Merchant writers : Florentine memoirs from the Middle Ages and Renaissance
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Merchant writers : Florentine memoirs from the Middle Ages and Renaissance
（The Lorenzo da Ponte Italian library）
University of Toronto Press, c2015
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Mercanti scrittori
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Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The birthplace of Boccaccio, Machiavelli, and the powerful Medici family, Florence was also the first great banking and commercial centre of continental Europe. The city’s middle-class merchants, though lacking the literary virtuosity of its most famous sons, were no less prolific as writers of account books, memoirs, and diaries. Written by ordinary men, these first-hand accounts of commercial life recorded the everyday realities of their businesses, families, and personal lives alongside the high drama of shipwrecks, plagues, and political conspiracies.
Published in Italian in 1986, Vittore Branca’s collection of these accounts established the importance of the genre to the study of Italian society and culture. This new English translation of Merchant Writers includes all the texts from the original Italian edition in their entirety. Moreover, it offers a gripping personal introduction to the mercantile world of medieval and Renaissance Florence.
Table of Contents
Translator’s Note
Introduction
Paolo Da Certaldo – Book of Good Practices
Giovanni di Paolo Morelli - Memoirs
Bonaccorso Pitti - Memoirs
Domenico Lenzi the Grain Merchant – Mirror of Humanity
Donato Velluti - Memoirs
Goro Dati – Secret Book
Francesco Datini – Last Will and Testament
Lapo Di Giovanni Niccolo De’ Sirigatti – Book of Family Affairs
Bernardo Machiavelli – Memoirs
Appendix - Cesare De Michelis - A Portrait of Vittore Branca
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