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The Economy of Renaissance Florence
Richard A. Goldthwaite, a leading economic historian of the Italian Renaissance, has spent his career studying the Florentine economy. In this magisterial work, Goldthwaite brings together a lifetime of research and insight on the subject, clarifying and explaining the complex workings of Florence’s commercial, banking, and artisan sectors. Florence was one of the most industrialized cities in medieval Europe, thanks to its thriving textile industries. The importation of raw materials and the exportation of finished cloth necessitated the creation of commercial and banking practices that extended far beyond Florence’s boundaries. Part I situates Florence within this wider international context and describes the commercial and banking networks through which the city's merchant-bankers operated. Part II focuses on the urban economy of Florence itself, including various industries, merchants, artisans, and investors. It also evaluates the role of government in the economy, the relationship of the urban economy to the region, and the distribution of wealth throughout the society. While political, social, and cultural histories of Florence abound, none focuses solely on the economic history of the city. The Economy of Renaissance Florence offers both a systematic description of the city's major economic activities and a comprehensive overview of its economic development from the late Middle Ages through the Renaissance to 1600.
672 pages, Hardcover
First published December 19, 2008
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December 25, 2015This is one of the most fascinating and enlightening books on Renaissance Florence, and yet I can't recommend it because it is also one of the most turgid books I've ever read on a sentence to sentence level. It's full of information that I was excited to access, written in sentences so convoluted you have to take a minute to figure out what he means. This isn't me being stymied by academic prose -- this is bad even for academic prose. I was reading a lot of Renaissance Latin at the same time I was reading this, and found myself considering at one point that it would be doing the world a service if I were to translate this into Latin, because it would be easier to read. There's no logical reason why economists always write so badly.
This is a great book full of information nobody has pulled together before, painstakingly gathered up from doctoral dissertations and ledgers and archives. Did you know eyeglasses -- not made to prescription, but in various grades, so you'd try them out -- were first mentioned in Florence in 1306? And that by 1400 they cost 2 solidi each, when an unskilled construction worker earned 8 solidi a day, so they were proportionately less expensive than now. Also, the wool industry employed masses of skilled craftsmen, and they were men, working on piecework, but the silk industry employed mostly women and children, many of them nuns or orphans. Oh, and Florence had over 80% and probably close to 100% literacy, as proved by the ledgers and accounts and tax returns and current accounts with banks. And because the Guild system was politicized in the way it was, it didn't actually act in the way guilds traditionally do, and that's why so much could cross-pollinate and people could be artists and architects and sculptors. I'd not have thought of comparing the invention of double-entry book-keeping to the invention of perspective either.
Terrific book. But even though I really wanted the content, I've been reading it in small chunks since the summer, because I found the prose so hard to get through.
This is a great book full of information nobody has pulled together before, painstakingly gathered up from doctoral dissertations and ledgers and archives. Did you know eyeglasses -- not made to prescription, but in various grades, so you'd try them out -- were first mentioned in Florence in 1306? And that by 1400 they cost 2 solidi each, when an unskilled construction worker earned 8 solidi a day, so they were proportionately less expensive than now. Also, the wool industry employed masses of skilled craftsmen, and they were men, working on piecework, but the silk industry employed mostly women and children, many of them nuns or orphans. Oh, and Florence had over 80% and probably close to 100% literacy, as proved by the ledgers and accounts and tax returns and current accounts with banks. And because the Guild system was politicized in the way it was, it didn't actually act in the way guilds traditionally do, and that's why so much could cross-pollinate and people could be artists and architects and sculptors. I'd not have thought of comparing the invention of double-entry book-keeping to the invention of perspective either.
Terrific book. But even though I really wanted the content, I've been reading it in small chunks since the summer, because I found the prose so hard to get through.
November 10, 2018
This is a truly outstanding work though, it must be said, it is not for everyone. If you are after an extraordinarily detailed explication and analysis of how the economy of Renaissance Florence developed, worked, created and integrated with the international markets of its day, and how the various groups within Florence worked and fought with each other and how wealth was accumulated and distributed this is the book for you. If you want this done with minimal recourse to exacting detail and some financial jargon, it may not be.
In either case, the book is yet another example of the kind of truism "There is nothing new in the world, only history that you don't know." The Florentine economy developed very much like that of Japan post the Meiji Restoration, and even moreso like postwar Japan. Tuscany, by the time of the Renaissance, had been one of the most urbanized regions in the world for over a thousand years. As a result, most of the natural resources of the region had been depleted. But the Arno river ran swiftly where Florence was, and her people were relatively free and thus industrious. What's more they were fecund, and so from very early on Tuscany had to import food.
