell in love. He wrote a novel about her, and mentions her in many other writings.

The other good thing from his time in Naples was that he began writing. He produced works such as Il Filostrato, about star-crossed lovers during the Trojan War (which became a source for Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida), and Teseida, nominally about Theseus but dominated by the rivalry of two young knights over a woman (and the source of Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale" in The Canterbury Tales).

He also wrote the first Italian prose novel, Il Filocolo, the story (well-known in Europe) of Florio and Biancifiore, two lovers from different stations in life. Fiametta appears as the "queen" of a "noble brigade" who pose questions to each other about love.

Perhaps his best-known work is the Decameron ("Ten Days"), in which a group of young men and women flee who flee Florence during the Black Death to the hills outside, where they spend ten days telling stories. More on that tomorrow.

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Cosimo de Medici

The Medici family name is known to many casual readers of history. Let's talk about the man who started it all.

Born on 27 September 1389, Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici was described by Edward Gibbon as:
...the father of a line of princes, whose name and age are almost synonymous with the restoration of learning; his credit was ennobled into fame; his riches were dedicated to the service of mankind; he corresponded at once with Cairo and London; and a cargo of Indian spices and Greek books were often imported in the same vessel. [The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]
Cosimo never became pope (like three later Medicis did), but he did rise to prominence in Florence due to his wealth. He operated a powerful bank, using the money this brought him to influence politics and arts. Although he never overtly "ruled" Florence, he was a de facto ruler because politicians functioned according to his whims. The man who later became Pope Pius II said "Political questions are settled in [his] house. The man he chooses holds office... He it is who decides peace and war... He is king in all but name."

His birthday was not his birthday. He was actually born on 10 April. He was born with a twin, called Damiano. His parents named their children after the twin saints Cosmas and Damian. Later, Cosimo would celebrate his birthday on the feast day of those saints, 27 September. (Damiano died shortly after birth.)

In 1410, he made a loan to Baldassare Cossa, who used it to make himself a cardinal. When he later became (the anti-) Pope John XXIII, he repaid Cosimo by making the Medici Bank the official bank of the Vatican. Cosimo used this connection well, until 1415 when John XXIII was deposed. After that, the Medici Bank had to compete with other banks.

In 1415 he married Contessina de' Bardi, a daughter of the family that once controlled the powerful Bardi bank, before its collapse in 1345 (the subject of one of the very first entries in Daily Medieval, and a factor in the novel portrayed on this page to the right). Although their family bank had collapsed, the family was still prominent in Florence. He died on 1 August 1464, at the ripe age of 75, leaving behind a family line that would remain powerful for generations.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

The Art of the Deal

One of the very first posts on this blog years ago was about the collapse of the powerful Florentine banking corporation, the Bardi. One of he reasons often given for that collapse is the default by England's kings on repayment of loans used to fight their wars. The head of the London office for the Bardi was Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, whose job in 1347 was to deal with the results of the Bardi bankruptcy.

Still in (Italian) print!
Pegolotti (who flourished from 1310 to 1347) did something else, however, that would outlast him and the Bardi. He wrote a book, the Pratica della mercatura [Italian: "Mercantile practice"], that was a guidebook for years to come on international trade.

What is so valuable about the book? For a start, it has a glossary of all the terms used at the time in the field of mercantilism and taxes. It also contains a list of the 20 (!) languages it is good to have knowledge of if one wishes to be a successful merchant, everything from English and "Saracen" (Arabic) to several dialects of the Italian peninsula.

It lists several trading routes, everywhere from England to Persia to "Gattaio" (Cathay=China), and the stages one goes through to get to your destination. He also explains the business practices and customs of each of these places, to aid the merchant in successful dealing.

We also learn from Pegolotti what goods were to be had from each country, and where to go to find them. He lists, for instance, many monasteries in England and Scotland as sources of wool. Along with the goods, he explains the local systems of weights and measures, the local currency, and the formulæ needed to convert between them and one's own system.

Among the lists and tables included, we learn an enormous amount of detail about the 14th century:

  • Lengths of cloth
  • Fineness of gold and silver coin
  • Spices and their packing
  • Compound interest tables
  • Valuation of pearls and precious stones
  • Buying and selling grain
  • Shipping
  • Calendar tables
  • Fineness of gold and silver
  • Types and qualities of spices and other trade goods
No original manuscript exists, but the book remained in use, initially for its utility in international trade dealings, and now because of its historical value. The earliest copy we have is from over a century later, in 1472. An 18th century historian included the Pratica in a multi-volume history of Florentine finance. There is a 1936 edition that can still be found.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

International Banking

The Collapse of the 1340s

Florence was the headquarters for some powerful families in the Middle Ages who used their wealth and business acumen (and the stability of the Florentine gold florin) to create the first international banking corporations. Two of the biggest, run by the Bardi and Peruzzi families, collapsed in 1346 and 1343, respectively. The excuse for the collapse is usually given as Edward III of England's default on loans he took to pay for expenses during the Hundred Years War. Estimates put Edward's debts at 900,000 florins to the Bardi and 600,000 to the Peruzzi--an enormous sum in any age.

More recent assessments of the situation, however, spread the blame. Edward's expenses were incurred earlier, and the two banks survived for some years afterward. Also, a third bank, the Acciaiuoli, failed in 1343 without having loaned any money to England. Various Florentine banks also loaned money to finance a war against Castracane of Lucca, and to put down a peasant revolt in Flanders. Also, an uprising in September 1343 in Florence created vast property damage that would have affected the banks (according to the 16th century historian Giovanni Villani).

It is impossible to understand every aspect of the collapse of the 1340s, especially since records such as we expect modern companies to maintain were not kept, and records that were kept did not necessarily survive until today. We do know that, in a world where nations did not maintain careful accounting practices, or have "social safety nets" established, it took very little to create widespread economic turmoil.