Importing food of course required that the Florentines export something in turn and so they put their river and their people to work spinning wool and silk and soon ran out of the raw materials of these as well and had to import them as well. At the same time, Florence was land locked and had no access to the sea, so its relationships were purely commercial, like that of post-war Japan, not imperial, that of post-restoration Japan. It also led to the creation of the extremely sophisticated Florentine banking system.
The world knows the Florentine bankers because of the Medici and the art which they financed but the medici were simply first among equals within the Florentine banking community which broke down into two interlocking but not overlapping groups, domestic banks and international merchant banks. The international merchant banks are the more interesting of the two from the perspective of financial history because they, almost by accident, invented the certificate of deposit. Merchant banks borrowed and lent money and facilitated its transfer abroad. Since the Florentines were constantly importing food and raw materials and exporting finished goods they were constantly creating debits and credits throughout the Mediterranean and Northern Europe, the main areas in which they traded.
The travelers check, which someone in Florence might bring to a branch of a Florentine bank operating in say Bruges the center of the Northern wool trade (until the imposition of tariffs moved the business to Antwerp *hint hint contemporary readers*) a record of a credit balance in Florence and draw on it in Bruges. The travel times between these places were known and the currency of Florence, was known to be solid relative to other currencies so there would be some depreciation added in for the change in currencies over time. Meaning that the note would change in value minutely over time. Well... what if one credited a Florentine bank, and then just never left Florence, and then when the three months were over, turned up at the original branch, and redeemed it? Well, one now has a savings device that is interest bearing and transferrable. The bond has been invented.
The other thing that comes across in the book is how these kinds of financial innovations spread throughout the society and even the simplest tradesmen were often found to be using extremely sophisticated financial instruments for the time. There are also many amusing details from the quotidian lives of the famous. Here is Dante's father buying some goats using a journal entry at a pawnbroker, here is Michaelangelo making a deposit in his account at the local orhpanage which, because charitable institutions had exemptions from usury laws, also functioned as a bank.
All in all, it's amazing to read about real estate enterprises organized like We-works for wool spinners, how some men worked their way up from tradesmen to merchant princes and others squandered themselves in the other direction. The one jarring difference is that, in the absence of a consumer society, people put a lot of premium on their leisure time and very few people finished out their labor contracts, a source of constant consternation to the capitalists of the day, but perhaps a lesson to capitalists and laborers in our own.
In either case, the book is yet another example of the kind of truism "There is nothing new in the world, only history that you don't know." The Florentine economy developed very much like that of Japan post the Meiji Restoration, and even moreso like postwar Japan. Tuscany, by the time of the Renaissance, had been one of the most urbanized regions in the world for over a thousand years. As a result, most of the natural resources of the region had been depleted. But the Arno river ran swiftly where Florence was, and her people were relatively free and thus industrious. What's more they were fecund, and so from very early on Tuscany had to import food.
Importing food of course required that the Florentines export something in turn and so they put their river and their people to work spinning wool and silk and soon ran out of the raw materials of these as well and had to import them as well. At the same time, Florence was land locked and had no access to the sea, so its relationships were purely commercial, like that of post-war Japan, not imperial, that of post-restoration Japan. It also led to the creation of the extremely sophisticated Florentine banking system.
The world knows the Florentine bankers because of the Medici and the art which they financed but the medici were simply first among equals within the Florentine banking community which broke down into two interlocking but not overlapping groups, domestic banks and international merchant banks. The international merchant banks are the more interesting of the two from the perspective of financial history because they, almost by accident, invented the certificate of deposit. Merchant banks borrowed and lent money and facilitated its transfer abroad. Since the Florentines were constantly importing food and raw materials and exporting finished goods they were constantly creating debits and credits throughout the Mediterranean and Northern Europe, the main areas in which they traded.
The travelers check, which someone in Florence might bring to a branch of a Florentine bank operating in say Bruges the center of the Northern wool trade (until the imposition of tariffs moved the business to Antwerp *hint hint contemporary readers*) a record of a credit balance in Florence and draw on it in Bruges. The travel times between these places were known and the currency of Florence, was known to be solid relative to other currencies so there would be some depreciation added in for the change in currencies over time. Meaning that the note would change in value minutely over time. Well... what if one credited a Florentine bank, and then just never left Florence, and then when the three months were over, turned up at the original branch, and redeemed it? Well, one now has a savings device that is interest bearing and transferrable. The bond has been invented.
The other thing that comes across in the book is how these kinds of financial innovations spread throughout the society and even the simplest tradesmen were often found to be using extremely sophisticated financial instruments for the time. There are also many amusing details from the quotidian lives of the famous. Here is Dante's father buying some goats using a journal entry at a pawnbroker, here is Michaelangelo making a deposit in his account at the local orhpanage which, because charitable institutions had exemptions from usury laws, also functioned as a bank.
All in all, it's amazing to read about real estate enterprises organized like We-works for wool spinners, how some men worked their way up from tradesmen to merchant princes and others squandered themselves in the other direction. The one jarring difference is that, in the absence of a consumer society, people put a lot of premium on their leisure time and very few people finished out their labor contracts, a source of constant consternation to the capitalists of the day, but perhaps a lesson to capitalists and laborers in our own.
March 20, 2024
More of a collection of extremely detailed research papers on different facets constituting the florentine medieval economy: from trade and buildout of the trade routes in cooperation with maritime republics and city-states - to the formation of banking and payment network - and the audit function of accounting and book-keeping.
Full of anecdotes about serendipitous connections between merchant-turned-bankers and projects they funded.
Full of anecdotes about serendipitous connections between merchant-turned-bankers and projects they funded.
August 7, 2020
Masterful.
May 13, 2025
This is a masterpiece. The author elegantly incorporates historical evidence for analysis on topics as varied as textiles, banking, taxation, art, and so much more. It’s detailed, but doesn’t feel tiresome. It’s dynamic, it’s fascinating, and it’s a portal to the past. I adored it.
April 1, 2016
This is a detailed and thorough economic history of Florence from its rise to prominence in the twelfth century up through the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century. The book was challenging to read and this is not surprising, given what the author was setting out to accomplish. Florence has long been seen as one of the central cities in the emergence of capitalism in Renaissance Italy and in Europe more generally. This centrality is apparent in the importance of the Medici Family both in the governance of Florence at the time as well as in the rise of global finance within the emerging European state system. The difficulty with the extensive literature on Florence's economy is that while there is lots of research on particular individuals, cities, and crafts, but relatively little research on how everything over this period of four centuries fit together into a European economy - or even an Italian economy. The problem has been one of both data and focus. The data available about the importance of Florence has been abundant but has not facilitated an integration across regions, trades, kingdoms, and the like to produce an overall perspective on the emergence of capitalism.
This is what Professor Goldthwaite sets out to address. He wants to account for the rise of Florence as the leader among Tuscan cities. He wants to account for how the Florentine economy worked. What were the key importing businesses? What did Florence export? How was the economy and trade financed? What did the broader trading network look like? ... So far so good, right? But then it is also necessary to show how the economy of Florence and its broader trading networks evolved and changed over the four centuries he is interested in. What happened to agriculture? What industries developed into world class competitors (wool, silk, finance). How did Florence's competitors change over time? How did the directions of trade change over time? ....and finally, how was all of this influenced by the emergence of the European state system in the period leading up to the Thirty Years War in the seventeenth century? Every part of this agenda is a rich detailed story that is well told and linked into the broader narrative.
The book is well written and meticulously documented, but is hard to zoom through. It is akin to the detailed class notes for an advanced course on early modern economic history. The economics is not scary, however. In the tension between economics and history, this is clearly history wisely informed by economics. The style is scholarly and the author is not seeking a broad audience. This is very good material, however, and fits well into lots of recent work on early European history. I was finally pushed to finish the book by a desire to read recently deceased Donald Weinstein's book on Savanarola. I am glad I did.
This is what Professor Goldthwaite sets out to address. He wants to account for the rise of Florence as the leader among Tuscan cities. He wants to account for how the Florentine economy worked. What were the key importing businesses? What did Florence export? How was the economy and trade financed? What did the broader trading network look like? ... So far so good, right? But then it is also necessary to show how the economy of Florence and its broader trading networks evolved and changed over the four centuries he is interested in. What happened to agriculture? What industries developed into world class competitors (wool, silk, finance). How did Florence's competitors change over time? How did the directions of trade change over time? ....and finally, how was all of this influenced by the emergence of the European state system in the period leading up to the Thirty Years War in the seventeenth century? Every part of this agenda is a rich detailed story that is well told and linked into the broader narrative.
The book is well written and meticulously documented, but is hard to zoom through. It is akin to the detailed class notes for an advanced course on early modern economic history. The economics is not scary, however. In the tension between economics and history, this is clearly history wisely informed by economics. The style is scholarly and the author is not seeking a broad audience. This is very good material, however, and fits well into lots of recent work on early European history. I was finally pushed to finish the book by a desire to read recently deceased Donald Weinstein's book on Savanarola. I am glad I did.
March 11, 2016
Legitimately one of the best approaches to economic history I have ever read. The data is abundant, the mathematics impeccable and the writing easy to read in every respect. While the book very much has the Florentine scholar in mind, the study illustrates the many dynamics of the early modern economy that are essential for understanding the materiality of the period.
August 9, 2016
Fascinating study of the economics of the Renaissance. A long book but it goes very quickly. If you are going for a long flight or taking some time off and need something to read that is both well written, interesting, and long, this is the book for you.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews