The Social Fabric of Fifteenth-Century Florence: Identities and Change in the World of Second-Hand Dealers 9780367407261, 9780367809690

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The Social Fabric of Fifteenth-Century Florence

The Arte dei Rigattieri (merchants of second-hand goods in Florence) has never been the subject of a systematic study, even in scholarship devoted to the history of trades. Underpinned by a large collection of archival material, this book analyses the social life and economic activity of rigattieri in fifteenth-century Florence. It offers invaluable information on issues such as the relationship between socio-political affiliations and economic interest as well as the structures of consumption and the spending power of different social groups. Furthermore, through the lens of the Arte dei Rigattieri, this work examines the connection between the development of the political bureaucracy, the establishment of Medicean power, and contemporaneous processes of identity construction and social mobility. Alessia Meneghin is the author of a book on the Tuscan Misericordie and co-editor of two volumes on Domestic Devotions. Her publications on Renaissance Italy and Tuscany explore issues of wet-nursing, food, credit, objects and practices of devotion, miracles, consumption, identity, and social mobility of the Arti Minori.

Routledge Research in Medieval Studies

The Colonies of Genoa in the Black Sea Region Evolution and Transformation Evgeny Khvalkov The Plow, the Pen and the Sword Images and Self-Images of Medieval People in the Low Countries Rudi Künzel Family, Work and Household in Late Medieval Iberia A Social History of Manresa at the Time of the Black Death Jeff Fynn-Paul Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050-1250, Volume I Material Resources Edited by Bjørn Poulsen, Helle Vogt, and Jón Viðar Sigurðsson The Social Fabric of Fifteenth-Century Florence Identities and Change in the World of Second-Hand Dealers Alessia Meneghin The Generation of Identity in Late Medieval Hagiography Speaking the Saint Gail Ashton Performing Virginity and Testing Chastity in the Middle Ages Kathleen Coyne Kelly Women Pilgrims in Late Medieval England Susan S. Morrison For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Research-in-Medieval-Studies/book-series/SE0452

The Social Fabric of Fifteenth-Century Florence Identities and Change in the World of Second-Hand Dealers Alessia Meneghin

First published 2020 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Taylor & Francis The right of Alessia Meneghin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-40726-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-80969-0 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

I dedicate this book to my family

Contents

List of Figuresviii List of Tablesix Acknowledgmentsx PART I

The Guild, Identity of Artifices, and Economic Activities1 1 Methods and Problems in the Study of the Guild of Second-Hand Dealers in Florence

3

2 The Structure of the Guild and Statutes

38

3 The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System of Fifteenth-Century Florence

72

PART II

Work, Investments, and Social Mobility103 4 Credit, Concurrent Activities, and the Appraisal of Goods

105

5 Land Ownership, Investments, and Profits

130

6 From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite

156

Conclusions

191

Appendix A: Florentine Quarters, Gonfaloni, and Parrocchie197 Appendix B: Glossary199 References210 Index231

Figures

Locations of rigattieri’s botteghe and living spaces (1427–1480)79 6.1 Genealogical tree of the Del Nero rigattieri166 3.1

Tables

2.1 3.1 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6

Offices, officers, and salaries (1296–1340) 48 Rigattieri doing business with Piero (1429–1463) 88 Number of estimations per years 1446–1452 116 Number of estimations per years 1471–1475 117 Rank per retributed estimation (1446–1452) 118 Percentual retributions per total of estimations (1446–1452)119 Offices of the Parte Guelfa held by members of the Del Nero family 170 Offices for the Del Nero (1429–1461): veduti and seduti171 Offices for the Carradori (1428–1455): veduti and seduti175 Offices for the Dello Strinato (1438–1472): veduti and seduti179 Offices of the Parte Guelfa held by the Dello Strinato 180 Offices for the Panuzzi (1440–1476): veduti and seduti182

Acknowledgments

This book owes much to a number of people. First of all I would like to thank the staffs of the Archivio di Stato di Firenze, the Kunsthistorisches Institut, the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence, and the Berenson library at I Tatti, who were always most professional and helpful. Without the expertise and friendship of many of them, my time there, scavenging like a topo di biblioteca for documents and books, would have not been as rich and interesting and funny as it was. In particular I thank Lucia Ricciardi for her encouragement and support since the early stages of this project: she often made my otherwise solitary mornings at the Archivio dell’Ospedale degli Innocenti a blissful time. Many fellow historians and friends have contributed in different ways to my research in these years, in particular  Ivana Ait, my first maestra at Rome’s University “La Sapienza,” Franco Franceschi, who suggested paths of research which proved rich and fruitful, and Nicholas Eckstein, whose friendship and advice throughout the years has more than once came to my aid in times of need. Over the years in Florence, London, and Cambridge, many colleagues, especially Trevor Dean, who helped me answering important questions with his friendly interest and expertise, and Mary Laven, who read the former plan for this book, gave their sensible and clever opinions on this project when it first started to take shape. I am extremely grateful to Frances E. Andrews, my former PhD supervisor at the University of St Andrews: she offered me her guidance and insight as the volume was taking shape and offered her unfaltering support, encouragement, and amicizia: without all this it would have been literally impossible to make this project happen. I must also mention the late Peter Spufford, for his company and conversation over the theme of rigattieri held during one lunch at Queens’ College in Cambridge, on one unsettling rainy day: I have profited considerably from that wise advice he gave me “to follow the money.” Sergio Tognetti read the manuscript offering his very sharp, straightforward, and often witty view: for this, and for being not totally dismissive in his feedback, I thank him. I would also like to thank Brenna Graham, who read and commented on the whole manuscript at different stages throughout the writing.

Acknowledgments xi Part of this book was written during one wonderful year at I Tatti in Florence, where I had the pleasure to enjoy the absolute beauty of the place and the opportunity to have many conversations with other fellows and staff, amongst them my vicina d’ufficio Cecilia Nocilli, José Maria Pérez Fernández, Giuliano Mori, Mayu Fujikawa, Brad Bouley, and Tom Cohen, to whom I  am especially grateful: he not only read the nearly final version of the manuscript (often posing questions that only a scholar working in a related but different field could pose) but also polished my English: his endless kindness and utmost generosity as senior colleague and friend I shall never forget. During the years, presenting parts of my work in workshops and conferences in Europe and the US, I also had the pleasure to engage in exciting and at times very random discussions with fellow historians from the public who, although I do not remember their names, added with their suggestions and observations to this book. My gratitude goes also to my Routledge editor Max Novick, who showed infinite patience for my endless queries, and to the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of the manuscript. Finally, I am indebted also to Silvia Leporatti, who at the last moment before submission kindly provided me with a much-needed map of Florence. Over the years, Francesco Guidi Bruscoli expressed genuine interest in my work, at times alternating with moments of severe boredom with my research on the rigattieri. I thank him for his inspiring intellectual example, work attitude, invaluable help, and frequent entertainment under the form of puns and jokes at the expense of my “rascal rigattieri.” All this has been hugely important for me. A.M. Florence (Italy), Summer 2019

Part I

The Guild, Identity of Artifices, and Economic Activities

1 Methods and Problems in the Study of the Guild of Second-Hand Dealers in Florence

1. Rigattieri as Homines Novi and Social Mobility in Fifteenth-Century Florence All these things, judges, you know that I  produced the same day that I was called for trial . . . I am not a second-hand dealer who ordinarily holds double books, nor I  am a fortune-teller, who two, three or four years ago could foresee this case and prepare himself.1

In his Defensoria contra precedentem Francesco Guicciardini reflects on his responsibilities as a political participant during the Sack of Rome of 1527 and imagines that a tribunal has accused him of misappropriation. The quoted passage above reveals a thing of interest for the present book: with a single sentence Guicciardini stigmatizes rigattieri’s tendency to keep accounting reports untrue and incorrect on purpose. This was the vision of a man of his time; it reflects his prejudice against the spirit that animated the Florentine rigattiere—dishonest, faithful to a single principle, keen to make himself rich and to advance at any cost, his conduct often guided by ill practice. The rigattieri, thus sketched by the writer’s pen, are identifiable for the most part with those who in the first half of the fifteenth century placed most of their commercial interests in the old market. Individually, or gathered in companies under the insignia of the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (Guild of Second-Hand Dealers and Linen Retailers), they not only promoted the small local trade of used clothes and accessories, but also moved within a circuit of exchanges, credit activities, and appraisals that encompassed the whole city market; some were able to penetrate the circles of the administration and politics, and, also thanks to their insertion in important networks, as well as to successful marriages, managed to enter key roles of political life and acquire respectable places in Florentine society during the years of the early Reggimento. This book is the story of these rigattieri and of their social and economic mobility, against the backdrop of changes in fifteenth-century Florence.

4  The Guild and Identity of Artifices One of the most important steps in social mobility was the appropriation of suitable and profitable commercial spaces, where ‘new men’ could operate and possibly grow rich. But where in Florence were the market areas where small entrepreneurs gained their profit? Who were the sellers engaged in the retail of basic goods, such as clothing, that went to meet the needs of the vast majority of the Florentine population, even those far from wealthy? I will argue that among these new men, the rigattieri, who controlled the market for second-hand clothes, were among the most active. Who were the homines novi (literally ‘new men’) identifiable with the rigattieri?2 In Italy, thanks to the influence of Dante’s words on the homines novi—the nouveau riche—“the upstart people and the sudden gains, pride and extravagance they have generated,”3 social mobility has always been considered a constitutive element of the world of the medieval commune and has been taken for granted and exempted from deep historical analysis.4 Later this topic was used for its political implications in the phases of replacement of the leading class that carried out the political and constitutional role elsewhere ascribed to the monarchy, and represented—in the dominant view of national history—the maximum contribution of the Italian Middle Ages to progress towards a modern statehood.5 In Florence, this middling group, characterised by strong social and political ambitions, with members who often came from the ranks of the small-entrepreneurial class and often gravitated around the Arti Minori and Mediane (lesser and middling guilds), played an important role. Over a few decades, some of them appeared beside the prestigious merchant elite in the administration of politics and business. This latter class underwent a crisis both economic and power-related, especially after the return of Cosimo de’ Medici to Florence in 1434.6 As Athanasios Moulakis has argued, “access to high office would undoubtedly be more arduous for homines novi, but [Francesco] Guicciardini welcomed the possibility for the renewal and continued competence of the elite.”7 So there was not a complete replacement of the ranks of those leading politics and business but a mentoring that saw newcomers engaged in administrative roles alongside representatives of the elite families. These men, outside the traditional role of the ottimati, participated in the co-optation of single individuals by means of controlled electoral scrutinies based on proven loyalty to the regime. It is no coincidence that Guicciardini’s main character in the Dialogue of the Government of Florence, as we shall see, is a former rigattiere, Bernardo Del Nero, a man said to have had no relations, nor to be of noble birth.8 Such a rise, as Guicciardini stated, had to be attributed to merit.9 If, as the author of the Florentine Histories seems to suggest, many of these fifteenth-century men—who, like the rigattieri, came from nowhere and managed to climb the steps of Florentine society—succeeded, they

Methods and Problems 5 did so thanks to merit and their exceptional abilities, by building a solid material basis, a thing they could only do through trade, and the only trade they knew was that of used clothes. We must therefore try to understand first how this trade functioned and how the activity of the secondhand dealers was regulated within the local economy of distribution. The rigattieri had once belonged to one of those Arti mediane that were demoted to Arte Minore in 1293.10 He was an independent seller—a small entrepreneur who often invested capital funds, mostly small sums.11 The rigattiere stood somewhere between a skilled worker and a small business owner. He would not necessarily depend on a master (he could be on his own) and would not produce what he sold, as craftsmen did, but he was on the same level as such men. The rigattiere, by definition, in addition to belonging to the sphere of retailers of used clothing, was often a small businessman involved in trading and exchanging various kinds of merchandise, such as furniture, animals, and carpets. To the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli belonged a variety of sellers: the retailers whom the first statutes defined as sellers of ragged leather skins and other things (venditores of pelles veteres et  alias res); those operators who regularly paid the guild fees, as well as the brothers, sons, and general relatives of deceased rigattieri who were exempted from the matriculation fee because they enjoyed the privileges kinship granted; poor craftsmen, such as mattress makers (coltriciai) and tailors, whose main occupation differed from selling old clothes, who also simultaneously enrolled in other guilds; among them were also the embroiderers, who scraped by, selling old rags and cast-offs alongside their main occupation; and finally, there were the peripatetic vendors and rag-sellers, and even some women, widows or daughters of rigattieri. Second-hand dealers were sometimes called to estimate assets within their competence, when a public auction was called for or for goods in wills or donations. Finally, precisely because some of them, belonging to the group of middling sellers, were considered trustable and creditworthy, rigattieri often appeared in notarial deeds, not only as actors but often also as witnesses or guarantors (fideiussori).12 Although the mediocre volume of business and modest place the rigattiere was supposed to occupy in the market economy, at least in principle, made him by definition a small seller, a few of these rigattieri, excellent businessmen, did not long remain ‘small sellers.’ The richer and more powerful rigattieri, often owners of several businesses of regatteria and higher in rank and consideration, were not unlike the mercantile and financial elite. They quickly made their ​​ way into society. They were shrewd, industrious, and active. A few recognised the real advantage of grasping the changing times. Gradually, some managed to fill vacant roles in government by aligning with, and in some cases even supplanting, the representatives of the old families to settle into key roles in administration and politics. The goals of those who made ​​their way into politics

6  The Guild and Identity of Artifices and who rose high socially were very ambitious. They did not marry just daughters of other rigattieri but also those of notaries, property owners, or members of the oldest and respected families. In no time, some of them became very influential.

2. Can Sociology Aid Historical Analysis in Examining the Channels of Mobility of the Rigattieri? Social mobility first received attention in 1884 when Gaetano Mosca developed the theory of elites.13 In the following decade, Vilfredo Pareto expanded and modified it.14 Their elitist theory developed from their observation of the spontaneous division of every human society into two categories. At the head of society, above the majority, there was a restricted group, defined as a ruling or political class by Mosca and as elite by Pareto. However, these elites were subject to a continual process of internal mutation and replacement by new forces.15 While elitist theory already stressed selection and replacement, a profound consideration of social mobility as a theoretical problem would come only in 1927, with the publication of Social Mobility by Pitirim Sorokin. Sorokin, a Russian sociologist later naturalized as an American, was inspired by Pareto.16 Social Mobility shifted attention from the elite to the whole society, embracing collective mobility in all its possible forms. The recent work of another sociologist, Margaret Archer from England, also deserves mention. Archer argued for a further influence on mobility: the ability to think and fantasize about oneself and one’s social world. Archer’s work also introduced a key aspect in the study of social mobility: its relational character. In essence, social mobility must be seen as a competition for status but also for something intangible and definable only (through relationships) in comparison with other groups. This competition could take place within the same universe of values and through the mimicry of social climbers in order to adopt strategies that otherwise distinguish the highest social groups from others, as often happened with European aristocracies. Or this process could alternatively lead to the creation of different values, opposite to those of the pre-eminent groups, such as those of the upstart comuni of medieval Italian towns.17 In this process of social competition, the players would adopt practices of exclusion and inclusion, which some would use to preserve their identity, others to stand out and acquire it. Note here the Weberian concept of ‘closure’ and the development of such a model by Frank Parkin and Raymond Murphy in social closure theory. This theory is based on the analysis of exclusion and inclusion practices implemented by privileged groups (based on profession, citizenship, race, gender, etc.) to prevent the access of other groups to their privileges.18 The importance of such studies for the analysis of social mobility is obvious.19 First, inclusion or exclusion practices influenced group definition

Methods and Problems 7 and identity and channelled movement from group to group. There were distinct types of explicit formalisation, for example the corporate laws that restricted access to the status of master within a corporation. But the exclusion and closure of mobility and access also passed through the development of family cohesion, through the definition of more stringent succession systems, and through a wide range of social behaviours.20 Connected to issues of inclusion and/or exclusion are of course the analysis of social space and the concept of ‘channels’ of mobility. It was Sorokin who argued that social stratification and social shifting occurred along multiple and varied axes of social space. To Sorokin, the three main axes of social space were economic, professional, and political stratification. So the place of any individual in the social space is determined by the position he or she occupies in the various hierarchies. For any person, the different types of stratification may be independent, but they are generally related, though with many imperfections and gaps. Hence, social space is made of multiple stratifications. Thus, in social interplay every individual is defined by different sets of attributes, such as position within a network of friends or work associates. Consideration and regard within that network is due to level of success attained in business or work performance, such as the degree of trust gained: all these factors are integral to shaping, in essence, one’s personal reputation.21 Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of the forms of capital immediately comes to mind: economic capital, cultural capital,22 and social capital. While the second includes both education and other forms of knowledge (from technical knowledge to internalized behaviour), the last is the sum of influential relationships available to any individual.23 To these we must add symbolic capital, which Sandro Carocci has defined as the “most important form of capital: that for which we invest the most in social play, which most justifies an otherwise miserable human existence, and whose real importance we only realize when we are deprived of it.”24 The historical research conducted in the last century, especially in the postwar period, on topics as diverse as the economy, migrations, aristocracies, corporations, and many other areas, has identified numerous ascent routes and (less frequently) instances of social descent.25 The myth, still alive, for example, in Werner Sombart or Richard Tawney, of a medieval society with very low social mobility, has been rejected.26 Mobility, rather, has become a part of conventional knowledge regarding the centuries following the eleventh century. However, little analysis has focused directly on the subject, and rarely for the medieval era. Today, the only precise interpretation was advanced by David Herlihy in an article published more than three decades ago.27 Herlihy created three models, or rather three patterns of the same model, relating to three diverse phases of the Middle Ages (the age of stagnation until 1000; the expansion age, 1000–1300; and finally the relationship between the city of Florence and its countryside, in the fifteenth century). He proposed,

8  The Guild and Identity of Artifices through an essentially demographic explanatory mechanism, the thesis of a late downward mobility. This was determined by the inability of the upper layers to ensure that all of their many children remained in their class of origin. But Herlihy underestimated economic change and the overall social dynamic. Herlihy saw these patterns as essentially monodimensional and all articulated on the hierarchy of wealth. However, he also characterised them by property stratification and failed to distinguish among different social groups. In more recent years, modern historiography has demonstrated, along with sociology, that one ought to think of late medieval/early Renaissance society as an assemblage of people with different backgrounds characterised by diverse cultural and economic situations rather than as a rigid structure implanted on tight social and professional relationships and institutions: in fact, it is only in the early modern period that society as a whole became more rigidly structured. Scholarship continues to underestimate economic change and still sees social dynamics as lacking flexibility and freedom.28 The traditional assessment criteria defining the changes taking place in society at the turn of the early modern age have therefore looked at all factors, such as employment, income, capital, social relations, and consumption, as well as the education of the groups, to explain the displacement (ascent or descent) of a particular social group or an individual within a social structure.29 In recent years the theme of the social mobility of traders and market operators in the late Middle Ages and the early modern age in Italy has also developed considerably. The literature, however, concerns mainly the rise of merchants and bankers—primarily in the world of the medieval commune but more generally in the urban world of the Mediterranean— and mobility within politics. In light of suggestions from economic history, in particular those associated with the work of Steven Epstein, the growth of the apparati is interpreted as due to the achievement of the highest level of development by an economic system set up by institutions and urban policies.30 This development influenced social mobility by circulating new public resources that sometimes elevated individuals and families and politicised access to the public sphere causing new exclusions and therefore new social descents and which finally led to the rewriting of the criteria of social stratification. The research, however, has simply failed to offer a clear reconstruction of the dynamics of social mobility within the lower strata of traders and entrepreneurs. In other words, we lack a clear representation of how the affirmation in society and subsequent rise in politics and administration as the representatives of the popolo, such as rigattieri, took place. The research has concentrated on the mobility of business and financial traders, with a particular eye to the replacement, expansion, and shrinkage of the ranks of the political elites in various urban communities. For

Methods and Problems 9 that reason, the focus so far has been on those merchants who had big financial assets at their disposal and were able to penetrate various systems. One problem of such investigations is that it is not known whether economics was cause or consequence of the social mobility of traders. Because of limited freedom in the institutional settings of the later Middle Ages, the labour market was not entirely free from constraints, and social institutions were not completely open. The scholar must interrogate the sources to discern what kind of mobility mattered the most to the economic performance of the market operators. Did improvement of one’s finances allow for a rise in society, or did social advancement pay off in greater wealth? For the study of social mobility in the Middle Ages, all these theories and models enrich a multi-perspective analysis. First, they focus attention on the performances of sellers and on the determinants of every social status. For example, Donata Degrassi’s studies of Italian artisans have clearly shown how they enjoyed strong internal mobility precisely because they lacked any automatic connection between economic status (determined by production and by profits), social prestige (linked to job type and especially to personal prestige), and professional status.31 Degrassi has shown how astutely one can study medieval social mobility through the world of workers. Her research has revealed that for a good part of the thirteenth century and even up to the early fourteenth century, the transmission of technical knowledge was very open. The wide social diffusion of apprenticeship contracts and the absence of constraints allowed the children of artisans and even immigrants to learn an often lucrative trade, easily switching from the grade of apprentice to that of master and guaranteeing strong social mobility.32 This fluid phase ended when training times grew longer, when higher standards restricted access to the corporation to the sons of masters, and finally when boys, who once would have been future masters, became paid employees of a master rather than apprentices. Here, the decrease of upward social mobility appears quite clearly related to the slowing of the growth of the city economy. As to social mobility among the rigattieri, all these factors must be taken into account, as must the dynamics of internal mobility within the Arte. The Arte dei Rigattieri was no rigid and homogeneous set of people: indeed the status, the economic, cultural, and social capital and the background of masters differed greatly from that of those in intermediate and lower positions. The esteem reserved for the most respected and wealthiest rigattieri differed sharply from the social consideration, generally rather low, accorded to women and peripatetic vendors. Within the guild the rigattieri not only covered, along with the Linaioli, the most important offices, but also exerted strong control over entrance of new members and hence on the economic activities. It is no surprise to see many rigattieri in the high ranks of the Matricole dell’Arte—the

10  The Guild and Identity of Artifices book of enrolment to the guild—in which doublet makers, tailors, and coltriciai were also enrolled. As elsewhere, in Florence one also witnesses the onset of a precise and heavy hierarchisation within the Arti as the end of the fifteenth century approached. The repercussions of this gradual but irreversible trend were so clear that, to maintain their status and economic position, the rigattieri moved against newcomers. They did so with new laws and changes to guild statutes. Within corporate professions, the most important and influential members often restrained and limited the freedom of those who still lacked socio-economic power, even jeopardizing their further rise. In this, the situation of Florentine rigattieri, tailors, and doublet makers looks like that in other cities in Tuscany and in northern and central Italy. Here, Pisa, studied by Cinzio Violante, is emblematic. As Violante pointed out, the tailors initially held a position not wholly subjected to the rigattieri who were, by law of conquest, their fellow Florentines; nevertheless, when in 1455 their statutes were amended and finally approved by members of the Arte, it is not a coincidence that all four auditors who vetted the changes were rigattieri.33 Particularly significant to the mobility of the rigattieri was the role in the administration and politics that they sometimes secured, thanks to rising wealth. Although the end of the Middle Ages is marked by slower social mobility, during a year in Florence, there were many public offices to fill. Thanks to the rotation in the highest governing body of the town, six standard-bearers of justice (Gonfalonieri di Giustizia), forty-eight priors of the guilds (Priori delle Arti), forty-eight Buonomini, and fortyeight Gonfalonieri di compagnia held office—a total of 150 individuals, some of whom belonged to the lesser guilds. Thus, ‘new men’ continued to penetrate the ranks of the privileged orders who held minor and major offices in the administration of the commune.34 The very same turnover of these ‘new men’ in the political rota of Florence is irrefutable evidence: every year thousands of people had the opportunity to participate, with tasks and roles in public life. Many among them were rigattieri. Many Florentines used marriage strategy to advance familial status, and in this the rigattieri were no different. They intermarried with daughters of notaries and of some among the oldest Florentine families.35 It is easy to imagine the rigattieri’s intention behind these strategies: first, to gain reputation within a network of conspicuous people, and second, when the chance came, to make use of the generous dowries paid out by the girls’ fathers to boost their businesses. By means of marriage, some rigattieri successfully realised the goal of joining the articulated and stratified dense network of patronage, which the Medici had created and filled with new men in the second half of the fifteenth century. Some rigattieri families such as the Del Nero would become Medicean casate. In the fifteenth century, the economic policy of the Arte dei Rigattieri would favour the interests of these well-endowed families.

Methods and Problems 11

3. The Literature and the Rigattieri in the Past Historiography Few historians have looked at the lesser and middling professional groups operating in fifteenth-century Florence, and even fewer have examined their mobility. Most research is on the folk at the very bottom or on elites. In fact, studies devoted to the Florentine families of the ruling class, like the most recently examined Ciurianni and Spini, still remain the primary focus of several articles and books.36 Similarly, research on  the lower social ranks of society (the Florentine working classes between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries) enjoyed a certain popularity, in the earliest twentieth century, thanks to the work of Niccolò Rodolico.37 The theme was again taken up after a long interval by a Marxist historian, Victor Rutenburg,38 and in successive works by Marvin Becker, Raymond de Roover, Gene Brucker, and Werner Sombart, to name but a few. The extensive work of de La Roncière on the salaried classes of Florence in the Trecento must also be mentioned.39 All these studies considered mainly the material conditions of salaried employees (nominal and real salaries, levels of employment, standards of living, etc.), or the relations between workers and the Arti (themes on which past historiography concentrated). Meanwhile, Samuel Cohn attempted to explore the popolo minuto by examining its internal characteristics and its conflict with the ruling class.40 In the last two decades of the past century, studies by Giovanni Cherubini, Giuliano Pinto, and Franco Franceschi have examined the salariati from yet another perspective; they have looked at the multiform experiences, social as well as economic, that shaped this heterogeneous group of people.41 Studies on the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century economy have revealed the interregional and transnational role of Florence as part of the economiamondo Fiorentina (Florentine world-economy).42 Export of goods and semi-finished or finished products, and in particular, of goods produced by Tuscan firms, underpinned Florentine merchants’ wealth. There is now a vast literature on Florence’s economy and society. We have works regarding the activities, financial operations, and spread and influence of economic, social, and cultural models exported by Tuscan businessmen in Europe and the Mediterranean in particular, in late medieval and early modern times.43 Also there is research on the role of Tuscan financiers in the Indies and the Americas (these are classic Italian historiographical issues, still popular).44 Several other studies so far have focused on those Tuscan entrepreneurs, who, by owning large capital funds and banking companies, found in the international market, or in the profitable trades of wool and silk, one of the main sources of their considerable income.45 However, in the shadow of large Tuscan companies, the ‘small capital’ of little entrepreneurship also flourished. Lesser traders attempted to control those sectors of retail trade in non-luxury goods that served

12  The Guild and Identity of Artifices the vast majority of the population. So the entrepreneurial stance of little operators was sometimes more central to the city’s economy than that of the great merchants belonging to the Arti Maggiori. The work of Bruno Dini on Florentine goldbeaters (battilori) as well as those from other urban centres, of Luciana Frangioni on Lombard weapon makers, and of Maria Paola Zanoboni on Milanese goldsmiths has permitted scholars to sketch out these socio-professional groups.46 Similarly, Richard Marshall’s research on late-medieval Prato, based upon the examination of forty-five account books of small businesses or family businesses, and also Piero Guarducci’s work on the Sienese dyer, Landoccio di Cecco d’Orso, have confirmed how these traders actually found their own lucrative niche in the market; like the big players of the international financial economy, they knew how to cope with market changes.47 Although knowledge of this group’s social and professional conditions is still elusive, what emerges from the documents is how varied was the group defined as ‘small entrepreneurs.’ Their economic experience varied, as did their social pathways48 and cultural background.49 It would be a mistake to judge the small business of members of the Arti Minori only in terms of productivity and economic performance.50 Unfortunately, for lack of rich, consistent data, studies of the life and activities of those professional groups that belonged to the Arti Minori and Arti Mediane in Florence have so far come to little.51 However, although less rich than the literature on big international traders and still lacking specific monographic studies treating the subject as a whole, scholarship has begun to produce good works on the non-elite community.52 If studies on the lower guilds are relatively scarce for Florence, the literature on the guilds and crafts of many other cities and towns, especially those of central and northern Italy, is rich, thanks to longstanding interest in the complex world of work and the work force in pre-industrial Italy.53 For some time, the theme of the influence of workers within city politics and administration during the last centuries of the Middle Ages was popular.54 Since the 1980s, studies moved to the economic development of groups and individuals as the medieval guild turned into a pre-capitalist organisation.55 Studies turned to corporate movements as an expression of the articulated world of the working class, as well as to complexities of certain sectors of work, such as the organisation of production and the division of labour and to the living conditions of masters, journeymen, and apprentices. The literature has also explored the qualifications and duties of apprentices and the role of individuals within the guilds and the relationship between guilds and other forms of association and institutions. One crucial point of analysis, and the subject of numerous debates, is the function of the so-called homines novi.56 Over the past twenty years, scholarship has gone beyond the social function of these ‘new men’ to examine as well their financial performance and, especially, their consumption habits. This subject has gained

Methods and Problems 13 a central position in the study of the economic dynamics of the late Middle Ages and the early modern age.57 Although it is still common to find studies on consumption motivated merely by the wish to balance its neglect, relative to production, the new literature on consumption has grown in depth and interest. Within and across the social sciences the methods of investigation and the theories have varied. In Belgium, Great Britain, and the United States, for example, economic historians, costume historians, material culture historians, and art historians have offered many contributions.58 While the economic historians have examined the production of different objects of consumption, their economic significance, the sequence of activities that lead to consumption, and the different sites of consumption across country and household,59 other scholars have long focused on the objects of consumption and their social implications, mainly by using literary and visual sources, sometimes statutes, mostly published, and, in the archives, post-mortem inventories.60 Earlier historians long represented demand as characterised by a dichotomy: poor and rich.61 They saw, on the one hand, the consumption of the great mass of the population, eking out basic necessities, on the other hand elite consumption, especially of luxury goods. Thanks to research on eighteenth-century England that revealed a widespread culture of consumption across large sections of the population, this representation has been rejected.62 Subsequent investigations gradually set back the onset of this culture of consumption to the sixteenth century and looked to other European areas. Jan de Vries, in one of the most influential books of the past few years, theorized a ‘commercial revolution’ in the Netherlands in the first half of the seventeenth century.63 Richard Goldthwaite has anticipated an even earlier birth of a ‘consumer revolution,’ arguing that fifteenth-century Italy, Florence especially, was the cradle for a renewed spending attitude.64 Dealers in used clothing and discarded objects have become an obvious point of departure for studies on consumption. It is now known that second-hand dealers existed virtually everywhere in urban centres in the late Middle Ages and the early modern age. In the late sixteenth century, Philip Stubbes observed that some British merchants traded in secondhand items in his Anatomie of Abuses,65 and the studies carried out by Margaret Spufford, Mary Ginsburg, Beverly Lemire, and Jon Stobart for pre-industrial London and England confirm this trend; Elizabeth Sanderson for early modern and modern Edinburgh, Ilja Van Damme for the Netherlands in the modern age, and Harold Deceulaer for Ghent and Antwerp in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, again, confirm that the sale of ready-to-wear clothing and second-hand was a ubiquitous and a very lively business.66 The profile of the used clothing seller, as it emerges from some of these analyses (for the most part concentrated on the early modern age), figures a merchant who allowed the poor to buy cheap clothes and the rich to

14  The Guild and Identity of Artifices keep up appearances without spending a fortune. This view has revived a dichotomous reading of the dynamics of consumption, with the rigattiere as an ‘across-the-boundary’ character. Moreover, these studies see the rigattieri as always subjected to the dominance of the major guilds, playing a rather secondary role within the system of the Arti and more generally within politics and society, in spite of their involvement in the commercial urban economy. This would reflect their collective low prestige, compared to wealthier and more respected merchants, and the modest volume of their activities. It would be interesting to assess instead the impact that this alleged subjection to the major guilds provoked in the socio-political and economic life of the rigattieri in the towns in which they operated.67 In Italy, few studies on the work force in general, and on the guilds, have analysed the guild of second-hand dealers, and almost all have focused on the early modern or modern age and on the merchants’ role as dispensers of goods. These include the work by Ann Matchette on Domenico Commandatore, a Florentine sixteenth-century rigattiere, whose books of accounts, held by the Hospital of the Innocenti, Matchette used to investigate the circulation of objects down the social scale. Carole Collier Frick has also worked on Florentine rigattieri, producing a short article based on limited archival material. For Venice, there are the publications of Patricia Allerston for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and for Rome those of Carlo Maria Travaglini for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.68 Special studies—of a more commercial nature—for the rigattieri of Bologna were carried out by Lia Gheza Fabbri. In Bologna, an important centre of the Papal State, as Gheza Fabbri notes, it seems that the activities of rigattieri seem not to have been closely associated with the Monte di Pietà, as instead they were in Rome.69 Again in Bologna, Fabio Giusberti has studied the long, slow definition of the operational space of rag and used clothing sellers.70 Antonio Piras studied the Jewish components of the trade of rigattieri for Cagliari (Sardinia).71 Research contributions examining the complex areas linked to this activity, such as the sale of rags (to make paper),72 and the tailoring trade, are scarce.73 The variety of workers and crafts under the economic, administrative, and judicial jurisdiction of the guild was wide. Other publications, all related to the statutes of the guild are followed or preceded by brief summaries, for other urban places, like Ferrara, Padua, and again Rome.74 So much for the coverage of the early modern and the modern age. The late centuries of the Middle Ages are less well represented. Regarding Florence, the analysis of the statutory regulations of the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli was published by Ferdinando Sartini.75 The contribution by Giovanni Cherubini concentrates on Lore del fu Manetto, a thirteenth-century Florentine rigattiere; the survival of an inventory of Lore’s workshop allowed Cherubini to sketch out in cursory fashion the commercial turnout and merchandise of one profitable trade.76 Also for

Methods and Problems 15 Tuscany, three recent essays by the author on rigattieri in Florence, Prato, and other cities of the domain, draw a profile of some sellers’ activity between the late fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries, using estimi records, a book of debtors and creditors, data coming from the Catasto and guild statutes.77

4. Government, Society, and the Economy In order to examine the activities and the social dynamics and mobility of the rigattieri, we must first sketch the profile of the city, its demography, its distribution of wealth, the role of government in the city’s economy, the evolution of its fiscal policy, and the economic guidelines and strategies intended to promote trade and protect the market and its products. Before the Black Death, Tuscany was one of the most urbanised regions in medieval Europe. Florence had a population of some 100,000.78 However, the Plague hit heavily Florence and the territories under its domain: the city shrank to somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 inhabitants. The modest growth of Florence after the Black Death is itself a sign that its former role as capital city and international emporium was much reduced; after the epidemics the city became more provincial. The region that Florence came to dominate in the course of the fifteenth century was no longer one of Europe’s most intensely industrialised and urbanised areas. The subject cities of the Dominio—Pisa, Pistoia, Prato, Arezzo, and Cortona—now merely had between 5,000 and 10,000 inhabitants. Industries such as cloth and metalwork, and even wool, that had made the success of Florence in the Dugento and Trecento, were now in decline. As for raw materials, Florence had few, and they were scarce. The market for its ordinary cloths shrank to the towns where the industries were located. In short, Florence and Tuscany in the fifteenth century simply lacked that economic vitality brought upon by the industrial sector of two centuries earlier. The position of Florence in the region had always been somewhat eccentric. The region had no proper ‘centre’ so that Florence lacked the economic advantage that a more central position would have granted it. It had direct access neither to the sea nor to the Apennines. For this reason, during its expansion and well into the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it pushed its borders from the Mugello across the Apennines into the Romagna. The first half of the Quattrocento saw considerable expansion of the territorial state: the conquest of Pistoia in 1402, Pisa in 1406, Cortona in 1411, Livorno in 1421, and Volterra in 1472. The process of enlargement of the Florentine territorial domain was completed in 1440, with the annexation of the fiefs of Poppi, Anghiari, Monterchi, Badia Tedalda, and San Sepolcro, while Sarzana became part of the territory in 1468 and Pietrasanta in 1487.79 Lucca and Siena were conquered only during the Grand Duchy.

16  The Guild and Identity of Artifices The period of the Florentine territorial expansion, also the period of the Republic, from the fourteenth to the late fifteenth century, naturally also saw the evolution of government, which underwent profound transformations, although the old institutions survived. With three generations of Medici in the fifteenth century—Cosimo il Vecchio (1389–1464), his son Piero (1416–1469), and his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449–1492)—the broad participation in the political process and complex electoral procedures that formed the basis of the state were modified but remained, in essence, intact. It will be only Cosimo I (1519–1574), the first Grand Duke of Florence, who laid the foundation of a truly absolutist state emptying, de facto, all old institutions, including the guilds, of all their political power. In the early Trecento, both the guilds and the Mercanzia, together with the official bodies of the commune, were the institutions that made decisions and enforced actions of economic nature. Economic policy was therefore the direct emanation of their interests and objectives. Florentine guilds were powerful and active politically: they controlled entrances into their rosters, and thus regulated divisions of crafts and trades within their structure; they organised and oversaw the practice of their respective activities, in particular with regard to quality; they even provided a sort of social welfare and protection for their members. Over the course of the fourteenth century, the guilds became more and more subject to the control of the central authority. In the second part of the Trecento, the internal politics of the city often hinged on the conflicts between major and minor guilds for representation in the seats of power, resulting in periods of broadening or narrowing the popular basis participation to government. The popular regime that came with the revolt of the Ciompi in 1378, when dyers, doublet makers and low-skilled wool workers (ciompi) gained representation in the government, was short lived. After an oligarchic reaction in 1382, power was regained, and held firmly, in the hands of an elite that seized control of the major guilds in the council of government. The power shifted from the guilds to an oligarchy. In this context, the guilds also succumbed to the authority of the government in the economic sphere. They preserved some of their functions, such as the control of quality and jurisdiction over members, but performed these functions more like representatives of government instead of autonomous agencies.80 Over the fourteenth century, the government saw to the consolidation of an economic policy, common to that of many other Italian centres. It regulated activities in the local marketplace; laid down rules for weights and measurements; handled litigations and settled disputes over debt claims; made treaties to protect its merchants abroad and secure their protection against the pervasive habit of retaliation by foreign governments; regulated the concession of credit by sanctioning Jewish

Methods and Problems 17 pawnbroking; supervised the provisioning and distribution of grain and food to the citizens; oversaw the monetary policy shaping the economic culture of the city; and maintained a stable currency. In order to promote economic activities and to reduce competition for its textile industries, the government forbade the production in nearby and subject cities of products similar to what Florence made. It also protected its industries by controlling the import and export of raw materials and finished products, by encouraging the immigration of skilled workers, and by restricting the emigration of its own skilled artisans. However, the government did not regulate wages, for example, nor did it interfere with the customary functioning of the labour market, leaving quality control to the guilds. Finally, in the first quarter of the fifteenth century the government began to promote the silk industry, with numerous legislative measures to facilitate the import of the raw material, to encourage the plantation of mulberry trees, to attract foreign craftsmen to the city, and to impose import and export duties.81 In short, the legislation of the Republican government of Florence impacted on the economy in a way that we can define as ‘protomercantilist.’ The government intervened heavily also on taxation. It did so first with indirect taxes, that is, income and export duties at the city gates, the gabelle. Given the size of the local and regional market, which increased as the territory expanded over the Quattrocento, they became not only the chief source of income for the state but also the tax that offered great flexibility (since they could be raised swiftly) and could be collected continuously, even on a daily basis. Moreover, in the fifteenth century the collection of gabelle passed from private contractors to the commune itself. As for direct taxes on residents, since the early Dugento the city had imposed them. From about 1300, with the mounting expenses due to territorial expansion and war costs, it changed its policy. It first imposed indirect taxation (realising that a growing population signified higher revenues), but then abandoned it in favour of a direct taxation in the form of forced loans. With this expedient the commune assessed the patrimonies of those citizens in a position to pay and levied heavy taxes on them, called prestanze or prestanzoni. In 1343–45, this system of taxation gave life to the Monte comune or public debt, which over time consolidated into a permanent, interest-bearing fund through investment in government debt. The people in charge of supervising the public finances were the Ufficiali del Monte (officials of the Monte). It was they who obtained short-term loans from private citizens during liquidity crises; it was they who managed the indirect taxation, the supervision of state expenses, and even the punishment of offenders. These officials were selected for their ability to raise money and to arrange loans quickly. Some were wealthy merchants who loaned their own money; others were able to wield influence in the

18  The Guild and Identity of Artifices market by sub-contracting for smaller loans by other merchants of their network. With their office came a highly respected position and control of the state’s fiscal operations. However, the periodic renewal of this position and frequent turnover prevented the formation of a real oligarchy organised around this office. Another device adopted in 1425 by the Republic to face monetary problems was the institution of the Monte delle Doti, an expedient for selling future dowries. Fathers could deposit cash into a fund that would mature into a dowry after seven and a half or fifteen years. However, after a few years, the dowry assumed the additional function of gradually retiring the public debt by requiring those who deposited money to be paid back partly with Monte credits at market value. Increasing monetary troubles meant that in the next half century the fund would face problems in making payments of the dowries, to the point that by the end of the Quattrocento it lost its appeal completely and declined. Another feature of the Republican fiscal system was how forced loans were assessed and how the tax base was defined. Neighbourhood committees were set up to make assessments, until in 1427 the government decided to resort to Florentines directly for assessment of their wealth: taxes were no longer based on estimates (stime) made by others but on a real inventory of assets and goods submitted by the person to be taxed. Catasto officers required all heads of households, male or female, to submit a ‘return’ of all the properties that were to make the taxable base. Real estate was particularly sought, with the income, capitalised at 7%, that it generated. Each declarant listed real estate, animals, goods, business investments, government obligations, and all credits from private parties. Monte credits could be discounted at 50%. The declarant then subtracted all outstanding debts and expenses and obligations, the capitalised value (7%) of rents paid for residence or workplace, and deductions for each member of the family, 200 florins for each ‘mouth’ (bocca). The result was the net-worth basis on which was calculated the assessment for fiscal purposes: 0.5% in the city, less in the contado. However, increasingly over the fifteenth century, the catasto officers came to learn that Florentines showed great dexterity in hiding their mobile assets and that the only valid tax was on real estate. Therefore, in 1451, with the so-called Tassa dei Traffichi, the regime attempted to verify all forms of liquid capital of all partnerships in Florence, but it proved a one-time effort.82 The regional economy was well integrated into the local market of the capital city. First, there was the natural function of a market area created to satisfy the needs of, on the one hand, an incredibly wealthy elite, and, on the other, a much larger population than any other city in the region. Although Florence had lost its place as one of the major international emporia, it still was a major market that attracted goods produced in the territory, from foodstuffs to metal and leatherwork, ceramics, paper, and so on. Within this market, the demand for ‘minor’ goods and the

Methods and Problems 19 consolidation of the sector for ‘minor’ goods are two phenomena that figured in the period covered by this book. These phenomena are linked in turn to a changing demand in the market, due, for the most part, to the expansion of the urban consumer base and to the general increase in purchasing power in the immediate aftermath of the Plague. Financial capacity increased, even among the lower socio-economic strata, well beyond the period of crisis following the Black Death. In fact, Richard Goldthwaite has argued for a rise in wages in the decades 1420–1460 (when wages were something like double what they were after 1348). Meanwhile, the tax burden became somewhat lighter toward the mid-fifteenth century and did not rise again until the end of the century, and then sank again, reaching its lowest point after the 1520s.83 Goldthwaite’s thesis that Renaissance Florence experienced a sustained demand for consumption bears on our case.84 This renewed demand, in conjunction with the rising wages of even menial labourers, and the ‘immense wealth’ that the city accumulated from the Trecento onwards resulted in a richer and more diversified material culture.

5. The Trade of Cast-offs: A Vital Segment of the Local Economy. From the Fifteenth Century to Its Gradual Decline in the Cinquecento The trade in second-hand goods, in addition to constituting a vital segment of the economy, effectively supported entire segments of the urban population, those normally excluded—due to low financial capacity—from shopping circuits. It let them purchase essential goods, by credit, with deferred payments, through the exchange of products and services, but above all it allowed them to buy items far cheaper than any clothing made bespoke by a tailor. Additionally, not only did new (to the eyes of those who had never seen them before) and fashionable goods become sought after by a wider spectrum of people, but the second-hand market offered for sale goods that exerted a strong fascination, such as the sciamito, regularly sold used by rigattieri despite explicit prohibitions (it could be sold only to the wives of practitioners of law or of knights)85 as per the statutes of the Capitano del Popolo of 1301, 1307, and 1318. These practices demonstrate how a diverse, multifarious shopping attitude was widespread among the middling and even the lower strata of fifteenth-century Florentine society. A notable impulse to that famous ‘orgy of consumption,’ already mentioned by Matteo Villani around the middle of the fourteenth century,86 also may well have come from the second-hand commercial network. Those who exercised this trade therefore fully participated in this process of expansion and development of the urban market. Further evidence of this participation is the upsurge of sumptuary legislation and moral commentary on consumption. Moreover, the excessive elegance and extravagance adopted by the middle and even the most

20  The Guild and Identity of Artifices modest social groups, while always reprobated, had never before been so overtly criticized as it was by writers such as Sacchetti, Leon Battista Alberti, and Savonarola. There had never been such a vivid and unanimous disapproval for Florence’s new consumption habits. The trade of cast-offs was mainly a local affair in Florence closely linked to the city’s eccentric position within the region and the peninsula, together with its changed role from international emporium into a gradually more local market. In fact, if Florence was positioned somewhat eccentrically in the region it dominated, it was also almost isolated from interregional Italian trade. While the Apennines separated Florence from Bologna and from the cities of the Po valley, including, further afield, the great commercial hubs of Milan and Venice, the link to Umbria was marked by the mountains, which also ran down to central Italy and Rome. Some goods reached Tuscany overland from Venice, but most of the imported merchandise came along the Via Porrettana out at Pistoia, along the valleys of the Reno and Bisenzio, to come out at Prato, not at Florence. Transit of these goods moved via Pisa as well, and there was the route to Lucca by way of the Via Francigena through the Versilia. Thus, although several routes linked Tuscany with the extensive Po valley and the major emporia of the North, Florence was positioned to one side of this traffic of people and goods. In short, it was on the periphery of trade in its own region.87 This is reflected in the lack of relations of our rigattieri with tradesmen of the contado, of those of the wider Dominio (though there were rare exceptions, to be discussed), let alone with those from farther afield in Italy; this applies to both purchasing and selling goods. The documents seem to suggest that most of the stocking of the items eventually resold by rigattieri in the market was done within the city walls, although by way of multiple channels (inheritances from wills, reselling unredeemed pawns, public auctions, and so on), and thus purposely contributing to the circuits of recycling, but chiefly within the city.88 Thus, the rigattieri cannot be considered great distributors of goods both in the city and in the contado. As it is true that occasionally customers coming from the countryside to sell their basic products would stop at the market to make purchases at the rigattieri, also a few among the latter moved in and out of the city, mounting mares or donkeys, to sell their goods in the contado. One can imagine that, travelling, they made some purchases, restocking their samples. However, since we lack data offering an insight into the provenance and number of clients coming from outside the city, we cannot gauge the impact of second-hand trade outside of the urban circuit. Furthermore, the wandering rigattieri, most of them belonging to the lower strata of the guild, represent a minority and too low a number to speak of any influence of their activity on regional trade. They certainly contributed to the recycle of goods, but in a wider area outside the urban market and certainly not by way of bypassing the old market, where their trade was centred.

Methods and Problems 21 This said, in Florence the rigattieri undoubtedly appear as one of the protagonists of consumption, especially in the first half of the fifteenth century. From the observations made previously and the documentation on this professional group, it emerges that the sellers of used clothing were not a defined and definable ‘class.’ The rigattieri made for a group characterised by a multitude of components. Their economic interests centred on the old market or the surrounding city parts. This group included members in areas of commerce that appeared to invite profitable developments and gave high returns (over the years), such as specialisation in the sale of particular types of objects, clothing, and accessories, or the decision to deal only in clothes and luxurious fabrics to meet the desires of wealthy or influential customers. The rigattieri also carried on different parallel activities that had little to do with marketing, very often successfully, such as moneylending and the sale of agricultural products. From the 1420s, after the paucity of surviving documentation for the previous period, it becomes easier to follow the footsteps of the rigattieri. In the Catasto of 1427, eighty-four individuals declared their profession as rigattieri to the Catasto officers (including five women).89 They were prominent in the quarter of San Giovanni (there were forty-five of them), where they outnumbered even the conspicuous cobblers and shoemakers. Adjacent to San Giovanni, and conveniently close to the old market, another quarter, Santa Maria Novella, counted nineteen second-hand dealers, compared to the fourteen living in Santo Spirito.90 There, only six out of eighty-four retailers practised this trade.91 All in all, there were thirty-nine premises were the trade was performed. Thirty-three of these were shops of tailors, who either owned the shop or paid a rent or the license (entratura), and those who claimed to have a workplace at home must also be considered. In addition, the doublet makers—who along with the tailors were members of the Arte—specialised in one item of clothing only, heavy padded jackets. They relied on twenty-five workshops.92 All these shops count as rigattieri-related activities. In 1451 the commune tried to gain some sense of the whole capital invested in urban enterprises by Florentines, with the aid of the Tassa dei Traffichi. This survey listed the names of Florentine citizens engaged in commerce, the name of the company of which each was a partner, the tax assessment on the company, and the share of this tax that each partner was liable to pay.93 It would appear that eight firms of established rigattieri in the city were listed in the tassa, with an average of 575 florins of capitalisation per firm.94 This seems a rather respectable figure, especially considering that it was the average amount invested in a regatteria business. However, the tendency of Florentine businessmen (and rigattieri made certainly no exception to this) to conceal their actual wealth from the inquisitive eyes of the commune’s tax authorities is a well-known fact.95 It is easy to imagine that these figures were reduced to save on taxes, so one can gauge an even higher figure; it is also likely that not all

22  The Guild and Identity of Artifices companies of rigattieri filed their declarations. Therefore, although the tassa is important for us because it reveals names and information on ongoing partnerships, it must not be trusted completely. In 1480 the rigattieri were few and declining: only fifteen people declared their profession as used clothing dealer.96 Among these were a barber and a stone worker, who had sold cast-offs and rags in the past but were now dedicated to other businesses, as well as the widow of a rigattiere, though it is unclear whether she pursued the profession of her dead husband. Seven of them resided in the populous neighbourhood of San Giovanni, two in Santa Maria Novella, and six in the Oltrarno district, in Santo Spirito.97 These data, taken from the 1480 Catasto, differ from those presented by Maria Luisa Bianchi, who also has pulled data from the same Catasto. From her records it would appear that in the decades following the second half of the century, there was an almost constant number of shops of rigattieri (thirty-eight), to which must also be added other two shops with a house attached, and another bottega that was not however rented (spigionata). Similarly, the number of shops of doublet makers and tailors remained consistent: thirty-six for the former (including three with adjoining houses) and twenty-six for the latter (including one with an adjoining house).98 This discrepancy in the figures by Bianchi and the author is probably because in her tally, Bianchi has not taken into account the modified destination and use of many of these shops, a phenomenon fairly easy to detect over the course of the second half of the fifteenth century. Moreover, in her analysis Bianchi has included the names of those who were declared second-hand dealers by the officers of the Catasto either because they had once practised the profession (but in the meantime had changed jobs) or because they were associated in business with a rigattiere. In 1451, for example, officials in charge of drawing up the fee for the tax survey (valsente) listed Bonifazio di Leonardo among the rigattieri; Bonifazio declared himself: “[to] have ten florins in goods, [no] investments in cash.”99 Technically speaking, Bonifazio was no longer a rigattiere, for he now worked as a full-time embroiderer (ricamatore ero rigattiere) as he styled himself. Finally, the old but still useful 1561 tally of the Florentine botteghe by Pietro Battara witnesses a radical decrease in the number of those who practised the trade around the mid-sixteenth century: only sixty-six shops are listed as belonging to the Arte dei Rigattieri, Linaioli e Sarti. This would confirm our analysis.100 The Arte suffered a slow but irreversible decline, not however due to any waning in overall demand of used clothing. The cause must be sought elsewhere. First, as they rose in status, some of the most skilful members began to use their affiliation with the guild as a means to climb the tiers of society and enter politics. Many abandoned the status of second-hand dealer as the fifteenth century progressed, preferring instead to migrate to the Arti Maggiori in hopes of readier access to political offices.101 The cause must also be sought in the

Methods and Problems 23 ever more uncompromising attitude of the guild consuls towards those who did not pay their taxes, so that many could no longer practise the profession. This last factor is responsible, among other things, for a shift in the internal balance of power within the Arte. Although the political weight of the Arti was already reduced in the fifteenth century during the Medici rule, the development of a familialcentred power—though still operating in a Republican system—into a full Lordship caused a slow and irreversible decline of the corporate system. During the siege of Florence by Charles V in 1530, the Arti, in a desperate attempt to defend the freedom of the Republic, sold almost all their assets. Their defeat soon drained their constitutional role, as finally in 1534 all the Arti were gradually emptied of all political powers, when Duke Alexander I reformed their statutes, de facto reducing them to simple trade associations.

6. The Sources One of the backbones of the documentation for the Florentine Quattrocento is provided by the Catasti, which are also the main primary source for the issues here addressed.102 Especially in investigations of serial nature, financial data can prove extremely valuable, particularly information coming from the great Catasto of 1427.103 The Catasto allows for the creation of dossiers of information of financial, fiscal, administrative, and even anthropological nature for entire families but also for individuals and for (and this is the most important thing) whole generations. Its value thus acquires even more importance in reconstructing Florentine documentary daily evidence that, as is well known, despite being rich with information on elite groups, is rather fragmentary and incomplete on the lower and middle social groups. For this reason, the rigattieri, as traders and entrepreneurs, are well placed to study, for a Catasto often contains rich data on work tools, profits, rents, merchandise, and creditors. Also, a considerable number of debtors owing money to secondhand dealers, contained in individual portate, lets us clarify the role that this category played within the urban and social structure. If the registers of the Catasto are the backbones of the fifteenthcentury Florentine documentation, this does not mean that they are immune from limitations: it is primarily their incompleteness, in particular of the data of 1480, and even more of the 1458 Catasto (which decided for its exclusion), which has made the information rather patchy; the situation is clearly different for 1427. In particular, the random conservation of data contained in the 1480 Catasto registers might depict a ‘leopard skin’ presence of some economic activities within the city’s geography. Similarly, the distribution of second-hand dealers in different urban sections, as it results from the data suggested by the Catasto, while betraying their scarcity in certain areas, suggests that the documentation

24  The Guild and Identity of Artifices only reflects a simple depletion of those economic activities in neighbourhoods more peripheral than the old market. In fact, incompleteness of the record very likely distorts the truth. However, an analysis of the sources highlights the key areas of the city that second-hand dealers penetrated, sometimes replacing the members of old families and those of some major guilds, occasionally creating new clusters of economic activity. Clearly, they could adapt swiftly to evolving market conditions. Despite the limitations mentioned, a systematic examination in the State Archive in Florence of the registers of the Catasto of 1427, as well as of those of the decina graziosa of 1442 and the scala or decima scalata of 1480, permitted a reconstruction of the social and economic activities characterising this profession, with an eye to a wide range of information—household composition, residence, movable assets, landed property and real estate, liabilities and debts, profits and losses, shares, marriage contracts, and neighbourhood relations. To work only on financial data, and especially on a single type of source, such as the Catasto, while it is an instrument unequalled in richness and completeness, would inevitably produce a static vision of the social life of rigattieri, since it would be a horizontal, synchronic examination. However, it is an indispensable starting point for the research, because as David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch Zuber have shown, economic, demographic, and statistical data are of great help to anyone who wants to start a serious social history.104 Luckily, it is possible to widen the investigation to other types of sources. In particular the Tratte (guild electoral records) and the Squittinii (scrutinies of men for electoral offices) have proven fruitful. Because of the survival of several lists of nominees among our rigattieri and vote totals from general scrutinies held in various guilds in the Quattrocento, the electoral history of these years can be illustrated through a wealth of data simply not available for the earlier period. The scrutinies are a precious source. Inspired by the work of Hans Baron, who firmly committed himself to demonstrating that the Florentine ruling class was interested in gaining a broader consensus in the system of participatory politics,105 John Najemy was the first to point out that the assessment of the results and general political significance of these scrutinies has been a central part of the effort to understand the nature of the ‘ruling class’ or Reggimento during the years that witnessed the conflict with Milan, the successful expansion of the territorial state, and the growth of civic humanism.106 This documentation, reporting often analytically the names of the imborsati, those whose names were chosen to be elected or re-elected to the administrative offices, enables investigation of the gradual acquisition of

Methods and Problems 25 power by some rigattieri and, consequently, the dynamics and aspects of social mobility of these men. One can reconstruct the political and administrative history of some family groups and individuals, who held key offices more often than others did. Regarding the acquisition of power by members of the guild, the records contained in the registers referred to as Numeri Rossi of the Fondo Capitani di Parte Guelfa preserved by the State Archive are also crucial. This source provides the names of those elected to positions within the powerful Florentine institution: some came from the highest offices of the Arte dei Rigattieri where they had served as consuls and magistrates. To these data, information from the Matricole must be added; this information has proven pivotal for understanding, among other things, how within the guild power was distributed and eventually shared and for learning which individuals and families kept it. For what concerns the internal specialisation in the Arte, and also for issues related to internal mobility, the data contained in the two registers known as Deliberazioni e Statutaria dei Consoli of the Fondo Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli numbered 13 (1446–1452) and 14 (1471–1475) respectively, are of extreme relevance. They include the complete lists of the names of all second-hand dealers who were chosen to perform as estimators, at the petition of various clients, to assess clothes and accessories. These are essential data because they shed light on a particular phenomenon, that of estimation, codified by the statutes but never previously investigated at this level for lack of direct information. Among those who solicited the expertise and professionalism of the rigattieri were well-known characters and personages belonging to the elite. The statutes of the guild, known thanks to the edition by Ferdinando Sartini, was another source consulted.107 The oldest set, dating back to 1296, was dictated by the Arte dei Rigattieri. The 1340 statutes represented the updated version of the newly reconstituted Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli. The first of these codices is the result of the legislative will, formulated on behalf of the consuls of the Ars Regatteriorum, and the second contains the rules of the statute of the Ars Linaiolorum. Analysis of these texts has enabled the identification, in particular, of the various stages that led to the merging of the Linaioli and Rigattieri and highlighted the economic policy pursued by the highest members within the community of Florentine traders. Further, two of the sources that have been used to look at the supply side, and also at consumption—issues both closely related to the study of rigattieri—are the Memoriale and Ricordanze of Piero Puro di Francesco from Vicchio, a servant, or donzello of the Guelph Party between 1430 and 1465. The manuscripts, kept in the Historical Archive of the Hospital of the Innocenti in Florence, were written between 1429 and 1463. These sources, previously used by the author for other research, contain important data for the purposes of this study, giving the names of

26  The Guild and Identity of Artifices rigattieri from whom Piero made purchases, the precise location of their shops, and detailed descriptions of the items bought and their prices. Other sources used here for the study of the clientele and goods sold by second-hand dealers, are more Ricordanze, also held by the Archive of the Ospedale degli Innocenti, compiled by the administrator Lapo di Piero Pacini between 1444 and 1482. The manuscript records expenditures of the hospital, related to transactions at some second-hand dealers, for the purchase of clothing for the children living there. Unfortunately for the period covered by this research, no other memoirs, books of account, or extended and complete confraternity records exist; these otherwise useful tools would have certainly provided a mine of information. Conversely, there is no lack of data, most of which is chronological (which specify the nature of the administrative or political offices covered by any given individual and family group) from the Raccolta Sebregondi and the Carte Pucci of the archival Fondo Manoscritti and those of the Fondo Ceramelli Papiani. Additional, related information comes from diaries compiled by contemporaries, all appearing in the census conducted by Angelo Cicchetti and Raoul Mordenti.108

7. Conclusions The rigattieri, among the protagonists of the local economy in fifteenthcentury Florence, have been neglected by past historical analyses aiming at investigating social mobility between the late Middle Ages and early modern times. To understand the social mobility of rigattieri, a topic of great potential, one must pass through an investigation of economy and society, a study of political dynamics, culture, family matters, and of course an analysis of work production, guild regulations, consumption, and material culture. The complexity of the research, which analyses several aspects and topics, is evident. The research is complex, detail-driven, and arduous. The major difficulty consists in having to integrate multiple research paths, scattered field studies, and sometimes-patchy evidence. With the exception of sources such as the Matricole dell’Arte and the oldest ­statutes—those dating back to 1296—complications arise from lack of specific, homogeneous documentation, leading to the need of systematic research that engage with different types of sources. Rigattieri often came from the ranks of the lower and middling men, the so-called homines novi, who over the course of the fifteen century, and especially after the return of Cosimo to Florence in 1434, gradually replaced the mercantile and political elites, providing support and loyalty to the Medici House. By this time, Florence had lost its pre-eminence in international commerce and was slowly becoming more peripheral on interregional trade as well. However, the local market of used clothing seems to have flourished in this period, and the rapid growth within the

Methods and Problems 27 commercial arena of some of these men, accompanied by a progressive increase of their wealth and status, bears witness to their rise. Rigattieri who wanted to grow in status could work to acquire a good reputation, which could eventually raise them to some prestigious professions practised within the guild, such as that of estimator. Nevertheless, the indispensable condition for a real jump in social level remained the abandonment of the profession altogether and the move towards a political career. The best way up was via the town’s administrative offices, in some cases through inclusion among the highest members of the Guelph Party, the Mercanzia, or election to the top offices of the city’s regime.

Notes 1. “Le quali tutte cose, giudici, sapete che io le produssi el dì medesimo che fui citato . . . Non sono già rigattiere che per ordinario tenga e’ libri doppi, né sono indovino che dua, tre o quattro anni fa avessi immaginato questo caso e preparatomi”: in his Consolatoria, Accusatoria et Defensoria, more than an examination of conscience, Francesco Guicciardini poses questions concerning the link between morality and politics, Consolatoria, Accusatoria et Defensoria, ed. Florence Courriol (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2013), Oratio defensoria, 298. 2. On the homines novi see John Najemy, Corporativism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics, 1280–1400 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 195–210. 3. “La gente nova e i sùbiti guadagni, orgoglio e dismisura han generata,” Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia, Inferno, ed. Umberto Bosco and Giovanni Reggio (Florence: Le Monnier, 1984), Canto XVI, 73–74, 242. 4. There is a paucity of studies of the social mobility during the era of the commune and in later centuries, with a few exceptions. See the essays, and the bibliography on the subject, in the volume recently published entitled La mobilità sociale nel Medioevo italiano. Competenze, conoscenze e saperi tra professioni e ruoli sociali (secc. XII–XV), ed. Lorenzo Tanzini and Sergio Tognetti (Rome: Viella, 2016). 5. Andrea Gamberini, “Le parole della guerra nel ducato di Milano. Un linguaggio cetuale,” in Linguaggi politici nell’Italia del Rinascimento, ed. Andrea Gamberini and Giuseppe Petralia (Rome: Viella, 2007), 462–464. 6. A famous example is Bartolomeo Scala, the son of a miller and later Chancellor of Florence, described by Alison Brown, Bartolomeo Scala, 1430– 1497, Chancellor of Florence. The Humanist as Bureaucrat (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979). 7. Athanasios Moulakis, “Civic Humanism, Realist Constitutionalism, and Francesco Guicciardini’s Discorso di Logrogno,” in Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections, ed. James Hankins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 8. Francesco Guicciardini, Dialogue on the Government of Florence, ed. Alison Brown (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 9. Another Del Nero, Francesco, was a “half-dependant distant peasant connection” of the Carradori, another family of rigattieri, and of their cousin Manno Temperani: Francis W. Kent, Bartolomeo Cederni and His Friends. Letters to an obscure Florentine (Florence: Olschki, 1990), 38; see also Dale V. Kent and

28  The Guild and Identity of Artifices Francis W. Kent, “Two Vignettes of Florentine Society in the Fifteenth Century,” Rinascimento II, s. 23 (1983). 9. Giovanni Silvano, “Gli uomini da bene di Francesco Guicciardini: coscienza aristocratica e repubblicana a Firenze nel primo ’500,” Archivio Storico Italiano (hereafter ASI) (1990). 10. For a division into major and lesser guilds, see the Glossary. For an exhaustive overview on the Arti and existing literature, see Richard A. Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance Florence: An Economic and Social History (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 242–286, 342–407. 11. More rarely the rigattiere was a business owner. 12. Carole Collier Frick, “The Florentine ‘Rigattieri’: Second Hand Clothing Dealers and the Circulation of Goods in the Renaissance,” in Old Clothes, New Looks: Second-Hand Fashion (Dress, Body, Culture), ed. Alexandra Palmer and Hazel Clark (Lewiston, NY: Berg Pub Ltd, 2005). 13. Gaetano Mosca, Sulla teorica dei governi e sul governo parlamentare (Palermo: Tipografia dello Statuto, 1884). 14. For the birth of the elitist theory and its reception in medieval studies, an excellent reference is Massimo Vallerani, “La città e le sue istituzioni. Ceti dirigenti, oligarchia e politica nella medievistica italiana del Novecento,” Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento 20 (1994). 15. Vilfredo Pareto, I sistemi socialisti (Turin: UTET, 1951), 30; Trattato di sociologia generale (Milan: Edizioni di Comunità, 1964), II, 438. 16. Pitirim A. Sorokin, Social Mobility (New York and London: Harper  & Brothers, 1927). 17. Margaret S. Archer, Making Our Way through the World: Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 18. Max Weber, Economy and Society (Oakland: University of California Press, 1978); Frank Parkin, Marxism and Class Theory: A  Bourgeois Critique (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979); Raymond Murphy, Social Closure: The Theory of Monopolization and Exclusion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988). 19. On the theme of social mobility Italian scholars have dedicated several volumes, the results of multidisciplinary research run by the universities of Rome «Tor Vergata», Milan, Pisa and Cagliari, founded through the scheme PRIN (Progetti di Rilevante Interesse nazionale 2012) awarded for the years 2014–2017. They include La mobilità sociale nel Medioevo italiano 1, ed. Tanzini and Tognetti; La mobilità sociale nel Medioevo italiano 2. Stato e istituzioni (secoli XIV–XV), ed. Andrea Gamberini (Rome: Viella, 2017); La mobilità sociale nel Medioevo italiano 3. Il mondo ecclesiastico (secoli XII– XV), ed. Sandro Carocci and Amedeo de Vincentiis (Rome: Viella, 2017); La mobilità sociale nel Medioevo italiano 5. Roma e la Chiesa (secoli XII–XV), ed. Cristina Carbonetti Vendittelli and Marco Vendittelli (Rome: Viella, 2017); Social Mobility in Medieval Italy (1100–1500), ed. Sandro Carocci and Isabella Lazzarini (Rome: Viella, 2018). 20. See Martha Howell, The Marriage Exchange. Property, Social Place, and Gender in Cities of the Low Countries, 1300–1500 (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1998); Christopher Dyer, “Methods and Problems in the Study of Social Mobility in England (1200–1350),” in La mobilità sociale nel Medioevo, ed. Sandro Carocci, Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome 436 (2010); Alessandra Molinari, Archeologia e mobilità sociale in Ibid. 21. There are many introductions to the sociological research on mobility; among them, the most informed for its clarity and the ability to synthesise the vast literature on the topic is Antonio De Lillo, “Mobilità sociale,” in Enciclopedia delle scienze sociali (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1996), V.

Methods and Problems 29 22. The ‘cultural capital’ acquired at different points on the social ladder has been seen as one of the central strategies by which people distinguish themselves from others: Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A  Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. by Richard Nice (London: Routledge, 1984); for Bourdieu in relation to conspicuous consumption see Andrew B. Trigg, “Veblen, Bourdieu, and Conspicuous Consumption,” Journal of Economic Issues 35, 1 (2001). 23. Bourdieu, Distinction, 108–119; by the same author see also Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977). The central thesis of Robert D. Putnam’s Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Early Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993) is that social capital is key to high institutional performance and the maintenance of democracy. 24. Sandro Carocci, “Social Mobility and the Middle Ages,” Continuity and Change 26, 3 (2011), 370; see also the essays in the volume La mobilità sociale nel medioevo. 25. For an overview of the phenomenon of social mobility related specifically to the Middle Ages see David Nicholas, “Patterns of Social Mobility,” in One Thousand Years. Western Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. Robert L. DeMolen (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1974). 26. Werner Sombart, Il capitalismo moderno, ed. and trans. by Alessandro Cavalli (Milan: Rosemberg & Sellier, 2014); Richard H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism: A Historical Study (London: Hesperides Press, 1926). 27. David Herlihy, “Three Patterns of Social Mobility in Medieval Society,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 3 (1973). 28. On the possibility to reverse this trend see Franco Franceschi, “Premessa,” in “E seremo tutti ricchi”. Lavoro, mobilità sociale e conflitti nelle città dell’Italia medievale (Pisa: Pacini, 2012), 1–3. 29. See for example the classic Franco Franceschi, Oltre il “Tumulto”: I lavoratori fiorentini dell’arte della lana fra Tre e Quattrocento (Florence: Olschki, 1993); for issues of consumption and social mobility see also Alessia Meneghin, “La tavola di un salariato fiorentino nel quindicesimo secolo,” ASI CLXXII, 2 (2014). 30. Steven A. Epstein, Wage Labour and Guilds in Medieval Europe (London: UNC Press Books, 1991). 31. Donata Degrassi, “Il mondo dei mestieri artigiani,” in La mobilità sociale nel Medioevo. 32. Donata Degrassi, L’economia artigiana nell’Italia medievale (Rome: Carocci, 1996), 100–106. 33. Cinzio Violante, “L’arte dei sarti nello svolgimento del sistema corporativo (secoli XIII–XV),” in Economia, società e istituzioni a Pisa nel Medioevo. Saggi e ricerche, ed. Cinzio Violante (Bari: Laterza, 1980), 272–274; “L’organizzazione di mestiere dei sarti pisani nei secoli XIII–XV,” in Studi in onore di Armando Sapori (Milan: Istituto editoriale cisalpino, 1957), I. 34. Other Florentine families of ‘new people’ (gente nuova) could count on several households and men that detained administrative and political roles, despite their low origins, for example the Ginori, who numbered six households in 1427, Francis W. Kent, Household & Lineage in Renaissance Florence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), 28. 35. Alessia Meneghin, “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in Fifteenth-Century Florence: Organisation, Conflicts, and Trends,” in Il commercio al minuto. Domanda e offerta tra economia formale e informale. Secc. XIII–XVIII. Retail Trade. Supply and demand in the formal and informal economy from the 13th to the 18th century. Selezione di ricerche, Atti delle “Settimane di Studi” e altri Convegni, 46 (Florence: Florence University Press, 2015), 34.

30  The Guild and Identity of Artifices 36. Isabella Chabot, Ricostruzione di una famiglia. I  Ciurianni di Firenze tra XII e XV secolo. Con l’edizione critica del «libro propio» di Lapo di Valore Ciurianni e successori (1326–1429) (Florence: Le Lettere, 2012); Claudia Tripodi, Gli Spini tra XIV e XV secolo. Il declino di un antico casato fiorentino (Florence: Olschki, 2013). The profile of families excluded from social and political success still remains shadowed, as argued by Ciappelli years ago in Una famiglia e le sue ricordanze. I Castellani di Firenze nel Tre-­ Quattrocento (Florence: Olschki, 1995), 2–3; and more recently by Tripodi (Gli Spini), XII. 37. Niccolò Rodolico, Il popolo minuto. Note di storia fiorentina (1343–1378), 2nd edition with a foreword by Ernesto Sestan (Florence: Olschki, 1968). 38. Victor Rutenburg, Popolo e movimenti popolari nell’Italia del ‘300 e del ‘400, trans. by Giampiero Borghini (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1971). 39. Sombart, Il capitalismo moderno; Marvin Becker, Florence in Transition (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967); Raymond De Roover, “Labour Condition in Florence around 1400: Theory, Policy and Reality,” in Florentine Studies. Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence, ed. Nicolai Rubinstein (London: Faber, 1968); Gene A. Brucker, “The Florentine popolo minuto and Its Political Role, 1340–1450,” in Violence and Civic Disorder in Italian Cities, 1200–1500, ed. Lauro Martines (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972); Charles M. de La Roncière, “La condition des salariés à Florence au XIVe siècle,” in Il tumulto dei Ciompi. Un momento di storia fiorentina ed europea. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, Firenze 16–19 settembre 1979 (Florence: Olschki, 1981); Prix et salaires à Florence au XIVe siècle (1280–1380) (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1982). 40. Samuel K. Cohn, The Laboring Classes in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic Press, 1980). 41. See the contributions published in Artigiani e salariati. Il mondo del lavoro nell’Italia dei secoli XII–XV. Atti del X Convegno Internazionale di Studio, Pistoia 9–13 ottobre 1981 (Pistoia: Centro Italiano di Studi di Storia e d’Arte, 1984); the social world of the working man is best approached through the studies of Giovanni Cherubini and Franco Franceschi. For Cherubini see, “Artigiani e salariati nelle città italiane del tardo Medioevo,” in Aspetti della vita economica medievale. Atti del Convegno di studi nel X anniversario della morte di Federigo Melis, Firenze-Pisa-Prato 10–14 marzo 1984 (Florence: Istituto di Storia economica, 1985); Scritti toscani: L’urbanesimo medievale e la mezzadria (Florence: Salimbeni, 1991); Il lavoro, la taverna, la strada: scorci di Medioevo (Naples: Liguori, 1997); for Franceschi see, “La mémoire des ‘laboratores’ à Florence au début du XVe siècle,” Annales: Économies, sociétés, civilisations 45 (1990); Oltre il “Tumulto”; see also Giuliano Pinto, “Il personale, le balie e i salariati dell’Ospedale di San Gallo di Firenze negli anni 1395–1406. Note per la storia del salariato nelle città medievali,” Ricerche Storiche 4 (1974); “I  livelli di vita dei salariati fiorentini (1380–1430),” in Toscana medievale. Paesaggi e realtà sociali, ed. Giuliano Pinto (Florence: Jouvence, 1993); “I lavoratori salariati nell’Italia Bassomedievale: mercato del lavoro e livelli di vita,” in Travail et travailleurs en Europe au Moyen Âge et au début des Temps Modernes, ed. Claire Dolan (Toronto, ON: Papers in Mediaeval Studies, 1991). 42. This definition was used by Mario Del Treppo to describe a system of business relations organized by Tuscan merchants: “Stranieri nel Regno di Napoli: le élites finanziarie e la strutturazione dello spazio economico e politico,” in Dentro la città. Stranieri e realtà urbane nell’Europa dei secoli XII–XVI, ed. Gabriella Rossetti (Naples: Liguori, 1989), 179.

Methods and Problems 31 43. Maria Elisa Soldani, Uomini d’affari e mercanti toscani nella Barcellona del Quattrocento (Barcelona: Anejos del Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 2011); see also the essays in the volume «Mercatura è arte». Uomini e affari toscani in Europa e nel Mediterraneo tardomedievale, ed. Lorenzo Tanzini and Sergio Tognetti (Rome: Viella 2012). 44. Among the most recent publications see Laura Galoppini, Mercanti Toscani a Bruges nel tardo medioevo (Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2009); Francesco Guidi Bruscoli, Bartolomeo Marchionni, «homem de grossa fazenda» (ca. 1450–1530). Un mercante fiorentino a Lisbona e l’impero portoghese (Florence: Olschki, 2014); interesting contributions are offered by the essays of the volume Il governo dell’economia. Italia e Penisola Iberica nel basso Medioevo, ed. Lorenzo Tanzini and Sergio Tognetti (Rome: Viella, 2014). 45. Sergio Tognetti, I Gondi di Lione. Una banca d’affari fiorentina nella Francia del primo Cinquecento (Florence: Olschki, 2013). 46. Luciana Frangioni, “Un’industria d’arte per le armature e le armi,” in Artigianato Lombardo, 2, L’opera metallurgica (Milan: Cariplo, 1978); Maria Paola Zanoboni, “Battiloro e imprenditori auroserici: mobilità sociale e forniture di corte nella Milano quattrocentesca,” Storia economica, XIII (2010), 1–2, and 3; Bruno Dini, “I  battilori fiorentini nel Quattrocento,” in Manifattura, commercio e banca nelle Firenze medievale (Florence: Nardini, 2001). 47. Richard K. Marshall, The Local Merchants of Prato. Small Entrepreneurs in the Late Medieval Economy (Baltimore, MD, and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); the case of the Pratese merchant Francesco di Marco Datini is well known, thanks to Iris Origo, The Merchant of Prato. Daily Life in a Medieval Italian City (New York: Penguin, 1957), Federigo Melis, Aspetti della vita economica medievale (Studi nell’archivio Datini di Prato) (Siena: Monte dei Paschi, 1962), and, also, the volume Francesco di Marco Datini. The Man the Merchant, ed. Giampiero Nigro (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2010); see also Piero Guarducci, Un tintore senese del Trecento. Landoccio di Cecco d’Orso (Florence: Protagon, 1998). 48. Franceschi, “La mémoire des ‘laboratores’ à Florence”; Maria Serena Mazzi, “Ai margini del lavoro: i mestieri per ‘campare la vita,’ ” Studi Storici 27 (1986). 49. James S. Amelang, The Flight of Icarus. Artisan Autobiography in Early Modern Europe (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998); though for later times see the classic Carlo Ginzburg, Il formaggio e i vermi: il cosmo di un mugnaio nel ‘500 (Turin: Einaudi, 1976). 50. In this sense, a recently published volume by John S. Lee does a good job in examining not only the origin and development of the cloth-production and -distribution trades, but also the roles that clothiers played in medieval England and their social, religious, and political importance: The Medieval Clothier (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2018). 51. See the broader perspective in The Artisans and the European Town, 1500– 1900, ed. Geoffrey Crossick (Aldershot: Scholar Press, 1997); in 2000 James R. Farr was of the opinion that artisan production had not received yet much attention, Artisans in Europe, 1300–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Sadly, the situation has changed little. 52. Some of the most recent essays include Rita Maria Comanducci, “Fattori e garzoni al lavoro nelle botteghe d’arte,” in La grande storia dell’artigianato, Il Cinquecento, ed. Franco Franceschi and Gloria Fossi (Florence: Electa, 2000); Richard A. Goldthwaite, “An Entrepreneurial Silk Weaver in Renaissance Florence,” I Tatti Studies 10 (2005); Alessia Meneghin, “The Secondhand Clothing Business of Taddeo di Chello (1390–1408). Social Relations, Credit, and the Structures of Consumption in Late Medieval Prato,” Quaderni Storici 2 (2015).

32  The Guild and Identity of Artifices 53. For a general overview see Maria Paola Zanoboni, Salariati nel Medioevo, secoli 13–15: guadagnando bene e onestamente il proprio compenso fino al calar del sole (Ferrara: Nuovecarte, 2009). 54. Rodolico, Il popolo minuto. Note di storia fiorentina, 55–59; see also Brucker, “The Florentine popolo minuto.” 55. Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance Florence, 115–170; Franco Franceschi surveyed the decline of the economic role of artisan guilds in the late Trecento and the early Quattrocento in “Intervento del potere centrale e ruolo delle Arti nel governo dell’economia fiorentina del Trecento e del primo Quattrocento,” ASI 151 (1993); see also Peter Stabel, “Guilds in Late Medieval Flanders: Myths and Realities of Guild Life in a Export-Oriented Environment,” Journal of Medieval History 30 (2004). 56. ‘New men’ and issues of social mobility in Renaissance Florence are discussed in Alison Brown, “Lorenzo de’ Medici’s New Men and Their Mores: The Changing Lifestyle of Quattrocento Florence,” Renaissance Studies 16, 2 (2003). 57. On this theme see Cissie Fairchilds, “Consumption in Early Modern Europe: A Review Article,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 35 (1993); Mathieu Arnoux, “Nascita di un’economia di consumo?” in Il Rinascimento Italiano e l’Europa, Produzione e Tecniche, ed. Philippe Braunstein and Luca Molà (Vicenza: Fondazione Cassamarca, 2007), 3; Carlo M. Belfanti, “Introduzione,” in Il commercio al minuto. Domanda e offerta tra economia formale e informale. Secc. XIII–XVIII. 58. See for example Mary Ginsburg, “Rags to Riches: The Second-hand Clothes Trade 1700–1978,” Costume 14 (1980). 59. Fernard Braudel, Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme (XVe– XVIIIe siècle). Les jeux de l’echange (Paris: Colin, 1979); Harald Deceulaer, “Entrepreneurs in the Guilds: Ready-to-wear Clothing and Subcontracting in late Sixteenth- and early Seventeenth-Century Antwerp,” Textile History 31 (2002); Jaqueline. M. Musacchio, “The Medici Sale of 1495 and the Second-Hand Market in Late Fifteenth-Century Florence,” in The Art Market in Italy: Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries, Il mercato dell’arte in Italia, Secc. XV–XVII, ed. Marcello Fantoni et  al. (Modena: F. C. Panini, 2003); Miles Lambert, “Cast-off Wearing Apparel: The Consumption and Distribution of Second-hand Clothing in Northern England during the Long Eighteenth Century,” Textile History 35 (2004); Ilja Van Damme, “Changing Consumer Preferences and Evolutions in Retailing. Buying and Selling Consumer Durables in Antwerp (c. 1648–c. 1748),” in Buyers and Sellers. Retail Circuits and Practices in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Bruno Blondé et al. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006). 60. For a good introduction to the subject see the “Premessa” in Maria Serena Mazzi and Sergio Raveggi, Gli uomini e le cose nelle campagne fiorentine del Quattrocento (Florence: Olschki, 1983), 5–8; Giulia Calvi, “Abito, genere, cittadinanza nella Toscana moderna (secc. XVI–XVII),” Quaderni storici 37 (2002); Beverly Lemire, “The Theft of Clothes and Popular Consumerism in Early Modern England,” Journal of Social History 24, 2 (1990); John Styles, “Clothing the North: the Supply of Non-elite Clothing in the Eighteenthcentury North of England,” Textile History 25 (1994); Harald Deceulaer, “Guildsmen, Entrepreneurs and Market Segments: The Case of the Garment Trades in Antwerp and Ghent (Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries),” International Review of Social History 43 (1998); Beverly Lemire, “Secondhand Beaux and Red-armed Belles: Conflict and the Creation of Fashions in England, c. 1660–1800,” Continuity and Change 15 (2000); Evelyn Welch, “From Retail to Resale: Artistic Value and the Second-Hand Market in

Methods and Problems 33 Italy (1400–1550),” in The Art Market in Italy; Beverly Lemire, “Shifting Currency: the Culture and Economy of Second-hand Trade in England, c. 1600–1850,” in Old Clothes, New Looks; see also Evelyn Welch, “Old and Second-Hand Culture: The Case of the Renaissance Sleeve,” in Revaluing Renaissance Art, ed. Gabriele Neher and Rupert Shepherd (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2000). 61. One of the most elusive subjects when examining the issue of demand is consumption, a subject which has been widely discussed for Northern Europe but relatively new for Southern Europe and the Middle Ages. A volume recently pubblished, Faire son marché au Moyen Âge. Méditerraneée occidentale, XIIIe-XVIe siècle, ed. Judicaël Petrowiste and Mario Lafuente Gómez (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2018), deals with the ‘commercialization’ of medieval society from the point of view of the consumer rather than that of the merchant, more traditional in historiography. By analysing clients consumption cultures, their acquisition strategies and the regulatory mechanism protecting domestic supplies, the book aids to better understand what shopping meant for men and women of that time. 62. Neil McJendrick et al., The Birth of a Consumer Society. The Commercialization of Eighteenth-century England (London: Europa Publications, 1982); Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London-New York: Routledge, 1993); Maxine Berg, Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-century Britain (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Beverly Lemire, The Business of Everyday Life (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2005). 63. Jan De Vries, The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behaviour and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 64. Richard A. Goldthwaite, “Introduction,” in The Economy of Renaissance Florence (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). 65. Philip Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses (London, 1583); reprinted and edited by Frederick J. Furnivall, Philip Stubbes’s Anatomy of the Abuses in England (London: John Child and Son, 1877–1879), II, 39–40. 66. In chronological order: Margaret Spufford, The Great Reclothing of Rural England: Petty Chapmen and their Wares in the Seventeenth Century (London: The Hambledon Press, 1984); Mary Ginsburg, “Peddling Fashion: Salesmen, Pawnbrokers, Tailors, Thieves and the Second-hand Clothes Trade in England, c. 1700–1800,” Textile History 22 (1991); Elisabeth Sanderson, “Nearly New: The Second-hand Clothing Trade in Eighteenth-Century Edinburgh,” Costume 21 (1997); see also Beverly Lemire, “Consumerism in Pre-industrial and Early Industrial England: The Trade in Second-Hand Clothes,” Journal of British Studies 27 (1988); Ann Matchette, “Women, Objects and Exchanges in Early Modern Florence,” Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal 3 (2008); other recent publications are Jon Stobart, “Clothes, Cabinets and Carriages: Second-hand Dealing in Eighteenthcentury England,” and Beverly Lemire, “Plebeian Commercial Circuits and Everyday Material Exchange in England, c. 1600–1900,” both in Buyers and Sellers; Harald Deceulaer, “Second-hand Dealers in the Early Modern Low Countries. Institutions, Markets and Practices,” in Alternative Exchanges: Second-hand Circulations from the Sixteenth Century to the Present, ed. Laurence Fontaine (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008). 67. This aspect has already been partly discussed by the author in a paper published recently and will be more widely dealt with later in this book, Meneghin, “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in Fifteenth-Century Florence.”

34  The Guild and Identity of Artifices 68. Collier Frick, “The Florentine Rigattieri”; Patricia Allerston, “Le marché de l’occasion à Venise aux XVIe–XVIIe siècles,” in Echanges et cultures textiles dans l’Europe préindustrielle, ed. Jean Bottin and Nicole Pellegrin (Lille: Revue du Nord, 1996); Patricia Allerston, “Reconstructing the Secondhand Clothes Trade in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-century Venice,” Costume 33 (1999); Ann Matchette, “To Have and To Have Not: The Disposal of Household Furnishings in Florence,” Renaissance Studies 20, 5 (2006); Ann Matchette, “Credit and Credibility: Used Goods and Social Relations in Sixteenth-Century Florence,” in The Material Renaissance, ed. Michelle O’Malley and Evelyn Welch (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007); Carlo M. Travaglini, “Dalla corporazione al gruppo professionale: i rigattieri nell’Ottocento pontificio,” Roma moderna e contemporanea. Corporazioni e gruppi professionali a Roma tra XVI e XIX secolo, VI, 3 (settembre-dicembre 1998); “Rigattieri e società romana nel Settecento,” Quaderni Storici, LXXX (1992). 69. Lia Ghezi Fabbri, “Drappieri, strazzaroli, savagli,” Il Carrobbio VI (1980). 70. Fabio Giusberti, “La forza dell’usato. Strazzaroli e rigattieri a Bologna in età moderna,” in Corporazioni e gruppi professionali nell’Italia moderna, Atti del Convegno, Roma 26–27 settembre 1997, ed. Alberto Guenzi et al. (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1999). 71. Antonio Piras, “Dell’origine giudaica dei ‘rigattieri’ di Cagliari: osservazioni e raffronti storici,” Bullettino bibliografico sardo, III (1903). 72. Alberto Balzani, “Cartiere, cartari e stracciaroli nel Lazio (fine ‘700-prima metà ‘800),” Studi Romani, XVIII (1970), 545. 73. Monica Cerri, “Sarti toscani nel Seicento: attività e clientela,” in Le trame della moda, ed. Anna G. Cavagna and Grazietta Butazzi (Rome: Bulzoni, 1995), 427; Elizabeth Currie, “Diversity and Design in the Florentine Tailoring Trade, 1550–1620,” in At Home in Renaissance Italy, ed. Marta AjmarWollheim and Flora Dennis (London: V&A Publications, 2006). 74. Capitoli dell’arte de’ strazzaroli della città di Ferrara (Ferrara: Suzzi, 1659); Statuti della compagnia de’ drappieri o’ vero strazzaroli della città di Bologna riformati ultimamente l’anno MDLVI (Bologna, 1557); “Statuti della fraglia degli strazzaroli,” in Le corporazioni padovane d’arti e mestieri. Studio storico-giuridico, ed. Melchiorre Roberti (Venice: Quaracchi, 1902); Statuti de’ regattieri di Roma (Rome, 1609); Statuti e capitoli dell’Università dei rigattieri di Roma aggregati nella chiesa di S. Andrea e Bernardino ai Monti (Rome, 1735); Statuti e capitoli dell’Università dei rigattieri di Roma del 1762 (Rome, 1762). 75. Statuti dell’Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli di Firenze (1296–1340), ed. Ferdinando Sartini (Florence: Olschki, 1940–1948), 1, 45. Long before Sartini’s edition Lorenzo Cantini had published the Statuti o sia riforma dell’arte de’ linaioli del di’ 23 luglio 1578 in Firenze (Florence: Stamperia Albizziniana, 1800–1808). 76. Giovanni Cherubini, “Un rigattiere fiorentino del Duecento,” in Studi in onore di Arnaldo d’Addario, ed. Luigi Borgia (Lecce: Conte Editore, 1995). 77. Meneghin, “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in Fifteenth-Century Florence”; Alessia Meneghin, “The Second-hand Clothing Business of Taddeo di Chello”; Alessia Meneghin, “Rigattieri, cenciai e ferrovecchi dello stato territoriale fiorentino: un’indagine preliminare (1428–1429),” Ricerche Storiche XLVI, 3 (settembre–dicembre 2016). 78. Below ranked Pisa, which had some 50,000, and further down the minor towns, between 20,000 and 10,000 (Arezzo, Cortona, Prato, and Volterra) and others between 10,000 and 5,000 (Massa Marittina, San Gimignano, Colle Valdelsa, Montepulciano, Montalcino, San Miniato al Tedesco, and

Methods and Problems 35 Grosseto). For these population figures see Maria Ginatempo and Lucia Sandri, L’Italia delle città: Il popolamento urbano tra Medioevo e Rinascimento (secoli XIII–XVI) (Florence: Le Lettere, 1990), 148, 224–241. 79. Mario Luzzati, Firenze e la Toscana nel Medioevo. Seicento anni per la costruzione di uno stato (Turin: UTET, 1986), 168–172. Prato had been purchased from Joanna of Naples in 1351, Gino Pampaloni, “Prato nella Repubblica fiorentina (secolo XIV–XVI),” in Storia di Prato, Secoli XIV– XVIII (Florence: Edizione Cassa di Risparmi e Depositi, 1980), 2, 8–9. Furthermore, the early Quattrocento saw the launching of a massive building plan for the city that culminated in the construction of the Brunelleschi cupola of the cathedral. 80. The economic central role of the government in the fifteenth century is the focus of two articles by Franco Franceschi: “Intervento del potere centrale e ruolo delle Arti nel governo dell’economia fiorentina” and “Istituzioni e attività economica a Firenze: Considerazioni sul governo del settore industriale (1350–1450),” in Istituzioni e società in Toscana nell’Età Moderna. Atti delle giornate di studio dedicate a Giuseppe Pansini (Firenze, 4–5 dicembre 1992) (Rome: Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato, 1994). 81. For an overview of Florence’s and Tuscany’s economy and society see Goldthwaite, The Economy of Renaissance Florence, 484–545. 82. Although much has been said about the direct taxation hitting hard on residents, it has yet to be proved that families and businesses were strapped of their capital to pay taxes, and the history of both indirect and direct taxes should also include a discussion on how much impact these levies had on the middling and lower groups of society, on market activities, and on the economy in general. 83. Richard A. Goldthwaite, “I  prezzi del grano a Firenze dal XIV al XVI secolo,” Quaderni Storici 10 (1975); Sergio Tognetti, “Prezzi e salari nella Firenze tardomedievale: Un profilo,” ASI 53 (1995); the wage data are from Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance Florence, Appendices 3, 435–442; Goldthwaite, The Economy of Renaissance Florence, 362–367. 84. Richard A. Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy, 1300– 1600 (Baltimore, MD, and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 12–20; see also Ruggiero Romano, “La storia economica. Dal secolo XIV al Settecento,” in Storia d’Italia (Turin: Einaudi, 1974), vol. 2., pt. 2. 85. In Florence the dawn of this different demand was not matched by a growth in population: quite the contrary. The Plague had repeatedly scourged Florence and its district causing a demographic collapse, although it had not, apparently, caused a severe disruption of trade and commercial infrastructures. 86. Matteo Villani, Cronica, ed. Giovanni Porta (Parma: Guanda Editore, 1995), book 1, chap. 6–1, 15–16. See also chap. 2. 87. Bruno Dini, “Le vie di comunicazione del territorio fiorentino alla metà del Quattrocento,” in Mercati e consumi: Organizzazione e qualificazione del commercio in Italia dal XII al XX secolo. I  convegno nazionale di storia del commercio, Reggio Emilia, 6–7 giugno 1984, Modena, 8–9 giugno 1984 (Bologna: Edizioni Analisi, 1986). 88. “Regional trade involving the city . . . does not appear to have been a major activity in its local market except for the basic goods that came in from the countryside,” Goldthwaite, The Economy of Renaissance Florence, 117. 89. Meneghin, “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” 323, 328. 90. Collier Frick, “The Florentine Rigattieri,” 18–19. 91. Archivio di Stato di Firenze (hereafter ASF), Catasto, 69, f. 355r; Ibid., 296, f. 34r.

36  The Guild and Identity of Artifices 92. Maria L. Grossi, “Le botteghe fiorentine nel Catasto del 1427,” Ricerche Storiche 30 (2000), 18. 93. Anthony Molho, “The Florentine «Tassa dei Traffichi» of 1451,” Studies in the Renaissance 17 (1970). 94. The sharp difference in cash investment between the company of Giovanni di Filippo and Domenico di Burci (with a net capital of 1,200 florins) and the company of Leonardo Bettini (200 florins) made the approximate average investment of the six remaining firms equal to 533 florins, Molho, “The Florentine «Tassa dei Traffichi» of 1451,” passim. 95. At the Tassa dei Traffici, the Cambini denounced a capital of 2,200 florins. A corpo di compagnia of 5,800 was recorded instead in their secret book. I would like to thank Sergio Tognetti for this information. For some more examples see Raymond De Roover, The Rise and the Decline of the Medici Bank (1397–1494) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 25–73; see also Francesco Bettarini, “I  fiorentini all’estero ed il catasto del 1427: frodi, elusioni, ipercorrettismi,” Annali di Storia di Firenze, VI (2011). 96. The reader must bear in mind that fifteenth-century Catasti are not all the same. Some (1427, 1431, 1433, 1458) are interested also in listing mobile wealth. Others (like 1480) are not. This particularity ends up reflecting on the interest in the specification of trades. 97. In our “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing,” the rigattieri practicing the profession in 1480 are listed as sixteen. This should be corrected to fifteen, 334–335. 98. Maria L. Bianchi, “Le botteghe fiorentine nel Catasto del 1480,” Ricerche storiche 30, 1 (2000). 99. “Bonifazio di Leonardo, ricamatore, abbiamo dieci fiorini in masserizie, non traffichiamo danari,” ASF, Catasto, Santo Spirito, Ferza, 690, f. 1072r; see also Meneghin, “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in FifteenthCentury Florence,” 323. 100. Pietro Battara, “Botteghe e pigioni nella Firenze del ‘500,” ASI XCV, 2 (1937), 14–17, Tab. VI. 101. Meneghin, “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” 334. 102. Elio Conti, L’imposta diretta a Firenze nel Quattrocento (1427–1494) (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo, 1984). 103. The mandatory reference here is to David Herlihy and Christiane KlapischZuber, Les Toscans et leurs familles. Une étude du catasto florentin de 1427 (Paris: Foundation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1978), later published in English as Tuscans and Their Families. A Study of the Florentine Catasto of 1427 (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1985); see also Elio Conti, I catasti agrari della Repubblica Fiorentina e il Catasto particellare toscano (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo, 1966); Anthony Molho, Florentine Public Finances in the Early Renaissance 1400–1433 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 84–87. 104. David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, “Introduction,” in Tuscans and Their Families. A Study of the Florentine Catasto of 1427, XXIII–XXIV. 105. Hans Baron, “The Social Background of Political Liberty in the Early Italian Renaissance,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 2 (1960); The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966); see also the work by Anthony Molho, “Politics and the Ruling Class in Early Renaissance Florence,” Nuova Rivista Storica 52 (1968); “The Florentine Oligarchy and the Balie of the Late Trecento,”

Methods and Problems 37 Speculum 43 (1968); Dale W. Kent, “The Florentine Reggimento in the Fifteenth Century,” Renaissance Quarterly 28 (1975); Ronald G. Witt, “Florentine Politics and the Ruling Class, 1382–1407,” Journal of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6 (1976); Gene A. Brucker, The Civic World of Early Renaissance Florence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), chaps. 2 and 5. 106. Najemy, Corporativism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics, 1280–1400, 263. 107. Statuti dell’Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli di Firenze, 45. 108. Angelo Cicchetti and Raoul Mordenti, I libri di famiglia in Italia (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1985), 1, Filologia e storiografia letteraria.

2 The Structure of the Guild and Statutes

1. Origins of the Ars Regatteriorum and Representation of the Guild Statutory documentation can illuminate the evolution of the minor guilds, providing insight into the mechanisms of their development. Thus, administrative and legislative documentation concerning the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, albeit partial (since only four codes containing the statutes are extant), can help to clarify its features, its constant evolution, the relationships amongst guild members, its links with other trade associations, and its role in the urban structure. A study of these dynamics is a prerequisite for identifying, among other things, the members’ strategies for social advancement, the initiatives that were being organised around the guild, and its ties with the families in power. The analysis offered here is not a pure economic approach but one that also considers political and social interests.1 If we look through these two lenses, questions arise not only around the concrete activity carried out by the rigattieri, but also around the rigattieri’s relations with political power during a particularly delicate moment for the history of Florence, the transition from the Republic to the Medicean regime.2 Therefore, an analysis of the ‘internal’ sources of the guild is particularly valuable because it illustrates the intents and wishes of the legislators of one of the minor guilds.3 The rigattieri, who had already been trading for decades, gathered in a guild only in 1291.4 In the first period in which the rigattieri were in business—the late Dugento—in the vast majority of the guilds, the obligation to join the Arte in order to practise one’s trade did not yet exist. It was, however, common knowledge that only those within an Arte could seek justice and be protected from life’s troubles, since the Arte operated in support and defence of its members only; solitary economic activity outside of the guild was in fact strongly discouraged. This attitude was in accordance with the commonly held principle that the strength of the organisation rested on its coercive power.5 Furthermore, the attraction to enrol in any given Arte (this was particularly true of the major guilds) was fed by the ambition to belong to one of the corporations from whose

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 39 ranks the members of the city’s highest representative governing bodies would emerge. The rigattieri’s slow but steady arrival was sealed in the late fourteenth century. After the expulsion of the Duke of Athens in 1343 as leader of Florence and with the end of the strongly aristocratic-based government sponsored by Bishop Angelo Acciaioli,6 the twenty-one guilds soon forced the removal of the magnates and established a new popular government that reissued the Ordinances that deprived magnates of political eligibility; in October of 1343 there was elected a Priorate that included, among others, a rigattiere.7 It is within this context, in 1387, that the rigattieri resolved to have their house built adjacent to the church of Sant’Andrea, which until its disappearance featured a beautiful portal adorned with the guild’s insignia. This house was later sacrificed to a reconstruction of the city centre shortly before the end of the nineteenth century.8 Before 1387, the Arte did not possess its own independent seat and gathered for judgments and business meetings in the old churches of Santa Maria degli Ughi first and then San Miniato tra le Torri, both located between the old market and the Arno and neither still standing. Only some of the major guilds had modest headquarters, prior to the middle of the Dugento. In the Quattrocento, the rigattieri were a solid presence, concentrated at the mercato but also spread around the city. By then, the rigattieri were no longer a scattering of peddlers in the city market. In fact, in 1427, at the time the first Catasto was laid out, the rigattieri were among the most prominent traders in San Giovanni, a neighbourhood seen as a key commercial hub (there were forty-five of them located there), where they outnumbered even the conspicuous group of the shoemakers (calzolai). Adjacent to San Giovanni, and conveniently close to the mercato vecchio, was another neighbourhood, Santa Maria Novella, where there were nineteen rigattieri, with a further fourteen living across the river in Santo Spirito. They were almost absent from Santa Croce. There, only six out of eighty-four total retailers, among those who had declared their profession to the officers of the Catasto, practised their trade, from the well-off Giovanni di Tuccio, living in the gonfalone Bue, to the miserabile Antonio d’Ambrogio residing in the gonfalone Carro.9 The rigattieri colonized parts of the city and used their weight to control conditions of work. The rigattieri, who according to John Najemy must have amounted to roughly 200 members in the early fourteenth century,10 originally had their shops located mainly at Sant’Andrea and at the old market. But very soon others were opened around the new market, on the side of the church of Santa Maria sopra Porta where, from 1318, without exception, all new stores of this type of business were located.11 It is significant that, like the most influential and powerful tradesmen, the rigattieri stubbornly opposed the rent increases for their shops. While the rigattieri’s stonewalling needed the consent of at least two-thirds of the artifices operating in any given street, they threatened

40  The Guild and Identity of Artifices to forbid any sales activity of their articles in a street where one of their fellows would be subjected to an increase of the rent (pigione).12 Once arrived, the rigattieri sealed their status with fine premises. In the Quattrocento, major artistic works gave lustre to the guild, that chose as its patron saint and symbol of its gonfalone St Mark the Evangelist, whose feast day was celebrated on April 25. In 1411 the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli paid twenty-eight florins to Niccolò di Pietro di Lamberti for the block of marble alone—four braccia high—that would later be assigned to Donatello to create the statue of St Mark.13 The statue that Donatello eventually carved from the marble—whose artistic greatness was later widely acknowledged—would decorate one of the niches of the guilds’ patron saints at Orsanmichele. Represented as a middle-aged apostle, with a long nose, grey hair, and a beard, St Mark was also accompanied by a winged lion. The cushion beneath the feet of the saint may have referred to the rigattieri, who sold cushions, among other items; there is no aesthetic argument for its presence.14 Then in 1433 another great artist of the time, Beato Angelico, was chosen to decorate the altarpiece of the guild headquarters with the famous angel musicians.15 Both commissions, by Donatello and Beato Angelico, signal the patronage of important artists for works that represented the corporation. 1.1. Sales of Goods, Wares, and Merchandise The rigattieri sold a great variety of goods. The supple statutes gave them room to open out to all sorts of merchandise. In the first statutes, the Arte indicated, with deliberate imprecision (in order to allow for the sale of a wider variety of goods including those not specifically listed), old clothes and old furs (pannos et pelles veteres). Although the consuls sought at first to set clearer boundaries for trading, the members objected. In 1318 the rigattieri obtained the right, codified by the statutes, to buy and sell a much broader variety of objects,16 including men’s and women’s clothing; various types of furs, including garments cut from old and used ones; antique brocades; gold and silver embroidered gowns; duvets; mattresses; pillows and silk blankets; bucherame, a thin and transparent precious fabric, generally of Eastern provenance;17 old towels; used monastic garments; and tapestries. Other wares included curtains for windows; boxes; bags; horse blankets; and tents, demobilized and repurposed for bedcovers or for repackaging bed sheets and linen. Another important business branch of the rigattieri was the purchase of the clothes given as offerings for the dead, which could be bequeathed to churches, as well as those donated to jesters: the first were sold to rigattieri and the money collected gathered as alms to celebrate masses; the second probably followed in the same direction after the jester’s death to clothe his corpse.18 The rigattieri not only sold but also manufactured. This activity, using old cloth scraps and old curtains and even sacred vestments, was already forbidden by the statutes of 1296, which banned the making of doublets,

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 41 mantels, and skirts from ‘old curtains.’19 The guild soon sent out spies to denounce such infringements of the statutes,20 as they aimed to maintain and improve the Arte’s collective reputation. What the statutes clearly showed was in fact how many vendors had emerged from a modest sort of business, even by means of unorthodox methods. The manufacture of new clothing like washing, dying, and repiecing was just one part of a larger pattern of textile-rejuvenation. Some of the rigattieri might, for example, treat old clothes with soap and water, hoping to make them look brand new and without defects.21 Particularly important was the ban, repeatedly stated over the years, of selling clothes marezzati, that is, immersed in sea water. In fact, if the cloth was “putrified and devastated in sea water,” it tended to show stripes, lines, and veins of colour different from the primary colour of the fabric. This process could produce fabric with a sinuous pattern like that of the waves of the sea, recalling the brightness of certain watered silks.22 Another prohibition targeted selling used and old cloth which had been “starched and re-stuffed, and even washed with warm water and soap and hung on a pole [to dry].” To be sold as new, some cloths—which clearly were not new—were subjected to a special treatment: after washing the fabric in hot and soapy water, mechanical compression made it seem compact, light, and soft.23 Likewise, it was forbidden to dye the old cloths indigo blue.24 This pigment, a rare and costly commodity in Europe throughout the whole Middle Ages, was an azure blue obtained from some leguminous plants. It was used for dyeing the most precious fabrics and clothing. Here, clearly the fraud consisted of processing the fabrics to make them look dyed of this colour, to fetch a much higher price than ordinary blues. Barter was another banned activity, one we know best from its prohibition. The rigattieri often exchanged unwanted goods; it was a good way to unload items they could not sell. It also served to get alternative items (without having to shell out more money). However, in 1318, the statutes forbade this trade, probably fearing fraud.25 In this way, the Arte sought to protect its image. Barter, the Arte claimed, had no fixed written rules. Moreover, it lacked sharp prices. Finally, barter reeked of peddlers’ shabby habits. Accordingly the statutes legislated, for example, against the election of consuls coming from the ranks of those who roamed the streets to attract buyers.26 In fact, only those who waited quietly in their shops for customers to come in on their own will—as it was not even allowed to attract customers by calling from inside the shop—were judged to be fit to be high corporate officers.27 1.2. The Cultivation of Lay Piety Within the Arte The rigattieri had a lively devotional practice. It played an important role in the collective life of the artifices. Although we now lack firm data, it seems that some rigattieri participated in the rites and ceremonies

42  The Guild and Identity of Artifices organised by Florentine confraternities such as Sant’Agnese’s, a Laudesi company based in the Oltrarno district, in the neighbourhood of Santa Maria del Carmine: the rigattiere Lazzero di Bastiano, for example, donated eleven soldi “in response to a sudden and urgent financial need” to raise money for Sant’Agnese’s annual expenditures for its annual play.28 Like the statutes of all the Arti, those of the rigattieri were also written in the name of the Trinity, in honour of the glorious Mother of God, of the Baptist, and on behalf of all saints, as well as in representation of the priors and the highest institutions of the commune. But all this language was standard practice.29 However, in addition to these invoked characters shared in by other guilds, it is possible to grasp some of the more characteristic expressions of the rigattieri’s lay piety. There was a link between the trade association and its patron Saint Leo (Pope Leo the Great or Leone Magno, celebrated on June 28—but only among those rigattieri operating in the old market, not curiously among those of the area abutting on Via delle Terme): in his cult the rituals of procession and offerings took on a central role.30 The Arte played an important part also in the celebration of the feast of St John the Baptist on June 24, a feast always dear to the whole Florentine community. This feast and its institutions were the moment of corporate celebration par excellence, since more than anything else the procession proclaimed the harmonic hierarchy that the Florentine political and social world wanted to promote and project. For this feast, the statutes of the rigattieri laid down that alms should be paid from the Arte cash box and that candles should be offered at the altar of the Baptistery, dedicated to St John, on the eve of June 24, the day of his celebration. The wax was to be at least worth s20 and it was to be purchased by the artieri from their own pockets. Pecuniary punishment—fixed by the rectors at s5 di piccioli—was laid on those who failed to comply with this provision. The rigattieri were much devoted to the Virgin Mary. In August, they offered candles to the altars of Santa Maria degli Ughi, “for the health of the souls of the men of the said guild and for the honour of the said guild”: three candles were offered, each weighing three libre, purchased with the Arte’s money.31 Note, however, that our Arte was not the only one to present offerings to the church of Santa Maria degli Ughi. The guild of olive oil merchants and provision dealers (Arte degli Oliandoli e Pizzicagnoli e Beccai) likewise honoured the little church. A section in their 1318 statutes stipulated that every year in December the rectors of the Arte were obliged to pay “a spout of pure and good oil” for the love of God and of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in addition to twelve candles each at about s12 di piccioli, with the additional request that “the candles must be of good wax.” The offering was to be made on August 15 on the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.32 It seems therefore that the church was shared not only as a place of corporate

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 43 representation, but also as a locus of spontaneous devotion from two Arti. These devotions were in service of the understanding that the Virgin would invoke the love and mercy of God for all men, out of her infinite clemency. Like many an Arte, the rigattieri attended to their dead. This is reflected in participation in the burial rites of the artifices.33 In the majority of the Arti, especially the minor ones, it was customary that members would escort their deceased companion to his burial place.34 The rigattieri, as it appears from the oldest statutes of 1296, were here no exception. However, by closing the shops as a sign of respect for the deceased, the statutes revealed that for many, obeying them meant only minimal compliance. Although goods were not displayed on the stalls outside the shops during the burial ceremony and sellers were forbidden from going into the streets and squares to sell and buy items, in reality, in those same shops, the disciples and garzoni continued to make sales.35 As time went on, aware that not only formal, but also effective, adherence to the statutes showed respect for the Arte, the officers issued far more rigid and binding rules concerning conduct during the burial ceremonies. The statutes of 1318 thus legislated in a more radical vein than did those of 1296: not only was it forbidden for the garzoni and the disciples to sell or buy any goods outside the shops, but it was also explicitly stated that all rigattieri must keep their botteghe locked and that no activity should go on within.36 Not even the shops of the more suburban areas, peripheral from the central market, “not in the city nor in the suburbs or in the outskirts,” could remain open and do business. Like the others, they had to remain closed until after the burial. In fact, the statutes state, “only after the burial of these dead can they sell and buy in the shop and go through the city [on their business].”37 Finally, it stipulated that the rigattieri had to follow the companion’s coffin to the little church of Santa Maria degli Ughi, where the body would be buried.

2. Offices and Officers There were rules to be embraced by each member who wanted to join the guild. These regulations tilted in favour of local and marital kin. It seems likely that for applicants the footing was not level; things favoured affiliation, by birth or marital relation, to high members of the guild. In fact, if a newly entered member married the daughter or sister of a master of the guild, living or dead, he could hold a bottega without paying the entry fee. This occurred even when the new member, instead of becoming a partner of the father-in-law, wanted to start a business on his own.38 Whoever entered ex novo the corporation—“quicunque de novo venerit”—must first swear an oath to the statutes and must then pay the bursar three gold florins.39 A rigattiere of the contado could pay a reduced sum, equivalent to ten lire, to sign up.40 From that day, the new

44  The Guild and Identity of Artifices fratello had to make his modest contribution to the expenses of the guild, which included the consuls,’ notary’s and employees’ wages, and pay his share of any tax imposed by the municipality.41 The guild did not require a set contribution from its members, an annual fee for example; rather, expenses were covered according to the ability of each to pay. Let us now see how the Arte was structured (and survey the composition of its offices). At the top of the pyramid were the consuls or rectors, the main reference point for each member. They had the right to view the work of all artifices and to oversee the application of sanctions, the arbitration of disputes, and the care of relations with other corporations. Already with the oldest statutes of 1296, the consuls were a collegial body composed of six “good and lawful men,” three of whom came from the old market, while the other three were to represent the artifices operating in the new market. Each rector held office for six months.42 The number of rectors increased to eight in the 1340 statutes—two representing the area of Via delle Terme, two the old market, two the new market, and two the area of San Piero Buonconsiglio. They picked their successors, but not among members of their own business, nor among their kin, whether brothers or fathers or sons. No one was to make promises or bribes to get the office of consul. Furthermore, no consul could aspire to be re-elected for at least five years after he stepped down. The consuls, who at the beginning of their mandate had to swear an oath on the Gospel, had the power to punish any member of the Arte who had sworn falsely and had failed to heed the statutes. Consuls also had to be present and vigilant when the assets of a member who had died, or who after committing theft had fled, were auctioned. After a death, they had to ensure that the heirs received a fair share of what was due to them by law; that is, all proceeds from the sale of the goods of the late member. In the case of a fugitive thief, they had to prevent any comrade and/ or accomplice of the dishonest member from attending the auction and bidding in order to save the thief’s assets (by fake purchases). By virtue of their position as top official representatives of the Arte, the consuls expect respect. They could not be offended by “rustic and vulgar words” either during their term of office or after its expiration, if the offense touched the period in which they served.43 As well as benefiting from prohibitions, the consuls were subject to prescriptions. The statutes were adamant against the intention to gain power within the corporate system; the broad powers of the consuls were in fact limited and tempered by the principle of collegiality, by the rapid rotation of offices—which were never more than six months—and, above all, by respect for the statutory rules, to which all were bound by oath. The statutes of 1296 established the consuls’ salary. The regulation had earlier stipulated that the consuls should be paid a salary corresponding to five lire di piccioli, plus six ounces of pepper and half an ounce of saffron (zaferanus);44 they should also receive a glass-shaped chalice

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 45 (parasside) (see Tab. 1). The rigattieri and linaioli merged the ancient costume with the new, paying their officers a wage that corresponded to the oldest form of remuneration, which was marked by a ‘tribute of honor’ as indemnity, and in spices and household items. The delivery took place, probably with some solemnity, on June  24, St  John the Baptist’s Day. Already in the reformed statutes of 1318, the wages of the consuls were altered: the cash sum amounted to £4, while in nature they received a pound of pepper, two ounces of saffron, and eight parassidi. In their administrative functions, the consuls were assisted by eight councillors, chosen by twos, for each area of trade, and elected every four months. The councillors received half a pound of pepper, an ounce of saffron, and four chalices.45 For the councillors, the statutes of 1340 furnished a substantial increase in wages: £3 and s3, one pound of pepper, and two ounces of saffron with the usual eight parassidi and two engraving tools (incisoria).46 The consuls also had the power to elect twelve measurers, six from the old market and six from the new, tasked to provide buyers with exact measures.47 The corporation also availed itself of the services of a notary, elected collegially, who was to write any dictated act of the corporation. The salary of the notary, who served for the duration of the consuls’ term, consisted of a sum corresponding to a gold florin, half an ounce of pepper, an ounce of saffron, four parassidi, and two incisoria.48 The activity of a notary of the minor guilds, such as the rigattieri and linaioli, where no large capital was circulating (as it was for the Wool Guild or Por Santa Maria or Cambio), was certainly secondary to his other business. However, taking on this role could also have proved profitable, since the notary would benefit from knowing all the members enrolled in the Arte. This could offer contacts and customers.49 Each corporation had its notary, chosen among those who practised this profession in the city. Another figure  chosen collegially was the herald (messo). He had to execute promptly what the consuls or notary commanded, concerning, say, the confiscation of illegal goods or the urgent application of the Arte’s precepts. To the first messo a salary of s5 was paid, greatly increased to £4 in the 1340 statutes. Two further messi, one from the old market and one from the new, in office for six months, had to transmit the consuls’ most urgent communications. For this reason, young men in perfect physical condition were chosen (“twenty year old men”) because they would be commanded, literally, to run across the city to transmit consular decisions.50 Interestingly, the statutes of 1340 provided that the guild cover the cost of garments—“each year in the month of January at the guild’s expense”—for the messi, namely a tunic and a hood with the sign of the Arte, “estimated £4 and more” that the messengers were to wear when performing their services.51 Most likely—as with the Guelph Party, which the author has analysed elsewhere—the livery,

46  The Guild and Identity of Artifices which created a direct visual impact, was used by the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli as a means to project a powerful impression of itself, as well as to display honour and wealth. The consuls also had to elect two secret spies (exploratores) during the first month of their term, one for the old market and one for the new. The exploratores, who were paid half the penalty imposed on each violation, had to denounce anyone who failed to heed the statutes. Their oath was binding and their testimony considered trustworthy, as their activity was held to be a service to the whole corporation. One example of how they acted relates to the statutory rule prohibiting any disciple from spying on other rigattieri at night, after the third ringing of the bell (apparently to prevent anyone from using information, purloined after curfew, to gain competitive advantage). With the ringing of the bells, a sort of curfew broke out, after which no one could roam the city or stay outside.52 It is not surprising that the disciples caught by the exploratores wandering in the streets were thus denounced and fined. The bell’s third sound—also called “Hail Mary at the first hour of the night” (“Ave Maria di un’ora di notte”)—indicated that it was already an hour into the night and dangerous to be outside. This signified the day’s end, the advent of darkness. If a disciple was surprised unwittingly committing this offence, he broke the rules and was fined: the consuls had to urge the masters of those disciples to fine them s10, which they had to be garnished directly from the boy’s wages; with each subsequent violation, the consuls had to impose an additional fine of s5. Half of this fine went to the consuls, the other half to the exploratores. These spies’ supervision was also critical when, as often happened, artieri did business with usurers. The consuls might close their eyes to practices that were not rigidly orthodox, but officially they could not endorse the usurers’ activity. As is stated in the statutes of 1340, to do business with an usurer and even to buy goods or to have them estimated by one not only created an association with undesired (although necessary) elements of society, but also badly harmed the collective image of the Arte. To that end the consuls ordered that the exploratores should be vigilant lest any rigattiere, under the penalty of £5 for any disobedience, dare to enter any home or stall of a known usurer. The rigattieri were also forbidden to send any disciple, garzone, or associate to get estimates or sell their goods at a usurer’s.53 The consuls were probably worried about dummy transactions that masked loans for interest. Furthermore, the exploratores had to keep their eyes open lest usurious activity happen in any shop, under pain of a heavy fine (£10).54 Another elective office, the syndicators (sindaci), held oversight over the good functioning of guild-governance. They were highly specialised operators in legal practices, and their skills were deemed necessary to reform the statutes. There were two sindaci (paid five fiorini di piccioli each) who represented, once again, the old market (foro vetero) and two the new market (foro novo). They were elected by all the members of the

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 47 Arte, gathered in Santa Maria degli Ughi.55 The control exercised by the sindaci was furthermore under the jurisdiction of the members of the Arte. They could prevent appeals against the rectors’ sentences. Meanwhile, the sindaci oversaw the consuls and reviewed their performance. This activity could stir the consuls to protest that, untowardly, the sindaci had strayed into their sphere of influence. Another important figure was the massaro, also called the camerlengo, or camerario, of which there were two, designated by the 1324 statutes. They were established by the statutes of the corporation, as in every Arte and many confraternities. They were keepers of the seal, and their main function was to oversee the finances of the guild. The camerari were elected by a council made of six consuls and three other councillors. In the first six months of their year-long term of office, the first camerario worked for the old market, while the second would act as a representative of the rigattieri and linaioli in the new market. They would then switch positions. This rotation aimed for fairness, as one market might seem the better post. In addition to the salary of s30, paid together with a pound of pepper, two ounces of saffron, and the usual eight parassidi,56 the camerari also had the right to a part of the fines imposed in agreement with the consuls for breaches of the statutes—as had the exploratores. Thus they received equivalent sums of s20 d18 for each sentence and a variable sum for each fine set from s3 to £10. They also received s2 each time they assisted a woman in paying the mundualdo (a kind of collateral), if she wished to carry out an activity or enter into business at all.57 A first important task of the camerario was to guard the seal of the Arte—on which each new member made his oath when joining the corporation. It was the consuls who at the beginning of their mandate were to give the camerario the seal; once his mandate was over, the camerario would return it, so that it could be reassigned to the next holder. The camerario’s administration of the corporation’s patrimony and asset management, accurately recording revenues and outputs and looking after the common goods of the Arte, was a task considered even more important, albeit heavy. The statutes were very attentive to this aspect of corporate life, since the existence and work of the Arte itself depended on the control and prudent management of funds. Thus, the camerario was obliged periodically to account for his work and, when his mandate expired, he had to provide a detailed account of his activities and an inventory of the goods as he left them. There were further elective offices within the Arte, such as those of the overseers (arbitri). Their main function was to oversee and revise the legislation. Six were elected every two years, by a ballot of the six arbitri previously in charge.58 These six men, representing as always the old and new market, received a wage of twenty lire di piccoli each. Their essential task was the proper functioning of the Arte. It fell to them to make additions to the pre-existing statutes (the consuls themselves would summon

6 6 months £5 + 6 ounces* of pepper + 1/2 ounce of saffron + 1 parasside**

8 4 months 1/2 libra*** of pepper + 1 ounce of saffron + 4 parassidi

12 1 year d8 per centinario 1 6 months 1 gold florin + 1/2 ounce of pepper + 1 ounce of saffron + 4 parassidi + 2 incisoria****

Consules/rectores (consuls)

Consiliarii (councillors)

Mensuratores (measurers)

Notarius artis (guild notary)

1296 officers’ number office duration salary

Office

Table 2.1 Offices, officers, and salaries (1296–1340)

1/2 libra of pepper + 1 ounce of saffron+ 4 parassidi

6 6 months £4 + 1 libra of pepper + 2 ounces of saffron + 8 parassidi

1318 officers’ number office duration salary

6 months 1/2 libra of pepper + 1 ounce of saffron + 4 parassidi

6 months £6 + 1 libra of pepper + 2 ounces of saffron + 8 parassidi

1324 officers’ number office duration salary

4 gold florins + 1/2 libra of pepper + 1 ounce of saffron + 4 parassidi + 2 incisoria

8 4 months 3 fiorini di piccioli £3 + 1 libra of pepper + 2 ounces of saffron + 8 parassidi + 2 incisoria 8 4 months £3 s3 di piccioli + 1 libra of pepper + 2 ounces of saffron + 8 parassidi + 2 incisoria 12 1 year d8 per centinario

1340 officers’ number office duration salary

6 2 years 20 lire di piccoli

Arbitratores (reviewers)

6 months s30 + 1 libra of pepper + 2 ounces of saffron + 8 parassidi

s5

6 months s30 +1 libra of pepper + 2 ounces of saffron + 8 parassidi + part of each economic penalty signed in his hand + part of each mundualdo

4 months

4 gold florins + 1/2 libra of pepper + 1 ounce of saffron + 4 parassidi + 2 incisoria 3 £4 + gown + hat

* 1 Ounce = 28.295 grams = 0.062 pounds ** Chalice *** 1 Libra = 12 ounces = 339.542 grams = 0.748 pounds **** Engraving tools ***** When it comes to moneta grossa, one should first consider the grosso d’argento. Second, alongside the sounding coins (denari, quattrini, grossi, and gold florins) there were also coins of account. The equivalences we are talking about here are those to sound coins (monete sonanti). It should also be borne in mind that the account currencies were always valued more than the monete sonanti (that is they “facevano aggio”). The mandatory reference is to Goldthwaite-Mandich, Studi sulla moneta fiorentina (secoli XIII–XVI) (Florence: Olschki, 1994), passim.

Sindici (syndicators) Camerarius (bursar)

Explorates (secret spies)

Nuntii (nuncios)

1 6 months 1 gold florin + 1/2 ounce of pepper + 1 ounce of saffron + 4 parassidi + 2 incisoria 3 s5 2 half of each economic penalty imposed after their denunciation 4 5 fiorini di piccioli***** 2 s30 + 1 libra of pepper + 2 ounces of saffron+ 8 parassidi + part of each economic penalty signed in his hand + part of each mundualdo

Notarius forestierus (foreign notary)

50  The Guild and Identity of Artifices them to work on the revision). Their work, that of arbitri, was deemed so important—as is reflected by their substantial wages—that in all the Arti they had to carry out their task locked away in a room, to avoid all interference. What they laid down was binding: according to the statutes, their decisions were exempt from further review. This principle was all the more valuable as the special ‘appointment’ of January came just, when all corporations were to submit their new statutes to the commune.

3. The Unification Process of the Rigattieri and Linaioli and Frictions Between the Parties Towards the mid-fourteenth century, the rigattieri merged with the linaioli. It was not to be a happy marriage. There were reasons. Although both the membra had favoured the union, deep-rooted resistance from the linaioli swayed them from embracing the merger. The contrast between the ‘democratic’ (the rigattieri) and the ‘aristocratic’ (the linaioli) elements of the corporation was due largely to the expectations of the linaioli, who meant to occupy a higher position within the guild and the society as producers and retailers of a raw material considered to be refined, and certainly more valuable than used clothes and old furs sold by the rigattieri. In 1293, at the time of the promulgation of the Ordinamenti di Giustizia by Giano della Bella (which excluded the Magnati from all governmental offices),59 the Arte dei Rigattieri was declared to belong to the five so-called middle guilds (the other four were butchers, shoemakers, smiths, and builders and masons),60 but shortly after, the guild was demoted to minor. The linaioli, a rather small group in comparison to the rigattieri, were prevented from owning a gonfalone since they had refused to join a lesser guild, because they believed that they were legally part of the major Arti, as merchant entrepreneurs of a key sector of economy, representing an industry that during the Middle Ages and especially in the Renaissance had become essential for the production of highly sought-after items, such as shirts and sheets.61 Thus, the linen industry, having in the first half of the fourteenth century faced considerable demographic expansion and increased urban demand,62 had then to ramp up production to provide a better corporate framework for its workers and craftsmen. Like the shops of the rigattieri, those of the linen workers stood near Sant’Andrea and the old market.63 Although in 1329 the linaioli and rigattieri had tried to merge, that attempt failed, because the linaioli, hostile to the rigattieri, caused a meltdown. Only in 1340 did the linen retailers agreed to join the rigattieri as one guild. On that occasion, the choices made by the linaioli were dictated by the wish of the merchant class to protect its investment sector but also by hopes for a wider scope of action in the city market.64 In 1340—when it was decided that a joint consulate representing both groups would rule over all internal affairs of the Arte65—the two membra

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 51 finally joined together when the consuls of the two parties agreed that the linaioli should unite with the rigattieri under a single banner, putting aside previous hostilities.66 The oldest statutes of the ‘guild’ are from 1340. Oddly, they are in Latin, a language few rigattieri could read. Although the Arte was not as prestigious as the Calimala or Cambio, the structure of its statutes, which are partitioned in rubricae, resembles that of the most powerful Arti. Despite the Latin of the statutes, it is certain that in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries (when men and women came to the Arte from the countryside and from the lowest ranks of urban society), these statutes would have been recited in the vernacular. This language change was expressly provided for by law, to encourage the members not versed in Latin to learn the Arte regulations. A bilingual version of the statutes, if ever one was drafted (there is no extant copy), would have marked an ideological and political campaign for an opening towards lower ranks among the members. Thus, while a copy of the original constitutum was kept under seal,67 the statutes of 1340 required the rectors to read aloud the constitutum to all artieri.68 The 1340 statutes bear the marks of the merger with the linaioli. The 1340 codex is not the first drafting of statutes for the rigattieri or the linaioli, both of which had been well structured and well organised for decades, in complete autonomy. There were earlier statutes for the rigattieri in 1296, 1318, and 1324 and for the linaioli in 1318. However, these earlier regulations were finalized only in the 1340 normative corpus, consisting of 103 chapters, an addition of forty-six headings to the rigattieri’s statutes of 1296,; thirty-seven to those of 1318, thirty-five to those from 1324, and twenty-six to the statutes of the linaioli of 1318. The 1340 statutes are thus a rather extensive text. They relate to administrative, representative, commercial, and management aspects of the Arte. Two fundamental aspects of the document emerge: the need to have a single book of statutes that reflects the union, and the establishment of a single court for all disputes concerning the corporation, reflecting the desire to create single officers acting for both kinds of members. In this document the rigattieri dominate. The incipit concerns the establishment first, of the norm by one principle group, the second-hand dealers: in fact, as the initial expression clearly clarifies, the statutes are dictated by the rigattieri, and only later is there mention of the other group, the linaioli, the linen retailers, those “vendentium pannos lineos.” The statutes of 1340 would therefore, by virtue of these principles, represent the first embodiment and ‘incarnation’ of the newborn organism. First, in order to safeguard the new partnership and to avoid further conflicts and any potential separation, the candidatures of the consuls were arranged so as to provide for rotation between the representatives of all the shops (of both parties). These shops were located in the mercato vecchio, mercato nuovo, Via delle Terme, and San Piero Bonconsiglio: a four-part system would

52  The Guild and Identity of Artifices represent the different chief sales areas. Not surprisingly, many chapters deal with the difficult and delicate issue of corporate offices, aiming to give the two groups (rigattieri and linaioli) the same weight. This goal appears also in the Libro delle Matricole (in the second Libro especially) where the names of consuls and officers are inscribed under the headings foro vetero and foro novo and specify the profession—rigattiere or linaiolo. Clearly, there were tensions. The document projects the image of a dynamic and vibrant body but reveals how prickly was the institutional coexistence of the rigattieri and linaioli. The statutes also enacted measures concerning trade and dealt with the protection of production and commerce. The remarkable growth of shops, both the rigattieri’s and the linaioli’s, had sharpened the roles of the two conjoined trades. Many statute headings are devoted to regulating linen production and sale and to placing the whole sector within the Arte. For example, several chapters relate to the bans prescribed for workers and linen dealers and legitimize the proper sale of this material.69 This section highlights the internal tensions between a respected and honoured group of entrepreneurs, the linaioli, with whom, however, the less prestigious rigattieri had begun to contend, wrestling for political weight and economic power within the corporation.70 Inevitably, disagreements between the parties would continue throughout the centuries. Manifest tensions would always spoil the relations of rigattieri and linaioli. This is attested by the numerous interventions in the statutes, the so-called riformagioni, continually redefining the relations between the two groups and limiting their conflicts, that lasted until January 29, 1530, the fall of the Florentine guild republic. 3.1. Statutory Regulations and Prohibitions The corporation kept a tight monopoly on the items traded.71 During the fourteenth century, the corporation exercised its monopoly through a series of regulations aimed at controlling the trade and the production of goods related to the sector (including, inter alia, the legal sale of linen pieces).72 The corporation also exercised strong control over those who practised the Arte, imposing severe sanctions for linenmen and rigattieri who had not paid the registration fee and who operated outside its jurisdiction. A whole series of regulations protected the interests of members, promoting the internal market.73 If all the rigattieri and linaioli working in the contado (whose number we are not given) created an outlet for the city market, the urban Florentine artieri tried in every way to limit their activity, so as not to lose the control of the urban linen and used clothing sector. The first drafting of the statutes helped to launch this delicate process of ‘assimilation’ of the weakest and least enfranchised elements to stabilize corporate hierarchy. On the other hand, the opening attests to the effort by linaioli and rigattieri of old families to keep full control

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 53 over the Arte. In fact, they were ever less hospitable to persons without capital, knowledge, or professional prospects, often seen of dubious reputation. Such provisions show that Florentines and people from the domain were treated differently, as were men and women. As we shall see in the next chapter, the Arte protected sellers, through rules of controlled competition and the goodwill of the profession. In this way, the corporation could pursue its monopolistic policy with a dual strategy. The first strategy was to subordinate the non-citizens, the peripatetic vendors and women, or anybody who was foreign to the association, hindering internal competition. Primary to their monopoly was membership in the Arte itself. All those who wanted to sell used goods or linens had to enrol in the corporation. To join, the candidate, whether Florentine or foreign, had to live in the city and pay the registration fee; only the sons and brothers of rigattieri and linaioli or those who married the daughters of maestri were exempted from this duty.74 There was no need to pass an admission exam: it was not necessary to show any expertise in carrying out the activity. Anyone who did not comply with this legislation would be penalized by a series of more or less direct penalties, first, the payment of a fine of 100 lire di piccoli, probably the highest fee resulting for an infringement of the statutes (indicative of the extreme importance of this rule to corporate life). The second guild strategy was to protect members’ interests by limiting internal competition. This led to the elaboration of precise provisions with rather severe penalties.75 There were measures to prevent the oppression of some operators over others, to create economic balance between all members. The protection from competition was also carried out, with precise rules specifically designed for the commercial premises where the business of the Arte took place. Population increase in the early thirteenth century drove demand for used clothes. People’s greater need translated into a greater number of shops, resulting in a rise in rents. That urged control of the real estate market by the corporation. Precise legislation makes clear, among other things, the close connection between shops and the clientele. The significance of the problem is well underlined by the sanction imposed on those who defaulted on their rent—one of the most serious provisions of the statutes. A  fine of 100 lire applied to those linen retailers and rigattieri, both Florentines and foreigners, who rented or operated a shop against the will, or simply without the consent, of the person who operated business there previously. Furthermore, in order to prevent the new operator from stealing the clientele of a former artiere, there must be a period of at least five years before using a shop for the same purpose. The Arte legislated frequently against gambling. Gambling made for bad behaviour, and numerous measures intended to contain the

54  The Guild and Identity of Artifices widespread passion for gambling, a real plague, apparently, of medieval cities. Playing dice in its various forms was among the most popular of games. Although extant imagery of such games is rare, examples clearly show that the main leisure activity in taverns was dice play.76 The Arte took a number of measures to curtail these games: actions were taken against those who played.77 Specific legislation targeted disciples who were playing and betting.78 Legislation was necessary because even the consuls were caught at dice, to the point that any promise or deal signed by dice players, as well as any acts signed by the consuls who played, was to be disregarded and voided.79 So devastating was this form of ‘ludopathy,’ to use a term of our time, that continual reforms reiterated the punitive measures for those caught playing. The game called zara was surely the most popular among gambling games of this period.80 Practised by all social classes, it was not, however, considered fit for respectable individuals. Yet Dante himself must have experienced it, since he speaks of it in the sixth Canto of Purgatorio: “when the zara starts, he who remains the loser is sad, and would repeat [the game] many times and sadly would learn.”81 Other prohibitions and reform attempts also involved the use and abuse of money. In this respect the statutes were so severe that, if an individual fled with another’s money, he, his son, and his heirs could never (in perpetuum) exercise the Arte because of the fault committed by their father.82 It was also necessary that those who traded in the public square, at the market, swear that they had not committed fraud or cheated or lied.83 Those who committed grave misconduct, or worse thefts, were guaranteed public infamy in the face of all the members of the Arte.84

4. Internal Hierarchies The corporation of the Rigattieri e Linaioli, like the others, contained a distinct hierarchy. The question of economic inequality of the members was a reflection but also a direct consequence of the division between the masters and the apprentices, the wealthiest and the poorest. However, it also encompassed the physiological presence within the guild of subordinate membra, and of categories considered inferior in status, like peripatetic vendors and women. Hence, although it aimed to keep the greatest possible balance among those registered, reassuring social stability, the corporation strove to ensure hierarchical control among members, in virtue of the obvious differences in rank. In pursuit of this general objective, it banned any attempt to snatch an apprentice or a disciple from another master of the corporation; banned shops from having more than a certain number of employees; forbade the seizure of a shop that had previously been someone else’s; selling privately; attracting customers in one’s shop, etc.85 The rigattieri recognised a two-level hierarchy between the apprentices and the masters. In the Dugento, during the first phase of activity of the

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 55 guild, the difference between apprentices and masters had been a normal difference, of course, destined to be resolved when the ragazzo finished his apprenticeship. This was a system of exchanges, mutual responsibilities, and obligations but also of benefits.86 The teacher had to teach the craft to the apprentice and accept him in his own home as if he were a family member. However, the passage from a disciple to master, upon completion of the apprenticeship period, become increasingly tied over time to the master’s strong control and scrutiny. This control demonstrates, if not a growing difficulty for the transition to professional autonomy, at least greater internal hierarchy.87 In fact, over the course of the fourteenth and in particular fifteenth centuries, the corporation sought to close the ranks of its organisation to consolidate the prestige and authority of its oldest members. In this way, the corporation defended its existing members from new competition. Over time the suspicion, if not open hostility, of masters towards the apprentices increased and became more and more evident.88 Rigattieri and linaioli did not widely enforce apprenticeship. In fact, in the measures taken to regulate the relationship between apprentices and masters, there is only a rule that fixed five years as the exact duration of apprenticeship. However, exceptions were made: the sons or brothers of the masters of the Arte could become masters in their turn, without such a long training.89 There were other provisions, such as the registration fee, reduced or even absent for those with a master within the family, that privileged relatives of members of the corporation at the expense of new arrivals.90 This is reflected in the Libri delle Matricole, where one finds many newly enrolled members welcomed into the guild without being asked to pay the Arte, as their fathers or brothers had been members or better, masters, before them. Scrolling through the pages of the Libri one finds formulae unaltered except for the name and date entered, like “fuit pro rigatterio matriculatus propter beneficium dicti . . . eius patris.” These entries testify to how kinship easily paved the way. Clearly, sons of rigattieri did not have to be an apprentice to exercise the profession and open their own shops, while those who lacked a relationship with masters of the guild were subject to apprenticeship. If, apparently, this was intended to help them, to ensure good conditions and good learning, in truth, given the simple techniques of the trade, it was a blatant discrimination directed against newcomers. The division in ranks was determined by economics as much as by status. Many holders of high guild office were wealthy shopkeepers, and, within the Arte, had the greatest bargaining power. Even the shopkeepers, however, were divided into two groups, depending not only on the value of the goods they sold, but also on the social capital (the corpo di compagnia) they had invested in their business or on the number of shops they owned or ran.91 Moreover, those who paid high fees were likely richer than the rest.92 The poorer members who paid smaller dues,

56  The Guild and Identity of Artifices gradually marginalized, were excluded from corporate decisions and from gaining status and wealth. Indeed, the consuls’ provisions sundered those who could afford to sustain the guild financially and could thus aspire to the highest offices from those who, unable, assumed the role of passive co-members. Over time this ‘endowment’ proved a barrier against the claims of upstart and underprivileged members (like many peripatetic traders), as well as of women and sarti (at least for a long time), but also of the poorest rigattieri, barred from ascending the steps of the guild and making best use of the market. The consuls’ decree that newly enrolled rigattieri not entice potential customers to their shops signals closure against those new to the profession. It is clear that longestablished and wealthy retail enterprises were able to offer a wide range of goods of outstanding quality that did not need to be publicised, as their premises often stood right in the centre of the commercial hub, the old market. These stores were unlike the less-known and hidden-away shops, which were cheapest to rent but peripheral; sellers there had to resort to advertising their products if they wished to stay in business and attract any buyers at all. There was another category of artieri within the corporation, commonly frowned upon—the peddlers. Shopkeepers felt threatened by the bad reputation of these traders, whose wanderings from street to street, and even town to town, could discredit the guild’s other members. Indeed, open conflict often exploded between the street vendors and shopkeepers who feared for the honour of the guild. For the few women in the guild, this was doubly problematic, as they were viewed with suspicion not only for their sex but also because many were peripatetic sellers. In 1371, the Florentine guild had even forbidden them to sell from house to house fearing that they would insinuate themselves into homes and coax other women into buying things and wasting their husbands’ money: “and [they] cajole women [and persuade them to shop] at men’s expenses.”93 This argument would suggest that wives did not go out to shops, but this was not always the case, as shown elsewhere with the case of Baldassarre di Falco’s wife, Tommasa, and his mother Maffia, to whom the rigattiere left the care of his shop on the Ponte Vecchio, when he decided to wander the suburbs to sell his merchandise.94 4.1. Conflicts With Other Guild Members Like many guilds, the Arte of the rigattieri had a strained relationship with its female members.95 As is easy to imagine, this theme has been the subject of much interest from the development of gender history studies, but too little has been done in this direction.96 Scholars have examined the general condition of women, family, children, home management, and work exerted and spent in everyday family life and traditionally outside the fold of the work world as it is commonly understood.97 In 1989,

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 57 a conference sponsored by the Istituto Francesco Datini in Prato focused on the subject of women in the pre-industrial economy, exploring many aspects of their condition and gender, starting from those activities thoroughly feminine such as wet nursing (baliatico), to field work or family work.98 Only relatively recently have scholars become acquainted with the various forms of women’s employment, including, for example, agricultural work, building, wool manufacturing, and silk production.99 Even less than on women’s usual work has attention been given to the presence of women in the craft and corporate organisations, which relegated them to subordinate and rather marginal roles, although rare cases of corporations with women’s exclusive participation are documented in Paris and Cologne.100 Women are visible but marginal: our Arte dei Rigattieri makes no exception to this—a so-called reflection of the female element. This ‘reflection’ implied the enjoyment of the passive benefits of the corporation, for example by being married to an Arte member. It seems certain that in Florence there were women in the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, but their presence found no recognition at a corporate level. However, even when the statutes acknowledged women’s participation, it was nevertheless characterised as subordinate to the prior consent of the husband or the father or, in the absence of these, of a male relative of the family of origin (we have seen, for example, how the practice of guardianship, mundualdo, was expressed in the statutes).101 Mundualdo lived on into the sixteenth century. In the second Libro delle Matricole an entry testifies to this practice, apparently still in use in the early sixteenth century. We read that Donna Bartolomea, daughter of Andrea di Giovanni and wife of Bartolomeo di Piero di ser Bartolomeo de Silvestri decided, on March 11, 1501, seemingly after the death of her father, to take over his role of rigattiere for herself. Although willingly committed to work as a rigattiera, Bartolomea could not do so unless her husband, Bartolomeo, vouchsafed for her, which he did on the same day, presumably in front of the Arte’s camerario.102 But mundualdo was not always the rule: in the same book we find women enrolled as rigattiere who had paid their entrance fee without needing assistance or at any rate without going through the legal procedure of the mundualdo: it is the case of Caterina di Giuseppe di Pietro residing in the popolo of Santa Maria Maggiore, who matriculated on March 15, 1436;103 or Caterina daughter of Francesco di Nero Del Benino and wife of Francesco di Raffaello Del Nero, who, in the aftermath of her husband’s death, on December 20, 1530, paid the entrance fee to practise as second-hand dealer;104 or, finally, Diamante, daughter of Marco d’Andrea de Granacci and wife of Iacopo di Gabriele, and Dionora, daughter of Nerone di Barone di Raniero di ser Bonaccorso, who both paid their entrance fees to the Arte on July 20, 1526, and June 16, 1531, respectively, to work as rigattiere.105

58  The Guild and Identity of Artifices Women escaped mundualdo guardianship when their work was marginal. In these cases, however, the work of the women was mainly expressed through the sale of goods, and they were excluded from public ceremonies or processions and from entry into the administrative and political life of the city. If the possible, gradual closure of the Arti to women by the second half of the thirteenth century is still debated, undeniably, the fourteenth and especially the fifteenth centuries are characterised by a growing hierarchy within the Arti, subordination, and in the worst cases, exclusion of women from their ranks. All over Italy crafts pushed against female participation. For instance in 1273, the Mercanzia of Piacenza reserved the status of masters in the corporation of cotton producers (ministerium bambaxii) to men only. In Bologna, in 1289, the goldsmiths, who were a membrum of the blacksmith’s corporation, forbade women to open shops and train disciples, effectively preventing them from exercising their master’s rights. In Venice, where they likewise enjoyed a seemingly equal position with men in the guilds of doctors and apothecaries, merchants of old cloths, tanners of skins, comb makers, and so on, starting from the thirteenth century discriminatory attitudes appeared. Even in the textile corporations, where the female labour force continued to be extensive, we rarely encounter teachers, but simply laboratrices.106 It can be assumed that in the growing internal hierarchy of the Arti, women gradually sank to the level of the disciples and labourers and were relegated to subordinate roles.107 However, some cases seem to suggest a different story. The case of one rigattiera, Monna Antonia, herself the widow of a rigattiere, Pagolo di Giovanni, proves that for some women at least, to work outside of the guild system (Antonia seems to have never been enrolled) was not only perfectly plausible but even somewhat successful. Half of the shop she owned in Piazza Santa Maria Novella was rented for eight gold florins a year. She also lent another property that her husband had left her, a parcel located near San Quirico d’Orcia, to a certain Mechero del Vescovo, in exchange for a couple of chickens a year and wheat, part of which Antonia kept for her personal needs and part of which she resold in the city grain market. But it was in the retail trade that this woman turned out to be particularly shrewd. She entered into a business partnership with a certain Bartolomeo di Jacopo, and together they bought the shop, located in the old market, where Antonia’s husband had had his license (entratura) as a seller of used clothing. Then she opened a tavern above the shop, again in concert with Bartolomeo. Both the shop and the tavern probably supported Antonia’s affairs. In fact, from the tavern, customers could be drawn into the shop downstairs, but also the reverse could occur. After a long negotiation, a customer could be refreshed in the tavern located upstairs.108 The active presence of women within the corporation presented the rigattieri and linaioli with another problem, that of defending the

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 59 monopoly of this type of work by male members only, itself the first concern of every corporation. Those who worked outside the system—­ without joining the corporation—could subvert all members, because they would often offer lower rates and could steal clients. If, moreover, this extra-guild activity also furnished inferior products, as was often suspected when women were involved, the ‘outsider’ committed yet another crime, that is, he/she failed to comply with one of the corporate rules, the protection of quality.109 But even worse than the poor quality of the products sold was the unavailability and unreliability of peripatetic vendors (often associated with female rigattiere). This phenomenon was so common that the Arte was strongly keen to argue and legislate against it, both at a prescriptive and punitive level. Additionally, peddlers, by acting as a cheap distribution network in far places, out in the contado and even in different cities, took the risk, but also absorbed a fraction of the profit which otherwise was to be the shops’. It is no coincidence that the legislation frequently issued formulae stressing that the activity must take place in the shop, not in the squares or out in the streets. It was not just the ethical aspect of the profession to be safeguarded, but also the profit of the shopkeepers’ rigattieri who paid their entrance fee to the guild and were members of the corporation. The differences between sedentary and peripatetic vendors were not always well defined. For example, it is not uncommon to find that a rigattiere worked as a shopkeeper and at the same time as a street vendor, for some time, and went around to villages, cities, and the countryside to sell his wares at the town fairs, like that in Prato in September called the Sacra Cintola.110 These certainly offered rich opportunities to those who wanted to earn some extra money. One such part-time peripatetic vendor was Baldassarre Di Falco, a forty-five-year-old second-hand dealer who lived in a small cottage on the Rubaconte Bridge (today Ponte alle Grazie) with his old mother, his wife Tommasa, and six children. Baldassarre had placed his workshop under his house; judging by his economic performance and value of the merchandise kept there (100 florins), his shop did not do big business. During the summer Baldassarre would entrust the shop to Tommasa and his mother Maffia, load his two mules, mount his donkey, and wander the suburbs.111 The hostility if not open enmity of the rigattieri and linaioli towards the groups subjected to them for various professional reasons illustrates the delicate and complex meander of relationships between the corporation and its associated or subordinated trades. Those carrying out the most menial tasks or duties considered inferior to trading were particularly ill-treated. Among these were also those who, like the tailors and the doublet makers (both registered at the Arte di Por Santa Maria—the cloth finishers—but occasionally working for the rigattieri),112 wished to resell the clothes they made or mended, either by acting alone or in society with a rigattiere. Tailors were particularly abused financially:

60  The Guild and Identity of Artifices consider that each tailor who sewed gowns and doublets with remnants of clothes, either at the request of the client or the used clothing dealer, was to receive for his work no more than d2, a very low price that could not be renegotiated or increased. A tailor was also held responsible for the loss or deterioration of the clothes entrusted to him, say, for adjustments. If a tailor dared to demand more than this suggested rate for his work, not only would he have to pay a fine 120 times his established rate of payment, but also he risked the sad prospect of banishment from his profession, ousted by the rectors to a sort of damnatio memoriae.113 This resembles the submissive role of the tailors of Pisa, who were subjected to the second-hand dealers, with their professional dignity degraded.114 The sarti pisani who hoped to dodge interference in their craft by secondhand dealers were frustrated.115 Work under jurisdiction of the rigattieri was even legitimized by the statutory provisions. Soon the statutes of the podestà prohibited the members of various subordinate Arti from forming a collegium, that is, an association, so that the attempt by any of these groups to be constituted in membrum was crushed at birth. The commune thus assured the Arti that all those who exercised one of the various auxiliary activities would obey the orders of their consuls.116 Nothing in the fourteenth century relieved the oppression of the subordinate workers. In support of these severe measures, in the corporate statutes of the rigattieri of 1318 there is a norm (reiterated in the statutes of 1324) prohibiting the promotions of any association of those “who did not swear under the consuls”; the reference to the binding oath made in front of the consuls is explicit: no one should operate outside the corporation.117 The rule, despite a slight change in the statutes of the rigattieri and linaioli, unified in 1340, remained essentially untouched.118 The Ciompi revolt in 1378, which, as is well known, led to the formation of three new Arti constituted by the subordinates within the corporations of Wool and Por Santa Maria (the weavers, the dyers and doublet makers, and the tailors, enrolled heretofore in the Arte di Por Santa Maria),119 changed the situation, albeit only for a while. These Arti were short lived. In 1382, the heads of the major guilds regained control and the new trade associations were dismantled, although some members were again enrolled in the traditional Arti. However, in the 1379 reformations to the statutes, approved by the rectors of the Mercanzia—the supreme judicial body of the Arti—the members of the newly constituted guild of doublet makers (farsettai) reserved for themselves the right to do exactly what they had been forbidden to do by the statutes of the rigattieri, which had prohibited the tailors and doublet makers to sell new and old clothes and padding (to stuff the doublets). The farsettai stated, “they [must be] allowed, freely and with impunity, to buy, sell and trade padding, jackets, coats, both new and used”. Where the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli had forbidden tailors to ask for more than d2 for work and put limitations to the type and number of clothes they

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 61 could work on, here it is stated that they could “in virtue of their work and under request of a price [established by themselves, the tailors] mend and darn all the clothes and garments of any existing species and manner.”120 The concession, although it worked only for a short timespan, made for a significant change in the work conditions of tailors: not only did they now buy and sell items of clothing, but they also received a fair price for their work on the clothes, proportionate to the type of work they performed. Furthermore, it was they (at least in the intention of this socially inspired legislation) who, by redressing the previous statutes, now made effective decisions on how much they wanted to be paid. As stated, the popular regime that came with the revolt of the Ciompi in 1378 was short lived. After 1382 an oligarchic elite regained power, to be held firmly by the major guilds that run the regime’s council. Following this reaction, the new statutes and regulations were dismantled, to re-establish the status quo. The violent reaction of the leaders of the major guilds following the Ciompi uprising came when the Republic fell under the firm control of the political elites.121 It is then that the rigattieri, even though they did not belong to the major guilds, having crushed insubordinate members of the Arte and through increasingly restrictive statutory provisions having purged the Arte from unwanted elements such as women and street vendors, after joining with the linaioli began to present themselves as a team of highly reliable individuals. The events of the late fourteenth century seem to have freed the rigattieri to rise, at the expense of subordinate members of the sector. But why did they succeed? Were they seen as allies of the major guilds? Did the more rich and powerful rigattieri, who stood higher in rank and consideration, understand that the repression of more ‘egalitarian’ instances from within the guild could work in their favour? In short, did they behave like the mercantile and financial elite that suppressed the revolt and regained control of the situation preCiompi revolt? The answer seems to be yes.

5. Conclusions The Arte dei Rigattieri was a body invested in its public dignity and of its precise position in the social milieu of the late Middle Ages in Florence. The Arte stood for solidarity, corporate tradition, and social legitimacy. This representation was especially critical for those who came from the humblest social groups, those that had been transplanted into the city (like the immigrants that came from the Florentine contado during the late Dugento, for instance), or even those from the socially and economically emergent homines novi.122 The Arte offered its members a kind of protection, as if it were an extended family. However, the rigattieri must have felt a strong contrast between their recent constitution and the prestigious and solid tradition characteristic of the major guilds.123 The

62  The Guild and Identity of Artifices members of the corporation probably likened their social and professional role to the respectable and solid traditions of the old noble houses of the city. However, in truth, their past was not so worthy of glory and consideration, and they were aware that their reputation rested on a more fragile and precarious ground. To this end, major artistic patronage, on the one hand, and a strong commitment to closing the ranks of the corporation (by defining and protecting the privileges of the oldest members of the Arte), promoted and secured the guild between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. Despite its strong corporative spirit, the guild of the rigattieri and linaioli was no unitary block. In fact, divisions, hierarchies, and conflicts were everyday occurrences. One says of Italy that the Arti emerged as an expression of autonomous interests and were organized to purchase within the system of citizens’ powers. This, as we shall see, can certainly be said for the rigattieri: strife within, and a united front toward rivals, an effective and fairly normal pattern. This chapter has surveyed the origin and the internal features of the Arte dei Rigattieri; the problematic union with the linaioli; the relationship between the work regulated by statutes and work taking place outside the system; women’s work; the hierarchy within the corporation; and the correspondence between the dynamics of the real economy and the economic policy of the Arte. In the discourse on economic policy adopted by the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, three things are fundamental: defence of the exercise of trade against non-members of the corporation and the protection of the members; discipline intended to protect the quality of the products sold; and finally the campaign to make the Arte trustworthy. While we indeed are witnessing the expansion of corporate legislation, with many rules about goods sold and their trading, it is equally true that the need for these detailed regulations was attached to the association’s urgent need to confront the crime of product adulteration, something taken very seriously. Articles manufactured in violation of these rules were therefore declared false, not unlike the false coin, and the offenders were heavily punished. In the next chapter, we will see how the Arte fitted into the delicate context of the city market, and how it took advantage of the ever-changing demand of old and used clothes to enhance its financial interests and gain solid social prestige.

Notes 1. For a general overview of the guilds in Florence see Robert Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze, 5 vols. (Florence: Sansoni, 1956–68), IV, part 2; Franco Franceschi, “La parabola delle Corporazioni nella Firenze del Tardo Medioevo,” in Arti fiorentine. La grande storia dell’Artigianato, I, Il Medioevo; “Intervento del potere centrale e ruolo delle Arti”; Economia e corporazioni: il governo degli interessi nella storia d’Italia dal Medioevo all’età contemporanea, ed.

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 63 Cesare Mozzarelli (Milan: Giuffrè, 1988); Antonio I. Pini, Città, comuni e corporazioni del Medioevo italiano (Bologna: CLUEB, 1986), 219–258; Donata Degrassi, L’economia artigiana nell’Europa medievale (Rome: La Nuova Italia scientifica, 1996), 119–152. At the European level there are a number of works, more or less extensive, that contain information or at least large bibliographies such as Cofradias, gremios, y solidaridades en la Europa medieval, XIX Semana de estudios medievales. Estella, 20 a 24 de julio de 1992 (Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra, Departamento de Educación y Cultura, 1993), 445–472. Some publications offer a complete reconstruction of the phenomenon such as Anthony Black’s Guilds and Civil Society in European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present (London: Methuen, 1984); Les métiers au Moyen Age. Aspects économiques et sociaux. Actes du colloque international de Louvain-la-Neuve, 7–9 octobre 1993, ed. Pascale Lambrechts and Jean-Pierre Sosson (Louvain la Neuve: Institut d’Etudes Médiévales de l’Université Catholique de Louvain, 1994); Stephen A. Epstein, Wage Labour and Guilds in Medieval Europe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991); “L’organizzazione del lavoro nel Medioevo,” in Storia dell’economia mondiale, I, Permanenze e mutamenti dall’antichità al Medioevo, ed. Valerio Castronovo (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1996). 2. In relation to the right to participate in government and on the indication of its political structure see Nicolai Rubinstein, “Stato and Regime in FifteenthCentury Florence,” in Per Federico Chabod (1901–1960), Atti del Seminario Internazionale, I, Lo stato e il potere nel Rinascimento, ed. Sandro Bertelli (Perugia: Annali della Facoltà di Scienze Politiche, Perugia, 1980–81), 17. 3. On these themes see Andrea Barlucchi, “Gli statuti delle arti e la normativa sul mondo del lavoro nella Toscana dei Comuni: sguardo panoramico e prospettive di ricerca,” ASI, CLXXI (2013). 4. Edgcumbe Staley, The Guilds of Florence (London: Methuen, 1906), 45–46; Collier Frick, “The Florentine Rigattieri,” 14; see also Meneghin, “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” 312. 5. See the classic work by Alfred Doren, Das Florentiner Zunftwesen vom 14. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert (1908, reprint edn. Aalen, 1969), trans. by Giovanbattista Klein, Le arti fiorentine (Florence: Olschki, 1940–1948), I, chapt. 2, 69–162. 6. John M. Najemy, A History of Florence 1200–1575 (Malden, MA, Oxford and Carlton: Blackwell, 2006), 76–87. 7. Najemy, A History of Florence 1200–1575, 138–139. 8. Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze, IV, part 2, Industria, arti, commercio e finanze, 327. 9. Ibid., 323; see also ASF, Catasto, 69, f. 355r; Ibid., 296, f. 34r. For the gonfaloni see the Glossary. 10. Najemy, A History of Florence 1200–1575, 100. 11. In a novel by Franco Sacchetti, the horse of Rinuccio di Nello causes havoc in the market to run behind a mare: the description of the commercial venue and layout suggests that the rigattieri’s shops were located exactly at the entrance of the old market: Il Trecentonovelle, ed. Davide Puccini (Turin: UTET, 2004), novel 159. 12. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296), De removendo arte[m] de contratis in quibus hospites sunt nimis molesti in pensionibus, 30; Statuti dei Rigattieri (1318), De removendo artem si hospites peterent maiorem pensionem, 69; Ibid., (1324), 120–121; Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), 231. 13. George Kaftal, Saints in Italian Art. Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting (Florence: Sansoni, 1952), 678. 14. Diane Finiello Zervas, The Parte Guelfa, Brunelleschi and Donatello (Locust Valley, NY: J. J. Augustin, 1987), 193; five representatives of the guild then

64  The Guild and Identity of Artifices commissioned the stonecarvers Perfetto di Giovanni and Albizzo di Pietro to do the tabernacle for St. Mark, for which they received 200 florins, see Horst W. Janson, The Sculpture of Donatello (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 17. 15. Of this house, which was restored and decorated with frescoes, nothing is left but the main entrance doors and the tabernacle from Ghiberti’s workshop which was to accommodate a painting by Frate Angelico, both now preserved in the museum of San Marco in Florence, see Meneghin, “The Trade of Second-Hand Clothing,” 326. 16. For a complete list of the goods that the rigattieri could buy and sell see the Statutes (1318), 45. It is interesting to note that among the goods listed in the statutes, drawn up in April, also appears the so-called sciamito—a velvetlike heavy silk cloth used to make luxurious dresses. The sciamito had been expressly forbidden—except for the wives of practitioners of law or knights— from the sumptuary legislation issued by the Capitano del Popolo in 1301 and 1307, and further reiterated in March  1318: Statuti del Capitano del Popolo degli anni 1322–1325, ed. Romolo Caggese (Florence: Tip. Galileiana, 1910), book V, part XIII. For a study of the context of the reformation of the Statutes in the 1320s see Andrea Zorzi, “Gli statuti di Firenze del 1322– 1325: regimi politici e produzione normativa,” in Signori, regimi signorili e statuti nel tardo medioevo, Atti del VII convegno del Comitato italiano per gli studi e le edizioni delle fonti normative (Ferrara, 5–7 ottobre 2000), ed. Rolando Dondarini et al. (Bologna: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2003), and also Statuti della Repubblica Fiorentina, Tomo I. Statuto del Capitano del popolo degli anni 1322–1325. Tomo  II. Statuto del Podestà dell’anno 1325, ed. Giuliano Pinto et al. (Florence: Olschki, 1999). 17. We know that bucherame was a fine, not very thick cotton cloth, probably of Asian origin. Boccaccio speaks of a blanket of “very white cipriano (from Cyprus?) bucherame”; in his Nuova Cronica, Giovanni Villani reports of a race run by prostitutes under the walls of Signa, the headquarters of the condottiero Castruccio Castracani in his attempt to seize Florence in 1325, to win over a cotton pallium of bucherame ‘bambagino’ (cotton padded); in Marco Polo’s Journey, mention is made of a city, Arzinga, where the best bucherame in the world was apparently made, Dizionario delle Origini, Invenzioni e Scoperte nelle Arti, nelle Scienze, nella Geografia, nel Commercio, nell’Agricoltura ecc. ecc. (Milan: Tip. di Angelo Bonfanti, 1828), part I, 456. Literate readers will know buckram from Shakespeare, from a Falstaff scene about an imagined fight (Henry IV Part 1, Act 2 scene 4), but of course the original meaning seems to shift by the sixteenth century. 18. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296), “quod pos[s]int emere et postea vendere pannos de albagio, qui dantur pro Deo, et pannos a buffonibus eisdem buffonibus donatis,” 34–35; Statuti dei Rigattieri (1318), “statutum et ordinatum est, quod nullus de hac arte vel sotietate audeat vel presumat . . . emere seu vendere . . . exceptis pannis emendis a buffonibus eisdem buffonibus donatis, et exceptis pannis de albagio qui dantur pro amore Dey,” 71; Statuti dei Rigattieri (1324), 123; Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), 215. 19. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296), De non faciendo farsitia vel copertoria vel alia laboreria de velis cremonensibus vel tentoriis tendis vel trabacchis, 20–21. 20. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296), 21. 21. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296), De non reactandis pannis veteribus cum sapone et aqua calida vel sodandis ad ceppum et de eodem totali prohibitione, 23–24; Statuti dei Rigattieri (1318), Quod nullus audeat reactare pannos cum sapone et aqua calida vel etiam sodare ad cippum, 67–68; Statuti dei Rigattieri (1324), 119–120; Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), 213–214.

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 65 22. “putrefactus et devastatus in ipsa aqua marina,” Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296), De non vendendo aliquem pannum maregiatum, 34; Statuti dei Rigattieri (1318), Quod nullus emat vel vendat pannum mareggiatum, 70; Statuti dei Rigattieri (1324), Quod nullus emat vel vendat pannum mareggiatum, 122; Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), De non vendendo vel emando pannos mareggiatos, 214. 23. “follatus vel rimborratus, vel lotus et reconcinatus ad cippum cum aqua callida et sapone,” Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296), 10; De non faciendo pannos follatos, 19–20; Statuti dei Rigattieri (1318), De non rinfollando vel rimborrando pannos, 65–66; Statuti dei Rigattieri (1324), De non rinfollando vel rimborrando pannos, 116–117; De non rinfollando vel rimborrando pannos (1340), 211–212. 24. Statuti dell’arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli di Firenze (1318), Quod nullus tingat pannos cum indaco, 76; (1324), 128; Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), 218. 25. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1318), Quod nullus vendat per modum baraccoli vel conii, 79–80; Statuti dei Rigattieri (1324), 130; Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli di Firenze (1340), De non vendendo per modum baratholi vel conii, 219. 26. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296), Quod non possit esse rector qui vadit clamando per civitatem emendo pannos veteres, 19. 27. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1318), Quod nullus vocet ad se emptorem vel venditorem nisi esset iuxta suam apothecam, 56; Statuti dei Rigattieri (1324), 108; Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), De non capiendo ad se neque capiendo aliquem vel aliquos emptorem vel venditorem, 206–207. 28. ASF, Conventi Religiosi Soppressi (hereafter CRS), Sant’Agnese, 98, fs. 78r-v; on the confraternity of Sant’Agnese see Nicholas A. Eckstein, The District of the Green Dragon. Neighbourhood Life and Social Change in Renaissance Florence (Florence: Olschki, 1995), 61–95. 29. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296), 3. For a complete list of the saints invoked, and for the description of the feast days to be celebrated, strictly observing the closure of all commercial activities, see the statutes of 1318, 61–63. However, it seems superfluous to notice that the observance of feast days was a general obligation, imposed by both the city statutes and the statutes of the guilds, see for example “Statuto del Podestà (1325),” in Statuti della Repubblica Fiorentina. Tomo II. Statuto del Podestà dell’anno 1325, book 3, sections 13, 31. 30. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1318), 63. 31. “pro salute animarum hominum dicte artis et pro honore dicte artis,” Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296), De cereis offerendis ecclesie Sancte Marie Ugonis in festivitate eiusdem, 13. 32. “un orcio di olio puro e buono”; “i [. . .] ceri siene di buona cera”: Statuti delle Arti degli Oliandoli e Pizzicagnoli e dei Beccai di Firenze (1318–1346), ed. Francesca Morandini (Florence: Olschki, 1961), Di dare l’olio a la chiesa di Santa Maria Ughi, o ad altro luogo, 32. 33. On issues of piety and religion see Roberto Greci, “Economia, religiosità, politica. Le solidarietà delle corporazioni medievali nell’Italia del Nord,” in Cofradias, gremios, solidaridades en la Europa medieval. 34. On the devotional practices and public piety of a city like Siena in the Trecento see the recently published book «Beata Civitas». Pubblica pietà e devozioni private nella Siena del 300, ed. Anna Benvenuti and Pierantonio Piatti (Florence: Sismel—Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2016), in particular at Franco Franceschi’s essay, “La pietà nelle associazioni di mestiere.” 35. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296), De festivitatibus celebrandis et custodiendis per homines huius artis, 17–18.

66  The Guild and Identity of Artifices 36. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1318), Quod socientur rectores quando moritur aliquis dicte artis, 54–55. 37. “nec in civitate nec in burgis vel subburgis”; “post sepulturam talis defunti possint vendere et emere ad sportellum et ire  per civitatem”: Statuti dei Rigattieri (1318), 61–63; Statuti dei Rigattieri (1324), De festivitatibus celebrandis, 113–115. 38. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1318), Quod qui acciperit in uxorem aliquam filiam magistri huius artis possit sine solutione facere artem, 76. 39. Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), Quod quilibet volens intrare ad artem predictam teneatur solvere antequam recipiatur, 233. 40. Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), De faciendo satisdare et in matricula scribi artifices comitatus Florentie de hac arte facientes, 200. 41. Statuti dei Rigattieri, 3; see also Najemy, A History of Florence 1200–1575, 40. 42. “bonos et legales homines.” For the period of January–July, amended in the statutes of 1324 to December–July; the statutes of 1340 show instead that the consuls were to remain in office for only four months. 43. “rustica vel turpia verba,” Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296), 9. 44. Corrected in the margin into an ounce from a different hand from the one that compiled the statutes. 45. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1318), 47. 46. Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli di Firenze (1340), 192. 47. Ibid., 196. 48. Ibid., 198. 49. In this regard, the careers of some notaries of the guild of Por S. Maria, like Michele di Salvestro Contadini and Bartolo di Neri da Ruffiano, recently studied by Sergio Tognetti, are exemplary: “La diaspora dei Lucchesi nel Trecento e il primo sviluppo dell’arte della seta a Firenze,” Reti Medievali Rivista 15, 2 (2014); “Ser Bartolo di Neri da Ruffiano, Giovanni Villani e il fallimento della compagnia Perugini,” in Tribunali di mercanti e giustizia mercantile nel tardo Medioevo, ed. Elena Maccioni and Sergio Tognetti (Florence: Olschki, 2016). See also Najemy, A History of Florence 1200– 1575, 45–50; and the essays contained in the volume Il notariato in Casentino nel Medioevo. Cultura, prassi, carriere, ed. Andrea Barlucchi (Florence: Associazione di Studi Storici Elio Conti, 2016). 50. “homines viginti annorum quilibet,” Statuti dei Rigattieri (1324), 105. 51. “quolibet anno de mense ianuarii, expensis artis”; “de extimatione librarum quattuor et plus”: Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli di Firenze (1340), 199. On the assignment of clothes and accessories, the so-called vestimenti or vestimenta, to the categories of employees of the commune and the Guelph Party in the fifteenth century, and the socio-political implications of this gesture, see Alessia Meneghin, “The Livery of a Florentine Employee in the Fifteenth Century: The Rewards of a Lifetime of Service,” History of Retailing and Consumption 1, 1 (2015). 52. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1324), 109. 53. Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), “Cum furta sepe, sepius sub pignore, ponuntur feneratoribus, et homines huius artis continue vadunt ad emendum pannos et res a dictis feneratoribus,” 244. 54. Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), 246. 55. Ibid., 199. 56. The wage was increased to s40 in 1324 in addition to the spices and chalices, and was maintained unchanged in the statutes of 1340. 57. On the mundualdo see Thomas Kuehn, “ ‘Cum Consensu Mundualdi’: Legal Guardianship of Women in Quattrocento Florence,” Viator. Medieval and Renaissance Studies 13 (1982); see also the Glossary.

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 67 58. Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), 201. 59. On the Ordinances of Justice see Carol Lansing, The Florentine Magnates. Lineage and Faction in a Medieval Commune (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 202–207. 60. Najemy, A History of Florence 1200–1575, 43. On these themes see also the volume by Silvia Diacciati, Popolani e Magnati. Società e politica nella Firenze del Duecento (Spoleto: CISAM, 2011), passim. 61. Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze, IV, 325. 62. This made Giovanni Villani speak of an increased consumption, a kind of ‘sumptuary orgy’ during and immediately after the Plague, Cronica, 2 vols., ed. Giovanni Porta (Parma: Guanda Editore, 1995), book. 1, chap. 6, part 1, 15–16. 63. Over time, more shops were opened in the new market. Starting from 1318, all shops of this branch of business were to be found along the side of the church of Santa Maria sopra Porta (today home to the Biblioteca del Palagio di Parte Guelfa), ASF, Rigattieri 4; see also “Statuti del Podestà (1325),” in Statuti della Repubblica Fiorentina. Tomo II. Statuto del Podestà dell’anno 1325, book V, sections 103, 429. 64. For a comparative framework, see the analysis by Roberto Greci, Corporazioni e mondo del lavoro nell’Italia padana medievale (Bologna: CLUEB, 1988), in particular 214–215. 65. Alfred Doren, Entwicklung und Organisation der florentiner Zünfte im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1897), 47. 66. “Statuto del Capitano del Popolo (1322),” in Statuti della Repubblica Fiorentina, Tomo I, sections 10, 23. 67. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296), De exemplari faciendo hoc constitutum et de omni cautela habenda, 25–26; De custodiendo sigillum artis, 26–27. 68. Statuti dell’Arte dei Rigattieri (1296), De faciendo legi omnia capitula huius constituti coram universitate artis, 15. 69. Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), chaps. LI, LII, LIII, LIIII, CIII (chapter CIII was added on May 11, 1346). 70. The relocation of all shops occurred not only in the main shopping areas of the city, the old and the new market, but also in the popolo of San Piero Buonconsiglio, in the area in the proximity of Piazza dei Tornaquinci and towards the Santa Trinita Bridge, a part which also included the parish of Santa Maria degli Ughi and San Miniato tra le Torri. 71. For a detailed description of offices and officers within the Arte see paragraph 2. 72. For example, linen pieces could not be sold in the streets of the city but had to be sold in a shop, Statuti dell’arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli di Firenze (1340), chaps. LXXXV, LXXXVI. 73. The configuration of the production structure in the medieval age has been amply described by both the economic and the juridical historiography, see Bronisław Geremek, Le salariat dans l’artisanat parisien aux XIIIe -XVe siècles. Étude sur le marché de la main-d’oeuvre au Moyen Âge (Paris-La Haye: Mouton, 1968); “I  salari e il salariato nelle città del basso medio evo,” Rivista storica italiana, LXXVIII (1966); Alfredo Pino-Branca, “Le «classi operaie» nelle corporazioni medievali,” Politica, VI (1924); Giovanni Cherubini, “Artigiani e salariati nelle città italiane del tardo medioevo,” in Aspetti della vita economica medievale, Atti del Convegno di studi nel X anniversario della morte di Federigo Melis (Firenze-Pisa-Prato 10–14 marzo 1984) (Florence: Olschki, 1985); Victor Crescenzi, “La formazione storica del capitalismo commerciale,” Diritto romano attuale, IX (2003), 54–55; Alberto Grohmann, “L’organizzazione del lavoro nella normativa delle corporazioni medievali italiane,” in Il lavoro come fattore produttivo e come risorsa nella storia economica italiana, Atti del Convegno di studi, ed. Sergio

68  The Guild and Identity of Artifices Zaninelli and Mario Taccolini (Roma, 24 novembre 2000) (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2002), 632. 74. Statuto dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), 233–234. 75. On this see 46. 76. See Ludovico Zdekauer, Il gioco d’azzardo nel medioevo italiano (Florence: Salimbeni, 1993). 77. Statuti dei rigattieri (1296), De non faciendo rationem de promissionibus ludi taxillorum, 28. 78. Statuti dell’Arte dei rigattieri e linaioli (1340), De non retinendo aliquem discipulum ludentem ad ludum taxillorum, 230–231. 79. Statuti dei rigattieri (1324), Quod nulla ratio teneatur per consules super facto ludi, 102. 80. It seems that the zara (for zahr, die), was a game similar to the morra, very popular in the Byzantine Middle East, where it had been invented around the year 1200, near an Arabian castle, Azar, from which he took the name. The player would play by simply pulling three dice, declaring before the shot what the result would have been. The winner would be the one who first pulled the ‘called’ result, Gherardo Ortelli, “Fra interdizione e tolleranza. L’azzardo e la politica dei comuni nell’analisi di Ludovico Zdekauer,” in Zdekauer, Il gioco d’azzardo, 7. 81. “quando si parte il gioco della zara, colui che perde si riman dolente, repetendo più volte e tristo impara . . .,” Alighieri, La Divina Commedia, Purgatorio, VI, 1–24. 82. Statuti dei rigattieri (1318), Quod si quis aufugerit cum pecunia aliena non possit ipse nec elius filius hanc artem facere, 69. 83. Statuti dei rigattieri (1324), Quod quilibet cum mercatus fuerit ad profectum dicat veritatem, 108. 84. Ibid., Quod fures prohibeantur ab arte, 105. 85. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296, 1318, 1324), passim; Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), passim. 86. On the apprenticeship contracts and mutual obligations, as well as for a detailed bibliography on this issue see Maria Morello, “L’organizzazione del lavoro nelle botteghe artigiane tra XIII e XV secolo. Il contratto di apprendistato,” Historia et ius rivista di storia giuridica dell’età medievale e moderna, 10 (2016); Franco Franceschi, “I  giovani, l’apprendistato, il lavoro,” in I giovani nel Medioevo. Ideali e pratiche di vita, Atti del convegno di Studio svoltosi in occasione della XXIV Edizione del Premio Internazionale Ascoli Piceno (Ascoli Piceno, 29 novembre-1 dicembre 2012), ed. Isa Lori Sanfilippo and Antonio Rigon (Ascoli Piceno: Istituto Storico Italiano  per il Medioevo, 2014); Roberto Greci, “L’apprendistato nella Piacenza tardocomunale tra vincoli corporativi e libertà contrattuali,” in Corporazioni e mondo del lavoro; “Il contratto di apprendistato nelle corporazioni bolognesi (XIII–XV sec.),” ora in Corporazioni e mondo del lavoro; Amintore Fanfani, Storia del lavoro in Italia. Dalla fine del secolo XV agli inizi del XVIII (Milan: Giuffrè, 1943). 87. For instance, the attitude of some guilds towards the ‘masterpiece’ that an apprentice who wished to become a master had to produce in order to prove his matured skills and ability is indicative of the direction in which the internal balances of powers were evolving: in this regard it is not a coincidence that the children of masters or their associates were exempted from producing the ‘masterpiece,’ under the presumption that a master who was skilled in his profession had a son who was more likely to exercise it the same way, more than a stranger could do: Pier Silverio

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 69 Leicht, Operai, artigiani, agricoltori in Italia dal Secolo VI al XVI (Milan: Giuffrè, 1946), 120; Doren, Le arti fiorentine, 130–136; Greci, “Il contratto di apprendistato,” 210; Franceschi, “I giovani, l’apprendistato, il lavoro,” 132. 88. In the statutes and in the notarial deeds, the term discipulus was not used for a long time as a synonym of apprentice, and only much later it came to be used in a different way from the proper word used for the worker lavorante, see Marino Berengo, L’Europa delle città. Il volto della società urbana europea tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna (Turin: Einaudi, 1999), 447; Leicht, Operai, artigiani, agricoltori in Italia, 111. 89. Statuto dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), 233. 90. Such benefits had their origin in that the monopoly of the profession was formerly based on and restricted to the familial unity, and only later extended towards people outside the family: Degrassi, L’economia artigiana nell’Italia medievale, 54. 91. On some compagnie di regatteria see Meneghin’s “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” 311–312. 92. It is in the Libri delle Matricole that we can trace the number of magisters, but it is necessary to specify that the differentiation between them was very articulated, especially on the social and economic level, since the title, although identifying the same state of independence, did not embody the concept of equality of revenues and status. 93. “et seducunt mulieres . . . ad dampnum virorum”: Collier Frick, “The Florentine Rigattieri,” 23. This is in stark contrast with what Merry Wiesner Wood has shown for Nuremberg, for example, where it seems that craftsmen’s wives took on a significant responsibility in their role as peddlers, “Paltry Peddlers or Essential Merchants? Women in the Distributive Trades in Early Modern Nuremberg,” Sixteenth Century Journal 12, 2 (1981); also in Paris and Cologne some textiles crafts were seen as a typically womanly occupation, Doren, Le Arti fiorentine, I, 145, 3, 146, nn. 1–4; on the role of women in the Florentine guilds see Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze, VI, II, 163–164. 94. Meneghin, “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” 318–319. 95. For a recent overview of the research conducted on women and guilds see Clare Crowston, “Women, Gender, and Guilds in Early Modern Europe: An Overview of Recent Research,” International Review of Social History 53, Supplement 16 (2008). 96. Anna Bellavitis, “Donne, cittadinanza e corporazioni tra Medioevo ed età moderna: ricerche in corso,” in Corpi e Storia. Donne e uomini dal mondo antico all’età contemporanea, ed. Nadia Maria Filippini et  al. (Rome: Viella, 2002). 97. See the contribution by Gabriella Piccinni, “La trasmissione dei saperi delle donne,” in La trasmissione dei saperi nel Medioevo (secoli XII–XV). Atti del 19° Convegno internazionale di studi (Pistoia, 16–19 maggio 2003) (Pistoia: Viella, 2005). 98. See the essays contained in the volume La donna nell’economia secc. XIII– XVIII, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (Florence: Florence University Press, 1990). For a comparative approach to women’s work in the early modern age see also Angela Groppi, Il lavoro delle donne (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1996). 99. Cherubini, “Artigiani e salariati,” 42; see also Luca Molà, “Le donne nell’industria serica veneziana del Rinascimento,” in La seta in Italia dal Medioevo al Seicento. Dal baco al drappo, ed. Luca Molà et al. (Venice: Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 2000).

70  The Guild and Identity of Artifices 100. In France they found adequate spaces in the trade associations, sometimes even organising themselves in predominantly or exclusively female corporations. This rather unique circumstance was to be found in Paris during the thirteenth century, but also in Cologne two centuries later, and both cases are concerned with silk production and trade corporations. The French experience seems to have run out towards the middle of the fifteenth century, while the German female corporations lasted until the late sixteenth century: see David Herlihy, “Women’s Work in the Towns of traditional Europe,” in La donna nell’economia; in the volume see also the contribution by Margret Wensky. 101. On this see 47. On women’s emancipation in trading contexts see Laura Van Aert, “Trade and gender emancipation: retailing women in sixteenthcentury Antwerp,” in Buyers & sellers. On women’s rights to their patrimonial property in early modern Rome see Simona Feci, Pesci fuor d’acqua. Donne a Roma in età moderna: diritti e patrimoni (Rome: Viella, 2004). 102. ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, Secondo Libro delle Matricole, f. 9v. 103. Ibid., f. 11r. 104. Ibid., f. 11v. 105. Ibid., f. 14r. 106. Herlihy, “Women’s Work in the Towns of traditional Europe,” passim. 107. On the progressive closure of corporate ranks, the Libri delle Matricole are once again a good source, but they must be used with the awareness that they are incomplete and that the rigattiere women were not necessarily enrolled in matricular roles. 108. ASF, Catasto, 1009, fs. 74r-v. 109. In corporate economic organisations such as the medieval Arti, quality control represented a primary objective, on this see Ferdinando Mazzarella, Nel segno dei tempi: marchi, persone e cose dalla corporazione medievale all’impresa globale (Milan: Giuffrè, 2005), 313. 110. The Sacra Cintola falls on 8 September; it is the festa of the famous girdle Mary dropped to doubting Thomas. Prato Cathedral still preserves the relic: Raoul Manselli, “Istituzioni ecclesiastiche e vita religiosa,” in Prato storia di una città, 1, Ascesa e declino del centro medievale (dal Mille al 1494), ed. Giovanni Cherubini (Prato: Le Monnier), 812–813. 111. ASF, Catasto, 64, fs. 246r-v. 112. From what it appears from the second Libro delle Matricole of the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, 104 tailors were enrolled in 1428, against fortynine linaioli, 160 among tintores et tessitores (dyers and weavers), and 130 artifices comitati (guild members of the Florentine contado): ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, Secondo Libro delle Matricole, f. 1r. 113. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296), De dirictura non danda venditori vel venditrici vel sartori ultra dictos duos denarios, 29. 114. On this see chap. 1, xxx. 115. Violante, Economia Società Istituzioni a Pisa, 273–274; see also Meneghin, “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” 327. 116. “Statuto del Podestà (1325),” in Statuti della Repubblica Fiorentina. Tomo II. Statuto del Podestà dell’anno 1325, book V, sections 28, 381 and passim. 117. “qui non promiserit sub consulibus”: Statuti dei Rigattieri (1318), Quod nullus faciat societatem cum aliquo qui non promiserit sub consulibus, 53–54; Statuti dei Rigattieri (1324), 105. On the relations between corporations and governi di popolo see Enrico Artifoni, “Corporazioni e società di «popolo»: un problema della politica comunale nel secolo XIII,” in Itinerarium. Università, corporazioni e mutualismo ottocentesco: fonti

The Structure of the Guild and Statutes 71 e percorsi storici, ed. Enrico Menestò and Giancarlo Pellegrini (Spoleto: Fondazione Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1994). 118. Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), De non faciendo societatem aliquam cum aliquo qui non iuraverit arti et sub arte predicta, 205. 119. Golthwaite, The Economy of Renaissance Florence, 326–329. 120. “possint eisque liceat licite et impune emere, vendere et mercari farsitia, giacchos, giubbones, tam novos quam veteres” and “ad pretium et mercedem remendare et remendari facere omnes pannos et vestes cuiuscumque spetiei et manerici existentes,” Statuti delle arti dei fornai e dei vinattieri di Firenze (1337–1339), 185. 121. On the nature of the ‘revolutionaries’ that masterminded the revolt see Richard C. Trexler, The Workers of Renaisssance Florence. Power and Dependence in Renaissance Florence (Asheville, NC: Pegasus Press, 1993), III, 61–115. Franco Franceschi’s analysis of the Florentine wool workers before and after the revolt of the Ciompi suggests that historians should speak of degrees of entrepreneurship within the Arte della Lana, and not salariati on the one hand and businessmen on the other. In other words, the people working in the wool industry were not, as believed by Rodolico and de Roover, so rigidly divided into different social and professional groups. The nature of this difference depended, according to Franceschi, on a series of multiple factors, such as the relationship with the means of production, the ability to sell the finished product, the relation with the clientele, and the remuneration and the level of indebtedness of each worker, Oltre il “Tumulto,” 261–303. In this context, Alessandro Stella, dealing with similar themes as Franceschi, also stressed the need to take into account a variety of forms of dependence, and thus the existence of differing types of salariati in all areas of work and manufacture, La révolte des Ciompi: les hommes, les lieux, le travail (Paris: EHESS, 1993). 122. Of course if we think of the gens nova, we cannot avoid mentioning the process of “unprecedented democratization within the ruling class” due to the rapid advancement in government of men coming from the commercial ranks. These new men were able to occupy key positions following the popular uprising of September 1343 and the expulsion of the Duke of Athens; see Najemy, Corporativism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics, 1280–1400, 130. 123. It is therefore not a coincidence that only three years after the statutes of 1296 had passed from the anti-magnate measures, they contained specific legislation against them, “ad comunem utilitatem hominum huius artis” come si legge, negli Statuti dei Rigattieri (1296), Quod consules teneantur iuvare gravatos a magnatibus, 31.

3 The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System of Fifteenth-Century Florence

This chapter  will set the commercial activity of second-hand dealers against the socio-economic background of fifteenth-century Florence. After the Black Death, the rigattieri were crucial to an expanding market for recycled goods. They controlled and supervised the market for castoffs and used clothing and served clients from all sorts of life from their shops and stalls. To penetrate their activities and modus operandi, we will need to examine their business from within. We here try to reconstruct the used clothing market and the evolution of supply and demand in various social categories. We will look at the shops, their presence and/or absence in the city, and issues of ownership, rent, and the income that the shops could generate. We will also see the size of these shops, how they looked in the eyes of contemporaries, and what kind of people crossed the threshold of a second-hand shop during the week. To do so, we will focus in particular on one client, Piero Puro di Francesco da Vicchio, our old acquaintance.1 His spending habits at some Florentine rigattieri around the middle of the century are well documented. Finally, we will also describe some of the merchandise sold and discuss prices and payment systems put in place between sellers and customers. The rigattieri claimed to have a monopoly in selling used clothing. That monopoly, which started in the fourteenth century, effectively made them the only authorized retailers in the market to sell, appraise, and engage with used clothing. They were always eager to defend this right by wielding all sorts of protectionist measures against membra who were not enrolled in the corporation. Not only did they claim a monopoly in selling used clothing, but they also claimed the same on any kind of durable used goods, ranging from household furnishings to bed linen and so on (as seen in the previous chapter). Sometimes they also bought from the lower ends of the recycling circuit, repurchasing from customers goods that had been previously bought from them.2 Furthermore, they held a monopoly on the appraisal of all goods destined for public auctions and even on those items that were bought, sold, bartered, and exchanged among private citizens. In fact, officially recognised estimatori—chosen by the consuls of the guild among the most respected rigattieri—were

The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System 73 appointed by the authorities to provide a professional estimation of goods (as will be discussed in the next chapter). It must come as no surprise that in a densely urbanised and industrialised city like Florence there were many second-hand retailers: roughly 200 individuals (although only eighty-four declared to the Catasto officers to be rigattieri) who ran botteghe and warehouses (fondaci) that were beacons for second-hand shopping. Rigattieri had multiple and deep skills. The activities of the rigattieri, like those of many other entrepreneurs, were dominated by credit and debt collection: the successful second-hand dealer needed to evaluate his clients and give credit cautiously and carefully, or he would fail.3 He needed deep local knowledge of the market and of its main players in order to establish his distribution networks, and once he had built up trust, he could operate at the best of his capacities. A second-hand dealer’s shop, like those of many other small or large artisans and entrepreneurs, was the junction point of much technical experience. These shops were also a centre for the development of socio-professional relationships that did not necessarily end in sales. It is hard to work out the details, but despite the holes, we have rich sources and can see a lot. Although it is difficult to reconstruct this network of knowledge and the relationships that developed inside and outside the shop and gravitated towards it;4 however, we do have plenty of fiscal data, an irreplaceable source because they let us build a statistical database on individuals and entire social groups, permitting analysis of the distribution of wealth. The use of a synchronic source such as the Catasto, exceptional for the wealth of information contained therein, far less useful for diachronic analysis, gives us a suggestive crosscut but requires further inquiry. To this end, I have combined the available facts and figures with information coming from contemporary chronicles, and from memoirs and books of Ricordanze, as well as from the few existing studies.5

1. Market Conditions and Metamorphosis of Demand The published work, as important as it is, has only scratched the surface of the big story we want to tell. The study of banking and credit, activities that deeply affected the socio-economic dynamics of city trade, has had a decisive influence over the history of commerce in late medieval Florence. The scholarship is one key to understanding the investment choices made by the Florentine entrepreneurial class.6 Although studies on the subject are not in short supply, we still lack an analysis of the marketplace itself: “how it functioned, what possibilities it offered, and how people dealt with one another in it—the skills and knowledge they commanded, the attitudes conditioning their initiatives, their relations with one another.”7 The rigattieri’s records lend themselves to this kind of

74  The Guild and Identity of Artifices analysis. Unlike other entrepreneurs like the big international merchant bankers, who have been the object of much historical investigation, the vast majority of the rigattieri had modest resources, and their economic activities were confined to the local market. Their records enable us to penetrate the marketplace where, daily, Florentines made a living and shopped dealing with one another through monetary and credit relations for their consumption practices. The scholars have documented the distribution of skills, such as business and accounting, that mattered for the entrepreneurs and also the rigattieri. For instance, Bruno Dini’s research on Florentine battilori has permitted scholars to sketch out the characteristics of these sectors and of the socio-professional groups involved. Similarly, Richard Marshall’s research on late-medieval Prato, based upon the examination of the account books of small businesses or family businesses, and Piero Guarducci’s work on the Sienese dyer, Landoccio di Cecco d’Orso, have confirmed how these traders actually found their own lucrative niche in the market.8 The success of these businessmen, according to Tim Carter and Richard Goldthwaite, was made possible by two skills: familiarity with accounting practices (with which these operators kept track of their transactions) and banking, which facilitated transactions on a daily and long-term basis, for wealthy merchant bankers and small entrepreneurs alike.9 Keep in mind that, by the later fourteenth century, accounting “had become second nature for virtually all Florentines, from international merchant bankers to simple craftsmen.”10 Our rigattieri undoubtedly had this skill, as is clearly demonstrated by Taddeo di Chello’s Libro di Dare e Avere. Not only must the techniques and jargon of accountancy have been widespread among our rigattieri, but also they must have been familiar with the commercial practices that often went along with the arte of accountancy. Their familiarity shows in their easy shifts between accepting cash payments and giving credit, allowing for deferred or thirdparty payments. Besides this, many rigattieri were also immersed in the banking culture of the time, and although they did not have large capital that would generate high profits, some of their investments involved banking operations. But really what we have in relation to the rigattieri and what made their trade crucial for people in this period is demand characterised by resistance against sumptuary legislation and morals that preached austerity. Florence provided an infrastructure for the interplay between demand and supply. As other scholars, such as McKendrick, Brewer, and Plumb, who studied the so-called commercial revolution and the change in consumption practices at the dawn of the early modern age, have stressed, people needed to save money but also displayed a new attitude or ‘propensity’ to consumption.11 In linking supply on the one hand and consumption on the other, a third factor must be taken into account: the importance of commercial infrastructures (shops, fondaci,

The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System 75 marketplaces), organisations (retail networks and the guild system), and practices (selling old and new, for example, and creating new attitudes towards commodities). In the last two or three decades all these matters have animated much sociological, historical, and economic research on consumption. Lately, however, there is renewed interest in the players who enabled commodities to become widely accessible. Concerning the changes in the constant dialectic between supply and demand, certain questions arise: how customers were provided for and by whom; who it was in the market that distributed the items increasingly sought after by a varied clientele; and how that someone contributed to shaping people’s imagination and shopping preferences—in other words: infrastructure. The rigattieri were the key. They were the missing link between the traditional society, characterised by lack and rampant scarcity, and the new market, where more and more disposable goods were simply available, for more people, at lower cost. The enduring dynamism and entrepreneurial activity of many rigattieri were central. Therefore, the second-hand market was no marginal area set against the market of luxury products. On the contrary, it was a place of very lively circulation and mobility of products, experiences, and people. The second-hand market was integrated into economic and political schemes which went beyond the corporate system of the guilds. In Florence, from the fourteenth century onwards, the second-hand market was an ever-present activity, a nodal centre of city commerce that helped to foster a relationship between supply and demand. But let us look at this in more detail. The Arte was divided in two main groups regarding shopping practices, as was already clear in the 1340 statutes of the unified guild of Rigattieri e Linaioli. On the one hand, there were poor or impoverished rigattieri, only selling cheap clothing and rags, mostly operating in the peripheral areas on the edges of the city. On the other hand, there were the wealthy dealers, constantly fuelling and satisfying the demand of a well-off clientele. All sorts of people probably strolled the maze of streets that was the mercato vecchio, catching sight of the second-hand dealers’ shops and stalls and buying if they wanted. However, the corporation’s prohibitions against enticing new customers into one’s bottega, especially those confined to peripheral areas of the city, show that increasingly during the Quattrocento at least some of the retail activities taking place in the old market were becoming more luxurious and providing wealthier Florentines with expensive garments and accessories. Much of the city centre was reserved for a well-off clientele. But even they occasionally needed their clothes repaired, as did everyone. The second-hand dealers mended used goods and also reshaped them into fashionable novelties or gave them new life, as is clear from the statutes. This remaking was no secondary aspect of their activity, as in doing so they contributed to redefining the employment of used items, creating novelties which may have drawn the attention of the wealthy and the

76  The Guild and Identity of Artifices poor alike. Thus, not only did the rigattieri fulfil customers’ demand; they also stimulated it. At the high end, demand for refabricated goods rose as the Florentine constitution evolved. First, between the Dugento and Trecento, there was the emergence of a new social stratum in public life that contended against the ancient families of the magnates for economic and political primacy. Then there came the regained political stability in the Quattrocento, after the 1430s, due to the rise of the Medici as undisputed masters of the city. These shifts caused profound modifications to the social framework. During the fifteenth century (and even more in the sixteenth), Florence became more and more a stage. The city demanded from its protagonists of public and political life a self-presentation that sat well with the display of the ruling family. That meant spending abundantly on dressing up.12 So we must imagine the role of second-hand dealers, who developed their activities to follow these new dynamics. Their business attempted to satisfy a growing demand for affordable, used, luxury goods. They supplied those families who aimed at socioeconomic ascent, without weighing too heavily on their budgets. Another thing that boosted the trade was a shift in East-West commerce in high-end cloth: expensive items originally imported from the Levant at the beginning of the ‘commercial revolution’ became Italian productions alongside ceramics, glass, leather, and alum. This shift in production made these products more widely available at more affordable prices, and they began appearing among the items sold by secondhand dealers in the fifteenth century.13 Thus, if on the one hand, export of goods and semi-finished or finished products, and in particular, of those goods produced by the Tuscan firms, formed the basis of the Florentine merchants’ wealth, they helped to create more diversified and affordable shopping for people from all walks of life. In fact, an additional part of the Florentine economic world (economia mondo fiorentina) was the ‘small capital’ of small-scale entrepreneurship.14 Smaller traders dealt in a whole series of non-luxury goods that met the daily demands of the vast majority of the population.

2. Commercial Venues: The Botteghe’s Location Although eighty-four used clothing dealers declared their profession in the Catasto of 1427—sono rigattiero, fo un poco d’arte de rigatteria, ho una bottega di rigattiere—the actual number who were working in Florence in the first half of the fifteenth century (population 38,000) is unknown.15 Many practised the profession without being registered in the guild’s roles, nor did they necessarily declare themselves to the Catasto officers. We have already seen, for example, how John Najemy suggested the figure of 200 individual rigattieri at the beginning of the century.16 Evidence for 1451 reveals, however, that there were eight companies of

The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System 77 second-hand dealers in Florence. They must have been, for the most part, of medium size; the company of Bartolomeo Dell’Aveduto for example, along with that of members Filippo and Giovanni di Domenico Burci, were the only ones worth 1,000 gold florins. The others had capital estimated between 200 and 500 gold florins.17 We cannot altogether trust these figures, due to the well-known tendency of Florentine entrepreneurs to hide their capital.18 The better operators knew what they were doing. Companies ran shops aimed at the resale of a diversified range of clothes, from goods to satisfy the needs of the low to medium consumer with scarce or average financial capacity, to those meant to furnish garments and ensembles for the wealthy. The most financially able and successful second-hand dealers had welcomed the demands of a lively market. In fact, they sensed its considerable new potential and converted their activities from the mere retailing of used clothes into creating new, evidently more profitable items. In these shops, the merchandise, although used, looked refined and sometimes even sophisticated. With high-end merchandise, the high value of the goods sold constrained the dealer to know not only their value on the market, but also the tastes and needs of customers. Many shops figured among the assets of the major landowners. Strong concentrations were in the hands of the ecclesiastical institutions: 293 shops belonged to them; among them first and foremost was the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, owner of seventeen second-hand shops. Among them was the shop located in Corso degli Adimari (right behind the old market and almost opposite the cathedral), estimated at about 114 florins and leased for ten florins a year to Giovanni di Frezzi, seller of used clothes.19 The hospital of San Giovanni Battista followed suit with fifteen shops; the Priory of San Piero Scheraggio with fourteen; and the Compagnia del Bigallo and della Misericordia in the Duomo with nine. To this list we must add the Parte Guelfa, the largest secular owner of real estate, which possessed no fewer than seventy-two shops rented to merchants of almost all trades (but in particular to doublet makers and furriers). Their shops were located mainly in central areas, as well as under the new Palagio della Parte (situated off Via di Porta Rossa which led to Piazza Santa Trinita and the new market) or near to it, but also in other areas of the city. Even the Arti had their share of rented shops, 2.4% of the city’s buildings.20 In fact, the rigattiere Buono di Bartolomeo rented his shop, situated in the old market and bordering the properties of Galeazzo Borromeo (whom we will discuss shortly), from the guild of butchers and graziers (Arte dei Beccai) for fortytwo florins a year;21 Lorenzo di Bartolomeo d’Orlandino rented his from the Wool Guild (Arte della Lana) for twenty florins a year.22 Thus we see a concentration, for the high end, in central locations and a few, scattered lesser shops, dispersed in the peripheral areas of the city. Of all these shops, however, those rented to second-hand dealers were mostly concentrated within the oldest walls that ring an area called the

78  The Guild and Identity of Artifices matildina, in the district of San Giovanni. As we shall see, there was a deep linkage between ownership, sponsorship, and rent of prestigious shops by wealthy owners to successful rigattieri and the spatial distribution of these shops, all located in central areas, while minor rigattieri rented shops in peripheral areas of the city. San Giovanni housed almost all focal points of the city’s economy: from the old market to Calimala, from the new market to Por Santa Maria. The heart of the second-hand dealer’s trade resided in this essential junction, with as many as thirtyseven shops in or around the market square or in its immediate vicinity. Between the first and second circle of walls, on the other hand, there were further areas of economic importance for the second-hand dealers. They were often positioned on well-defined junctures along important communication routes, such as Via San Gallo, for example. Finally, between the second and third circle of walls there were open areas, still occupied by fields and gardens. Here the shops of rigattieri were present only on the old exurban streets already settled early, the so-called borghi, which linked the ancient extra-mural convents to destinations in the city and had subsequently been incorporated into the last circle of fourteenthcentury walls. All over Florence, there was unofficial zoning. The Catasto shows us how that worked for assorted trades. The so-called zoning is the presence of strong concentrations of activities of the same nature, in relation to a gate, a bridge, or an edge or corner (canto), where two areas came into contact and a current of exchanges was established. We thus can trace persistent concentrations of sites of a particular activity in a restricted area, so that we can link the city’s physical fabric with economic and urban function. The Catasto, that of 1427 especially,23 is a source not yet fully exploited for the geography of shops and for general urban planning.24 Although this methodology has its limits,25 one can rightly speak of ‘zoning,’ even for the second-hand dealers. Thus, we see that in 1427 most of their shops were located in the old market, in that maze of alleys surrounding it between Sant’Andrea, San Piero Buonconsiglio, Santa Maria Nipotecosa, and San Miniato tra le Torri (with a small number of rigattieri shops located in today’s Via del Corso, at the corner with Via dei Calzaioli). Finally, a third commercial centre nearby was the Loggia del Grano, built by Arnolfo di Cambio in the late thirteenth century, which in the later fourteenth century became the church of Orsanmichele. All the rigattieri shops mentioned in the tax returns show payment of rent in this area26 (see Figure 3.1). We note that the vast majority of shops in the old market were crammed into the popolo of San Tommaso and bordered the pertinenze of the little church, which was right next to the old market.27 The church—which stood next to the old houses of the Medici, who had first established themselves there as they had arrived from the Mugello—was demolished, together with almost all the buildings in the area, to make room for the

Figure 3.1 Locations of rigattieri’s botteghe and living spaces (1427–1480) Churches and Buildings  1. Baptistery (San Giovanni)  2. Cathedral (Duomo, Santa Maria del Fiore)  3. Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova  4. Hospital of the Innocenti  5. Medici palace  6. Mercanzia palace  7. Ognissanti  8. Orsanmichele  9. Palagio di Parte Guelfa (Palace of the Guelph Party) 10. San Felice in Piazza 11. San Lorenzo 12. San Marco 13. San Miniato tra le Torri 14. San Pancrazio

15. San Paolo 16. San Piero Buonconsiglio 17. Sant’Ambrogio 18. Santa Croce 19. Santa Maria degli Ughi 20. Santa Maria del Carmine 21. Santa Maria Novella 22. Santa Maria Sopra Porta 23. Santa Trinita 24. Santo Spirito 25. SS. Annunziata Streets, Bridges, Shopping Areas A. Borgo Ognissanti B. Corso degli Adimari C. Mercato nuovo (New market) D. Mercato vecchio (Old market)

80  The Guild and Identity of Artifices Figure 3.1  (Continued) E. Piazza Signoria F. Ponte alla Carraia G. Ponte Rubaconte (today Ponte alle Grazie) H. Ponte Santa Trinita I. Ponte Vecchio J. Via Calimala K. Via Calzaioli

L. M. N. O. P. Q. R.

Via del Proconsolo Via della Vigna Nuova Via delle Terme Via Larga (today Via Cavour) Via Por Santa Maria Via San Gallo Via Tornabuoni

new buildings of today’s Piazza della Repubblica. Another large number of shops were located in the Frascato area, a place of brothels and prostitutes, between San Tommaso and Santa Maria in Campidoglio. A small number of shops were also located in San Lorenzo. Another second-hand shop was next to the church of Santa Felicita in Santo Spirito. One was on the Ponte Vecchio, and finally another one on the Ponte Rubaconte (today’s Ponte alle Grazie). All these shops had variable rents that started from f4,28 and entrature (which we will examine shortly) that could reach figures much higher than 200 florins, like the 243 paid by the rigattiere Antonio di Bandino.29 This sheer concentration of second-hand shops in the area defined by the perimeter of the old market and punctuated by the presence of some of the city churches made this space a hub of commerce and exchanges for clients and sellers alike. But did clustering of retailers of cast-offs imply larger profits or was it merely a result of urban planning of some sort? What was the effect of a location close to other retailers of the same type on the rent retailers paid? Surely there was an ‘agglomeration effect,’ which gave the rigattieri an incentive to locate close to competitors, to capture more consumers. People preferred to go to multiple places when trying out used clothes, and they probably preferred to go to concentrations of similar shops. Agglomeration probably brought higher retail profits but also higher rents and entrature for landlords. To counteract this effect, however, there was the ‘competition effect,’ greater price competition and therefore lower profits. The map of shops suggests that agglomeration effect was generally positive for average rigattieri, who seem to have benefited by being located close to other fellow guildsmen. On the one hand if one clustered among one’s rivals, one had somehow to distinguish what one sold. Meanwhile, those who could not afford high rents set up shop on the outskirts. 2.1. Property, Rent, and Entrature of the Florentine Botteghe Often a rigattiere did not own the shop in which he operated. If so, the shop represented an outflow of expenditures which readily eroded gains. For example, the second-hand dealer Maso d’Andrea declared to the officers in charge of drafting his fiscal declarations in 1427 that he paid

The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System 81 £26 s10 a year for renting a shop located in the old market, where he had amassed his goods worth seventy-six florins.30 Poor Maso (indebted for the considerable sum of about thirty florins to “a person named in his papers”) was not living in favourable circumstances, as a considerable part of his earnings went to the rent of a house in Piazza degli Agli.31 That Maso’s situation was difficult is also confirmed by his composizione in s3, a decidedly low tax bracket.32 There were also those who, like Antonio di Domenico, married and with four mouths to feed (beyond his own), claimed to pay 20% of their income on the rent of their shop alone.33 Or like Antonio di Piero del Mangano, who paid eighteen florins, a considerable part of his earnings, for the rent of a shop located in the old market just in front of the column of the Abbondanza, where the bell that gave the signs of opening and closing of the market was attached.34 The examples could go on. To save money on the rent of a shop, our rigattieri, as other urban workers must have done, often resorted to various expedients. One strategy would be to sublet a part of their shop to other colleagues, who would use their section for some other purpose. For example, Andrea and Dono di Giovanni Damiani rented a site used as a warehouse for grains in Piazza del Grano to the rag-seller Giuntino.35 Antonio di Iacopo also set up a site in the same piazza, originally intended for selling flour, to Michele di Niccolò.36 Some then even decided to settle in their shop— because they did not own houses—saving on the costs of renting a home. As evidence of this, two other second-hand dealers, Niccolò di Iacopo37 and Pagolo di Maso, angelically declared to the officials of the Catasto that “in the aforementioned place [they kept] a bed.”38 The workshop was the centre of production. We have seen already, in the previous chapter, how the statutes insisted on the fact. In addition to the obligation to pay the registration tax, the guild insisted that work should take place in shops and not in the streets or city squares. Each craftsman had to keep his own workshop as tidy as possible (and provide for its whitewashing, tile replacement, and other repairs), but he also had to keep the surrounding area neat (cleaning, maintaining basic sanitary standards, and lighting). If we keep in mind the value of a shop, a rent, especially a substantial one, cannot be underestimated. In the evaluation of heavy costs on commercial activity, one must also consider the entratura and the impact that it could have on the balance sheet. The shop was in fact evaluated based on two elements: the site (the physical, architectural structure, with a higher rent if it was a corner building) and a permit called the entratura (a sort of license, which paid for the ‘fame’ or reputation of a shop, and therefore the clientele, that a place had acquired, a permit). It is easy to understand the material advantage that the possession of an entratura of a shop or warehouse in the central areas of the city, and especially in the old market, could represent. Not everyone could afford what Giovanni Conbolano paid,

82  The Guild and Identity of Artifices the remarkable sum of 250 florins for the entratura of the shop owned in canto d’Arno, in the popolo of San Tommaso. The sellers were Cosimo, Niccolò, and Cambio de’ Medici (the entratura must be distinguished here from the actual possession of the shop, which remained in the hands of the three Medici). Antonio could afford this investment because, as was clear from his fiscal declaration, he was a rich man.39 There were also those who, like Lapo di Neri di Niccolò, owned the entratura of a second-hand shop, but preferred to rent it to others. Lapo reserved for his use only part of the shop, as a warehouse to store his own goods (valued at 400 florins), preferring to rent a second shop from someone else at £24 a year. He rented from a Monna Valenza, the wife of a Salviati, Giovanni di Messer Forese, paying the entratura of £14 per year to one of the wealthiest rigattieri in the old market, Giovanni di Salvestro Carradori.40 Lorenzo di Niccolò di Monte and his nephews, like others of the family evidently rigattieri, rented an annual entratura of a shop with an attached house for f12. This shop was situated near the church of San Tommaso and was rented from another woman, Niccolosa, widow of Giano d’Agnolo D’Arrighi. The shop served as a fondachetto to store goods, but also to keep “four old horses and a mule” that were lent as ‘vehicles’ to people who needed them. Here is a magnificent example of integrating additional activities into the main work of selling durable goods. It is also an instance of work inventiveness, a device to increase the income of the company of rigattieri of Lorenzo di Niccolò di Monte and his nephews, and of Giusto di Dolfo.41 As we learn from the fiscal data of 1427, where shops were owned by religious institutions, the rents in central areas and their entrature were generally lower (less than one florin). These lower rents may well have reflected the idea that the business was mostly conducted by the poor (or the not well off), for the poor. The rate was probably set by the massaro of the institution and laid on rigattieri who wished or were forced to go for low-market trading locations. Thus, as is apparent from the fiscal data of the Chapel of Santa Maria della Misericordia, located in the parish of Santa Reparata, two shops were rented for small figures to rigattieri: one stood in front of the canto of Santa Maria in Campidoglio42 and was rented for £3 a year by a certain Panuzio. The other, on the canto of Santa Maria Nipotecosa, was rented by Berto di Marchionne for even less, only £1 a year.43 There were more prestigious entrature, leased for larger figures, such as the entrature of two shops in the old market, one owned by the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, granted for just over nine florins each to Giovanni, the heir of Giovanni Cavimbri rigattiere,44 and the other, granted for eleven florins, to Lorenzo di Bartolomeo d’Orlandino (whom we shall meet shortly), by the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova.45 Perhaps the shops of the religious houses were less attractive, so they had cheaper permits and less profitable locations. Or did the houses keep the permits cheap to attract small

The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System 83 operators? This is something that the sources do not tell. All we can do is speculate. For secular owners of real estate, on the other hand, the possession and rental of shops, or entrature, offered a very profitable income. Owners were almost always well-known personalities, who generally owned important blocks of shops in central areas, usually under their palaces. They would rent out most of these shops, retaining some for the company they participated in, usually for one of the major guilds. One of these owners was Galeazzo Borromei, belonging to the Borromeo family in Venice but holder of considerable movable assets and real estate in Florence.46 Together with his uncle Alessandro, the Borromei owned several shops under the palace that used to be the Amieri’s in the old market. Galeazzo imposed variable entrature, ranging from fifty-five to 240 gold florins, for the most prestigious and sought-after shops, probably those facing the street or a square, from which light could enter. These desirable locations offered better display of goods for sale, arousing the desire of passers-by and luring them into the shop to examine items more closely. The shops under the covered vaults were also in good positions, as customers could shelter from winter’s cold and rain. Finally, there were shops with two entrances, generally on the canti, which guaranteed access to two streets. Galeazzo held ten shops—many of which must have had these advantageous traits—seven of them in full ownership, and one shared with the rigattiere Niccolò di Giovanni Lapi,47 while he had the entrature of the last two shops, assigned him by the consul of the Wool Guild, Piero di Iacopo Martini. Galeazzo received these entrature in repayment of rent in arrears that Romolo di Iacopo (a rigattiere we have already discussed elsewhere) owed him.48 The same Galeazzo ran a shop in the old market with Niccolò de’ Medici and the rigattieri Andrea and Dono di Giovanni Damiani.49 Among other wealthy shop owners were some members of the Medici family, such as Cosimo, Niccolò, Cambio, and Giovanni. The latter owned a shop—estimated to yield around 142 florins per year—rented out to one of our rigattieri in the old market.50 Agnolo di Bindo del Vernaccia was another very wealthy dealer, who in 1427 owned four shops held by rigattieri.51 We seem to have two tiers of landlords renting to two tiers of merchants. Generally speaking, the rich, like Galeazzo Borromeo, had a palazzo with a sottoportico and commercialized corners, and, perhaps a monopoly of loggie and canti, the most desired, most expensive locations. However, religious houses and institutions also had good locations but rented them cheaply, perhaps to entice more commercial tenants.

3. An Ideal Place for Trading: A Rigattiere’s Shop Florentine architecture lent itself to flourishing commerce. Many buildings throughout Florence housed economic activity; they set the entire urban structure of the city. Commercial premises changed very little

84  The Guild and Identity of Artifices in shape and structure across the period: all sellers must have made an ‘intelligent’ use of the limited space available, so that even the shop doors helped to display goods. The jutting wooden doors, which raised at the hour of opening and lowered at the closing of the shop, were both an entrance and a sort of alternative showcase, to display objects or present pieces of clothing to customers. The social and professional status of the shop owner set an enterprise’s tone. For the rigattieri, the commercial premises served only to sell goods. Rigattieri did not do their manufacturing at the shop. The display space was probably small and entirely occupied by used clothes and displayed merchandise.52 On the contrary, for tailors and doublet makers (who occasionally also sold second-hand), the premises where they made their jackets, doublets, and garments also served as shops. Shops of different trades had different traits. A  tailor’s exhibition space was the largest, although in part encumbered by a bulky table, on which the tailor or the farsettaio laid the fabric to cut and sew. Therefore, for some professional categories, like tailors, domestic life and work in fifteenth-century Florence were intimately interwoven. For example, having a workshop on the ground floor of one’s home conditioned the internal division of spaces.53 However, for a second-hand dealer, home and workplace stood apart—albeit with some exceptions—since, as the sources confirm, rigattieri lived far from the shops they rented.54 We have many examples of rigattieri who lived far from the shop (see Figure 3.1). For example, the aforementioned Antonio di Bandino lived and worked in the district of San Giovanni. While his house was located in the popolo of San Pier Maggiore (in the area where Borgo Albizi ends in today at Piazza Salvemini), in the gonfalone Chiavi, the shop he rented was located in the old market, in the gonfalone Vaio.55 Similarly, Antonio di Iacopo lived in Santa Maria Novella, in the popolo of San Paolo (located right behind Piazza Santa Maria Novella, between today Via dei Fossi and Via Palazzuolo), in Via Nuova (or Via del Porcellana), but he worked in Piazza del Grano (next to Via dei Neri, within easy walking distance from Piazza Signoria), a fifteen- to twenty-minute walk from his home.56 Bartolomeo di Simone lived in Via Gualfonda (today Via Valfonda), in the district of Santa Maria Novella, in the gonfalone del Leon Bianco, but he worked in the gonfalone Vaio, in the old market.57 Finally, Domenico di Baldovino, also a resident of Via Nuova, had a shop in San Giovanni, in the eastern part of the old market, at a walking distance of approximately ten minutes.58 The examples could continue. In the peripheral areas, however, given the scarcity of second-hand shops and low rents, the chance for a rigattiere to lease an entire building and live there with his family on the upper floors involved shaping social habits and work organisation. In these instances, the work had a domestic, almost familiar, imprint, as evidenced by Baldassarre di Falco, whom we have discussed already.59

The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System 85 What was the look of a rigattiere shop and how was it run? How was the activity taking place within regulated? Second-hand shops must have looked much like many other commercial establishments, that is, the shop presented a low wall at the entrance, which almost completely enclosed the opening, or a large space used for the exhibition and transport of goods. Broad and accurate exposure was crucial for successful business. A cramped space for exposure would have attracted very few customers and consequently very few tenants. In this regard, benches, which could be rented, often stood outside the shops to display goods. But neither the benches nor the balconies that protected goods laid outside should prevent the officers of the Arte from being able to examine the shop at a glance, in order to carry out the usual controls. The opening hours for second-hand dealers were the same as those of other shops, punctuated by the sound of the municipal bells (which inaugurated the opening at sunrise and with the approach of night tolled the closing). The statutes (both the city’s and the guild’s) established that the shops should be kept closed until the third hour (nine o’clock), on the festa of San Leone and on the event of a companion’s burial. Furthermore, on days of public festivities it was impossible either to accept pawns in exchange for petty cash or to give them back, just as in those days tailors and doublet makers could make no doublets. We can look inside one shop. It is an early one, from the time of Dante. An inventory preserved in the protocol of the notary Matteo di Biliotto, well known in the historiography on Florence in those years, allows us to look closer at the interior of a second-hand shop—that of the rigattiere Lore del fu Manetto.60 Lore’s shop was located in the old market, and his brother Manetto and his son Lapo also worked with him, as rigattieri. We must imagine a certain ‘promiscuity’ of professional roles (Lore perhaps supervised sales while his brother looked after the financial situation and, maybe, his nephew stocked the merchandise). Picture a ceaseless passage of goods and people. Through Lore’s inventory, his activity comes alive and his trade in used clothes brings some light on the whole category of rigattieri. We see for instance that Lore’s shop offered tunics, men’s and women’s clothes, along with many cloaks. The shop was impressively well stocked. However, what catches the eye is that at the time of Lore’s death, his total inventory amounted to 353 garments, worth a few hundred lire. They were grouped into twenty-eight dozens, plus seventeen loose clothes. Precisely this presence of loose cloths suggests that the system of grouping the garments by dozens (twelves), grouped by value, was a custom at Lore’s workshop and perhaps also at other shops. In fact, along with some cash, more valuable items were listed with the bed furnishings, hoods, sleeves, and other little things, which were valued at a few dozen lire. These valuable items included buckles for cloaks (fibbie per mantelli), as well as fine silk fabrics (zendadi),61 and various precious borders for garments (frappature).62 Although Lore’s shop was not

86  The Guild and Identity of Artifices precisely a retail store that sold a wide range of inexpensive and expensive used clothing, certainly variety was one of its main features. We can also look inside a later shop, or better, a little fondaco, from the later fourteenth century. The business of the rigattiere Taddeo di Chello, from Prato, who lived a century after Lore, helps us to reconstruct the typical appearance of a fondaco, or fondachetto. Even if we lack an inventory for Taddeo like what we have for Lore, describing in detail the garments Taddeo dealt with lets us imagine his small warehouse that must have stood somewhere in the city centre (for he never mentions the rent, or the entratura, let alone the possession of a shop). It was crammed with goods, hose in particular. Taddeo sold any type of hose: white and grey, and light blue and sky blue. He also stocked calze for young servants (famigli), undergarments (brache) and codpieces, and also doublets (farsetti), hats and headgear of different styles (cappelli), gowns (gamurre and cioppe), overgowns (cottardite), and overcloaks (mantelli).63 This was a low-end shop. The records show that the overwhelming majority of his customers belonged to the urban lower strata. These were people who could not afford new or above-average used garments, nor could they afford to buy many clothes at all, so they replaced their wardrobes belatedly, often with shoddy stuff. It seems that many of the clothes bought at Taddeo’s were made of poor quality or cheap cuts of cloth. The names (bigello, romagnolo, monachino) designate coarse, cheap fabrics. Furthermore, all the merchandise was probably patched and shabby. This fact is reflected in the adjectives, such as bad, torn, old, and broken (cattivo, logoro, vecchio, rotto) used to describe the clothing Taddeo’s customers purchased. Shops must have been well-stocked enterprises, some impressively full, like Lore’s bottega. While Lore’s shop was replete with a range of garments, diverse in colour, shape, and style, to entice the high-end market, Taddeo on the other hand had a fondaco, or fondachetto, filled to the brim with calze and other poor items of clothing that no well-off clientele would stoop to buy.

4. Buying and Selling 4.1. Buying From the Florentine Rigattieri In the second novel of the eighth day of the Decameron, the priest of Varlungo, enamoured of the beautiful Monna Belcolore, wife of a worker called Bentivegna del Mazzo, does not have the five lire she has asked from him to redeem her skirt and the belt (scheggiale) from the usurer.64 Instead, he proposes, to satisfy his desire to sleep with Belcolore, to leave his tabarro sbiavato in pawn, adding, almost spitefully, that the mantello had cost him the beauty of seven lire—two more of those she needs— paid in cash to Lotto the rigattiere.65 The priest in the end does get to bed

The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System 87 with Belcolore, but this is not the point: before that he offers the reader an insight into the way a rigattiere helps him, although indirectly, to get what he wants. Like the old novelle, chronicles and numerous books of memoirs testify to recurrent use of second-hand dealers all across society: priests, salaried workers, artisans, merchants, elites, all turned to rigattieri to buy clothes. For example, Francesco di Matteo Castellani, who wrote very interesting pages on fifteenth-century Florentine society, occasionally resorted to rigattieri not only to buy, but also to sell or to alter his and his family’s clothes. One of his records, dated April 12, 1451, for example, notes “a dark fur unlined overgown with sleeves like mantels” given to secondhand dealer Papi di Paolo (who had a shop in Sant’Andrea), so as to have it sold, with a floor price of £52.66 A rigattiere’s job was about bargaining and strategic price setting. At second-hand dealers like Papi di Paolo, bargaining, to have one’s clothing sold or to purchase some, was an important moment, not only because it was inherent to the commerce, but also because it was considered a proper negotiation. For example from one of the facezie by the masterful writer Piovano Arlotto (nee Arlotto Mainardi, the light-hearted and bawdy fifteenth-century pastor of the church of San Cresci in Macioli, near Pratolino, a village near Florence), we learn that one day the Piovano went with a friend to the shop of a rigattiere in Bruges to look for a dress and “[after] letting him [the rigattiere] find it . . . they agreed on the sum of four gold ducats: it was worth more than ten, it had cost [the rigattiere] more than sixteen.”67 The sixteen ducats the rigattiere claimed to have spent on the dress were probably a bluff, but it looks as though he originally asked for ten, and only finally, after much bargaining, settled for four. The shopping practices of Piero di Francesco da Vicchio suggest a frequent resort to rigattieri. The journals of this salaried employee provide exceptional details on business transactions involving rigattieri for the period 1429–1463.68 Piero’s occupation as donzello of the Parte Guelfa since 1430 (until his death in 1465)69 was well paid and must be seen as a secure job for the time, for it also included a number of additional benefits, such as an annual bonus for his rent and two additional bonuses a year for clothing, the so-called stanziamento per i panni.70 This provided Piero with the chance to spend on clothing, more than a person of his social standard could otherwise have afforded, and for most purchases, he turned to rigattieri. The details of Piero’s records make him a compelling case study and an interesting point of reference, not only because he kept close track of his everyday expenses, but also because he often wrote down his motives. Thus, we know that at times Piero pledged or sold part of his wardrobe to buy more expensive clothing. Over the years Piero did business with a variety of rigattieri. Some, but not all, had their shops in the mercato vecchio. A few did business with

88  The Guild and Identity of Artifices him over time, like Lorenzo di Andrea and his son, who dealt with Piero between 1451 and 1457. Others, as the table shows, appear in Piero’s records only once or twice and then vanish, like a certain Alvaro, who sold Piero a little used light-blue overgown (cioppetta celestina usata) on January  16, 1432, or Francesco di Marchionne Belandini, from whom Piero purchased some unspecified roba on April  2, 1458, for £171 (see Table 3.1). The garments mentioned in Piero’s business transactions with the rigattieri were often quite expensive. Sometimes, such purchases from the rigattieri were dictated by specific needs, such as the “manica usata di panno celestrino” for Sandra, his beloved granddaughter, the child of his deceased son Maso (whom he and his wife took care of),72 which he purchased on December  17, 1462, to complete one of her outfits.73 In fact, it was not uncommon for Piero to spend considerable sums for purchases of various kinds, such as more than four florins on a “cioppa verde foderata di boccaccino”74 bought from Francesco di Nerone on May 26, 1453. Another four florins were paid for a green lucco for himself a year later,75 on May 31, 1454.76 Piero also resorted to rigattieri to purchase the panni needed for making his own clothes, as he specifies in his writing. The panno bought was then to be taken to the sarto. It is known that panni circulated as gifts and went into furnishings and hangings, but in this case Piero purchased various tagli di panno from rigattieri in the old market, such as Lorenzo di Andrea and Morello di Giovanni: two remnants of “panno verde e cilestro” on March 1, 1451, for £8; and, several years later, in 1463, forty-three libre of panno bianchetto for £29 s8.77 From another rigattiere, Marchionne di Landino Belandini, Piero seems to have purchased relatively cheap cloth on several occasions, between 1453 and 1456. What he bought probably served to line his lucchi and the cioppe of his wife Santa and granddaughter Sandra, such as the panno guarnello,78 purchased on June 10, 1455. He bought fourteen braccia of this cloth at s6 d6 per braccio, for £4 s10, Table 3.1 Rigattieri doing business with Piero (1429–1463) Name Giovanni di Salvestro Carradori Alvaro Lorenzo di Andrea e suo figlio Francesco di Nerone di Nigi Marchionne di Landino Belandini Francesco di Marchionne Belandini Giovanfrancesco di Nofri d’Agnolo Domenico di Antonio Domenico Lorenzo di Bartolomeo d’Orlandino Morello di Giovanni

Shop’s location

mercato vecchio mercato vecchio mercato vecchio mercato vecchio mercato vecchio mercato vecchio

Years/period in trade 1429 1432 1451–1457 1453–1458 1453–1456 1458 1458–1459 1461 1462 1463

The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System 89 and then on June 18 in the following year, another seven braccia at s7 per braccio, for £3 s17. Piero also purchased some panno boccaccino and paid £2 s9 d6 for four and a half braccia, on June 16, 1456.79 At some point in January 1453 (exact date unknown) Piero had decided to buy a panno vermiglio of thirty-two libbre valued £38 from Marchionne.80 On January 24, however, Piero decided to give back the cloth to the rigattiere; perhaps he ultimately deemed it too expensive.81 Not only private citizens, but also institutions such as hospitals, convents and orphanages engaged the used market to buy clothing and cloth for their wards. They preferred the clothing already made to avoid resorting to tailors and doublet makers, whose work took time, and to save money. Sources held in the archive of the hospital of the Innocenti in Florence, a major home for foundlings where we also find Piero’s records, can reconstruct this phenomenon. Some of the records available from a book of Ricordanze, begun on February 16, 1444, and duly kept by Lapo di Piero Pacini, camerlengo, until 1482,82 bear witness to several commercial transactions between the hospital and the rigattieri from whom the hospital administrators purchased the children’s clothing. It would appear that the hospital bought many items from rigattieri who had their shops in the parish of San Leo, located near Piazza SS. Annunziata, where the hospital was located. The church of San Leo was also called “dei rigattieri” because so many kept shops in the neighbourhood. The church was under the patronage of the Brunelleschi family, who owned houses, towers, and a loggia in the area, and was dedicated to the sainted pope, Leo the Great (440–461), as we have seen, patron of second-hand dealers and celebrated on June 28 by those operating in the old market. We learn a great deal about the clothing the hospital bought for its wards. Registrations in the Innocenti Ricordanze begin with an entry certifying, on April 30, 1445, the purchase of six old monachini cloaks,83 one cloak of sodo and grey cloth,84 and another alla ‘sardescha’ (of Sardinian wool), white and black, lined. Eight items in total were listed, which cost one lira each, for a total of £8, all purchased from Feo di ser Giovanni, second-hand dealer in San Leo. The bill was paid directly to the son of the seller, Piero, evidently an apprentice in his father’s shop.85 The ‘little cloaks,’ as the wording suggest, as well as their paltry cost, must have been a smaller version of adult cloaks, bought for eight of the small hospital guests.86 A few months later, other cloaks were purchased from the same Feo di Giovanni, this time lined and black, for a total of £5 s5, paid in cash.87 The next day, needing to buy another little mantel, the administrators in charge of clothing purchases for the children turned to Goro di Pagolo, from whom they acquired a wave-like green isbiadato and lined cloak88 at little more than one lira (s27). Pagolo, who kept his shop at the start of the canto where the episcopal palace stood (facing the Baptistery, in today’s Piazza San Giovanni), mixed his main activity as a retailer of used clothes with another business. He also styled

90  The Guild and Identity of Artifices himself as a barber and occasionally let blood and cut beards and hair.89 Another second-hand dealer, a certain Cristofano di Michele, who had his shop in the Canto dei Tornaquinci, sold the hospital administrators an additional three lined cloaks (items apparently in great demand), at the cost of s29 d4 each, amounting to £34 s8.90 On November 26, Cristofano bought a fourth coat, described as “vechio, tristo, picholo,” for £1 s8.91 When making such purchases, the hospital sought not luxurious or fashionable garments, but simply clothes that could cover the children as best they could. This is why, as at Taddeo di Chello’s sales, words like ‘old’ or ‘worn out’ so often appear. Between November and February, the hospital resorted to another second-hand dealer, Romolo di Iacopo and his companions, who also had a shop in San Leo, to buy more old cloaks and little gonnelle.92 Romolo di Iacopo, who at the time did good business with the hospital, was declared insolvent some years later and forced to give back the two entrature of his botteghe to Galeazzo Borromei to repay rent in arrears.93 As with the cloaks, perhaps the most important pieces of clothing requested by the hospital, there was also, evidently, a great shortage of gonnelle, which were bought on several occasions at another rigattiere’s in San Leo, Giovanni di Bartolomeo called Cino: eighteen of them, at s16 d6 each for a total of £14 s17.94 To shop at different locations and sellers meant that the hospital bought different garments but also that the purchases must have looked much alike. To buy at various shops, however, made it easier to amass the garments needed without resorting to tailors who cost more. Moreover, shopping widely helped build, and keep, a network of convenient retailers. Sometimes the hospital also bought mattresses from the second-hand dealers, in addition to household linen to make shirts, and woollen cloths to make garments for the children. For example, it purchased from Iacopo di Baldino on March 23, 1445, two sheets of linen of a total length of six braccia.95 From Pagolo di Giovanni, rigattiere in Santa Felicita, just behind the Ponte Vecchio, a 150-pound padding of white wool was purchased to fill mattresses for the children.96 On July  22, it bought from Sano di Filippo and his business partners an unspecified number of Flemish cloths (evidently as raw material for garments made at the hospital), that weighed seven pounds each.97 Mattresses, often filled with horsehair, wool or tow, were periodically emptied, the padding washed and replaced if damaged, and sewn together. Also, the bed linen must be changed regularly. So, the hospital often resorted to second-hand dealers, who sold these items by statutory law. Rigattieri were also used to purchase clothing for the hospital’s personnel, such as wet-nurses and famigli. For example, the hospital bought a new gamurra for the nurse Bartola di Bartolo, wife of the famiglio Giovanni di Tinello, from Maso di Pagolo on August 21, 1445.98 For another famiglio, Papino, the prior ordered a second-hand grey overgown, double lined, that cost £12 lire, from the rigattiere Giovanni di Bartolomeo.

The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System 91 In addition, two pairs of used, black Perpignan hose, with additional cloth to mend one of the two pairs, apparently in bad condition, were also bought for another £2 s6. Finally, more money was spent on a linen cloth to ‘dress up’ a gonnella that had become too small for Papino, and which had to be refitted to his current measurements.99 For some of the second-hand dealers, business with the Innocenti was probably more advantageous than selling their goods elsewhere. First, the guarantees offered in lieu of payment were certainly richer than those of private citizens; second, the hospital often paid in cash and quickly. Some rigattieri who did frequent business with the hospital, having reached the end of their working life, decided to make a will in favour of the institution and to join it as household staff. This is the case of Feo di Giovanni rigattiere, who on July 3, 1451, and with his wife Monna Andrea, “assigned [his own person and his wife’s] to the aforementioned hospital, and their own present and future assets, [written] by the hand of the notary Ser Silvano di Giovanni of Porta Santa Maria.”100 This looks like a pension scheme. Feo and his wife gave up their assets and were housed and fed in return. 4.2. Selling One’s Clothes to and Through the Rigattieri We now turn back to Piero, because his records document his frequent resort to rigattieri to sell his own clothes, in what may appear as ‘a career in embezzlement.’ I have elsewhere discussed how Piero took advantage of the value of the clothing his employer, the Guelph Party, gave him, and how, during his work for the Party he several times embezzled from it.101 Despite precise regulations in the Party’s statutes that banned such practices, the trimmings and other distinctive decorations, as well as the often expensive cuts of cloth that made up his garments, could be easily stripped off and rapidly altered into other sorts of items or recycled or pawned and sold. Piero often offered his clothing to Isacco di Borghese and Vitale, Jewish moneylenders, but also to Francesco Del Nero and one unspecified Antonio, two rigattieri running botteghe between the Santa Trinita Bridge and the old market (and so not far from Piero’s workplace, the Palagio di Parte Guelfa). There were crooked dealers. Piero knew where to find them. Piero’s use of these rigattieri indicates what must have been widely known; if one wanted to earn money from an illegal or illegitimate sale, one knew where one could go. The statutes’ prohibition against the resort to usurers (who were often also pawnbrokers) had honesty in mind. These clear prohibitions aimed to protect the reputation of the corporation, which would have been readily damaged by these crooked dealings. On March 30, 1458, crooked Piero passed one of his turquoise blue overgowns, lined with otter—an expensive piece of clothing—to Francesco di Nerone di Nigi rigattiere in the old market “so that he would sell it

92  The Guild and Identity of Artifices [for me].”102 Unfortunately, we do not know whether Francesco actually sold the cioppa and, if so, how much it fetched, because Piero failed to record the data. However, we know that he sold not only to rigattieri, but also to colleagues and others: in August 1453, for instance, he sold another garment: “a green overgown lined with grey cloth with sleeves a ghiozzi,”103 trimmed with the backs of squirrels (vair), to Giovanni di Francesco, famiglio of the Signori. This sale yielded Piero nearly seven florins (equivalent to almost twenty-eight lire). Piero was not the only embezzler. We have evidence of similar occurrences elsewhere in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, for instance at the court of the Duke of Urbino.104 Members of the Florentine Signoria likely behaved in the same fashion. In 1466, nineteen members of the familia were dismissed and stricter regulations enacted, regarding among other things prohibitions against the wearing of liveries, presumably to eradicate fraud at its roots.105 There is a legitimate and sustainable reason to think that in both these cases, similar garments were pawned and sold to the rigattieri. No wonder that legislation banned such frauds. There is evidence for clothes being sold to rigattieri outside the Italian peninsula, in Burgundy. One of the Piovano Arlotto’s jokes, for example, tells that in Bruges, in the lands of the Duke of Burgundy (with whom the Piovano spent time, along with a friend of his), it was a widespread custom to dress a man condemned to death in fine cloth. Once he was dead, the same garment would go to the executioner as part of his salary. In turn, the executioner might cash in, selling it to a rigattiere: It is a custom . . . in those countries, that, when one goes to death to the scaffold, he wears a long garment of very fine cloth, lined with leather in winter and with cloth in summer, so it is worth perhaps sixteen ducats, and I believe that the garment is yellow or green. And then, when he is executed and dead, that garment is given to the executioner as part of his salary: he earns a lot because he goes all over the land of the Duke of Burgundy, he sells this garment to secondhand dealers, and it is necessary to strike a good deal because other people would buy it only to undo the garment [in order to dispose of the cloth, and, perhaps, make another garment], or to sell it again.106 As we see with Bernardo Machiavelli, honest Florentines often sold old clothing to the rigattieri. It was indeed widespread and quite common to turn to the experience and market knowledge of second-hand dealers, even for honest dealings. Bernardo Machiavelli (father to the very famous Niccolò, author of The Prince, and First Chancellor of the Florentine Republic) left us a Libro di Ricordi, a book of memoirs replete with vivid memories of his family life and expenses. The book is full of details of his dealings in and around the family’s urban residence in the palace near the Church of Santa Felicita, in the Oltrarno district.

The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System 93 There Bernardo tells how he on seldom occasions resorted to rigattieri. Indeed, one of his neighbours was a certain Matteo, rigattiere. Bernardo’s memoirs report that on April 26, 1476, he gave Matteo one of his worn doublets, of Perpignan cloth to sell, for which he later received £3.107 However, the faith put in second-hand dealers—entrusted with garments to sell to obtain cash—was not always satisfied. For example, a black gonnella made of saiettone, double lined, and an overdress in monachino, lined with valescio that Bernardo wished to have sold at £4 each, went unwanted; in fact, on September 13, he was given back the giornea, unsold.108 On October 23, Bernardo also took back his unsold doublet and gonnellino.109 On March  3, 1477, Bernardo gave Matteo another doublet of Perpignan cloth with sleeves of black monachino (for which he asked £3), an overgown of unspecified Tuscan origin (nostrale nociato) that belonged to a household woman named Primavera (for which he again asked £3), an overgown mormorina that belonged to another woman, Giusta, for thirty soldi,110 and finally, one of his giornee made of monachino cloth turned inside out, lined with valescio cloth for £3. For the cioppa nociata he received less than he had asked (s50), while Giusta’s overgown failed to find a buyer.111 On March 26 he gave Matteo a woman’s old monachino overgown, turned inside out, with sleeves almost new, and a pair of his old-fashioned Perpignan hose a staffetta, to have them sold. The initiative must have proven successful, for not ten days later, on April 5, Bernardo duly reported receiving twentytwo soldi for the hose and £10 for the gown.112 In the same year on May 19, Bernardo asked Matteo to sell on his behalf one of his mantels of monachino, apparently a quite old item but not yet turned inside out (a sure sign that despite some wear and tear it remained in good shape), for which Bernardo expected to see £8 in return.113 There were many clearly legitimate reasons to sell his garments for a client like Bernardo who might make use of a rigattiere. However, the insertion of intermediaries increased a transaction’s opacity. Bernardo’s resort to rigattieri’s expertise helped sell his clothing faster and at a higher price, although sometimes not even expert rigattieri could find interested buyers. Brokerage had its fees, which reduced the total income from the sales, probably a fair bit, although Bernardo does not reveal this aspect of the transaction. With Bernardo and Matteo, neighbourliness and even friendship may have mingled with straight business.

5. Conclusions During the fifteenth century, the city market of used clothing was remarkably dynamic. The market for used goods was busy and big. It changed fast, expanding as the lower orders grew richer. The market had many parts. As it grew, it developed new commercial practices. Both goods and men moved readily within it.

94  The Guild and Identity of Artifices This chapter opened with an outline of the general conditions of the market and the change in supply and demand between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The strengthening of the sector of ‘minor’ goods (and among these, disposable garments, often made from poor materials) and the demand for these disposable goods between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, trace changes in the Florentine economy. The period saw an increase in the wages of even unskilled labourers and, over the course of the Trecento, the accumulation of great wealth. Given the wider distribution of cheaper goods, these changes produced an increase in consumption by all social strata. We saw how the ideal place for bargaining and sales was in the shop. It was home to craft production but also a place for learning. Lessons were two. The customer learned about the goods: value, wear and tear, origin, and so on; the rigattiere learned about the desires of the clientele and sales. The shop was where trader and client met, through the exchange of goods for money, cash, or credit. It was a place where tastes were accommodated and wishes met, to each man according to his measure. The shop was also where the parties felt each other out. How eager was one client for the sale? How badly did he or she desire an item? How flexible was the rigattiere? How trusting? How willing to give credit, on what terms, for what assurances? How willing to accept slow payment? Although of course we cannot see too well how these negotiations went, the records we have presented help us reconstruct the dealing. Shop and merchandise, for the rigattiere, represented fixed assets; the possession, or rent, guaranteed the seller’s autonomy and placed him above a peripatetic vendor. Of this fact second-hand dealers were fully aware, as is clear from the fiscal declarations many of them made, as they appear in the Catasto. The Catasto also makes very clear that for some professions a physical shop was necessary for carrying out ­operations— since it also served as a place of manufacture, or, in the case of secondhand dealers, as a warehouse in which to cram goods and operate transactions. As the guild statutes made clear, among the rigattieri, having a shop helps distinguish the well-off from the simple rag-seller. The ‘enslavement’ of labour to capital also applied to second-hand dealers. Where resources were scarce, business operated under heavy conditions: to run a business with little money restricted the supply of goods to poor-quality products of scant interest to customers, undercutting commercial growth. We have seen how the location of shops in more or less central areas, with high concentrations around the old market, proclaimed professional commitment and vouched for the quality of goods; meanwhile, peripheral shops offered no such guarantees. Increasingly over the course of the Quattrocento, the poverty of the goods reflected the distance from the city centre. At the extreme were the street vendors, who reported neither the ownership, nor the entrature, nor even the rent of a shop. Often, the

The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System 95 lack of a physical or metaphorical place in which to exercise the profession not only impeded business, but also blocked professional and social mobility. During the late fourteenth century (as we have already seen with Taddeo di Chello, who operated in Prato, a small town), second-hand dealers continued to expand their role in the Florentine economy. They became actively involved in credit and commerce, meeting the market’s ever greater and more diversified demands and helped drive the sector’s development. This ability helped assure the economic fortunes of some of their families, as we will see in more detail in later chapters. During the late fourteenth century and even more over the course of the following century, the market became divided between two sides, one of disadvantage and one of opportunity. On one side there was some workers who dealt almost exclusively in squalid low-end clothing (offered by rigattieri who were little more than rag-sellers, often seduced by the mirage of participation in an Arte that was never fully democratic, ending up more and more marginalized from the key roles within the guild). On the other were successful sellers, who sold prestigious garments, to meet the fashionable needs of an elite called to serve in the high administration of fifteenth-century Medicean Florence. We have seen that, over the course of the fifteenth century, with the return of the Medici, the city became a stage for those who served the state. From then on, the purchase of luxury clothes and accessories had to serve these new leaders making a show of themselves but without spending a fortune. Dull and crude clothes like the romagnolo, the bigio, and the monachino, then, were joined by other, more vivid colours, such as blues and light blues, greens, turquoise, pink, and reds. Occasionally we read of purchases probably made for special occasions or simply to dress family members, as we have seen with Piero (who bought clothes for himself, for his wife Santa, and especially for his beloved granddaughter Sandrina) or with the little wards of the Innocenti. Even persons on the lowest levels of the social scale felt the seductions of fashion in the market but encountered costs that, even if much lower than those for tailor-made clothes, were still high. In fact, the lively market of second-hand goods could never satisfy all desires, especially not those of the poorest. In the introduction of new commodities and the creation of new consumer preferences, second-hand dealers seem to have contributed to the diversification of consumption practices starting from the offer side. Novelty appeared to have been introduced by at least some rigattieri, who helped stimulate the taste for novelty: the commodities they sold came in large quantities of varied quality (which could depend upon the age of a given item), shape, and material (which could be coarse or fine). Changing consumer preferences and, to a certain extent, product innovation, but also presentation to clientele, combined to reshape both consumer

96  The Guild and Identity of Artifices demand and overall material culture. Many customers began simply to prefer cheaper items, not made of high-quality materials, bringing prices down particularly for merchandise sold by the less affluent rigattieri. Thus, the substitution of expensive raw materials by cheaper ones created a decline in prices that stimulated demand. However, this also brought down the income of the sellers. This decline may have pulled some rigattieri down the social scale. The next chapter explores the matter.

Notes 1. Archivio dell’Ospedale degli Innocenti di Firenze (hereafter AOIF), 12617, Ricordanze A di Piero Puro di Francesco da Vicchio (1413–1442); 12618, Memoriale G di Piero Puro di Francesco da Vicchio (1442–1465). One of my essays, published in 2010, has analysed in detail the activity of balio and balia (procurator of wet-nurses and wet-nurse respectively) of Piero and his wife Santa: “Nursing Infants and Wet-Nurses in Fifteenth-Century Florence. Piero Puro di Francesco da Vicchio and His Wife Santa di Betto da San Benedetto,” in The Fifteenth Century. English and Continental Perspectives IX, ed. Linda Clark (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010); also see “La tavola di un salariato fiorentino nel quindicesimo secolo” ASI, ser. II, CLXXII (2014), which analyses in detail a different kind of consumption, this time of food, for which Piero has left us a vivid testimony. 2. On rigattieri stocking up on their merchandise see Meneghin, “The Secondhand Clothing Business of Taddeo di Chello,” 528–529. 3. On issues of credit recovery see Meneghin, “The Second-hand Clothing Business of Taddeo di Chello,” 541–543. 4. Other than Taddeo di Chello’s report, we possess rare accounting records for second-hand dealers operating within the Florentine context in the fifteenth century, see Meneghin, “Rigattieri, cenciai e ferrovecchi dello stato territoriale fiorentino,” in particular 16–17. 5. Cherubini, “Un rigattiere fiorentino del Duecento”. 6. See the essential work by Federigo Melis, “La grande conquista trecentesca del «credito di esercizio» e la tipologia dei suoi strumenti fino al XVI secolo,” in La banca Pisana e le origini della banca moderna, ed. Marco Spallanzani (Florence: Le Monnier, 1987); Renata Ago, Economia Barocca. Mercato e istituzioni nella Roma del Seicento (Roma: Donzelli Editore, 1998); Craig Muldrew, The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England (London: Palgrave, 1998); “Hard Food for Midas: Cash and Its Social Value in Early Modern England,” Past  & Present 170 (2001); Trevor Dean, “Wealth Distribution and Litigation in the Medieval Italian Countryside: Castel San Pietro, Bologna, 1385,” Continuity and Change 17 (2002); Laurence Fontaine, L’économie morale. Pauvreté, crédit et confiance dans l’Europe préindustrielle (Paris: Gallimard, 2008); Julie Hardwick, Family Business: Litigation and the Political Economies of Daily Life in Early Modern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); James E. Shaw, “Market Ethics and Credit Practices in Sixteenth-century Tuscany,” Renaissance Studies 27, 2 (2011); Danielle Van den Heuvel and Sheilagh Ogilvie, “Retail Development in the Consumer Revolution, The Netherlands c.1670–c. 1815,” Explorations in Economic History 50 (2013). 7. Tim Carter and Richard A. Goldthwaite, Orpheus in the Marketplace. Jacopo Peri and the Economy of Late Renaissance Florence (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 2013), 122–123.

The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System 97 8. 9. 10. 11.

See chap. 1, 12. Carter and Goldthwaite, Orpheus in the Marketplace, 123. Ibid., 124. The Birth of a Consumer Society, passim. On these aspects of the new attitudes towards consumption see also chap. 1, 12–14. 12. Sharon T. Strocchia, “Theaters of Everyday Life,” in Renaissance Florence. A Social History, ed. Roger J. Crum and John T. Paoletti (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 13. Goldthwaite, “Introduction”. 14. See chap. 1, 11–12. 15. The figure proposed here is for the urban residents only, Herlihy and Klapisch Zuber, Les Toscans et leurs familles, 325, tab. 28; see also Meneghin, “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” 322. 16. See chap. 2, 39. 17. Meneghin, “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” 324. 18. See chap. 1, 21–22. 19. ASF, Catasto, 81, f. 306r. 20. Grossi, “Le botteghe fiorentine nel Catasto del 1427,” 30–31. 21. ASF, Catasto, 77, fs. 45r-v. 22. ASF, Catasto (1480), 1016, fs. 516r-v. 23. Conti, I Catasti agrari della Repubblica Fiorentina. 24. Grossi, “Le botteghe fiorentine nel Catasto del 1427,” passim. 25. “It is not the district per se that makes it interesting to study its economic peculiarity, but it is [if anything] the street or set of streets chosen for the exercise of a given activity” (“Non è il quartiere a costituire l’unità circoscrizionale interessante dal punto di vista economico, ma è [semmai] la via o l’insieme di vie elette per l’esercizio di una determinata attività”), Grossi, “Le botteghe fiorentine nel Catasto del 1427,” 34. 26. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find data for each workshop used for second-hand activities in Florence in 1427. It could happen that some of the rigattieri, especially the wealthiest, belonged to more than just one company, sometimes only with capital if not by their person, so that in those cases there is no indication of the shop. The shortcomings can also be caused by the absence of declarations, especially for tax reasons, by some small shop owners, among those residing outside the walls. 27. To this remarkable presence is added a distinct concentration of tailors and doublet makers in Garbo, today’s Via della Condotta. It should be specified that in 1427, the gradual expulsion from the prestigious city centre had already begun, and from the busier streets with a higher concentration of activities, the poorest rigattieri had been most likely sent away already. 28. Paid by the rigattiere Bartolomeo di Francesco di Neri, ASF, Catasto, 78, f. 516v. 29. ASF, Catasto, 80, f. 228v. 30. ASF, Catasto, 79, f. 525r. 31. The total monetary value of all the products was made in lire di piccioli and reduced to gold florins (fiorini a oro) according to the ratio £4 = 1 florin: the ratio will be maintained in all tax censuses, from the Catasto of 1427 to the decima of 1495–98, although the lira had progressively lost ground with respect to the florin during the fifteenth century, see Mario Bernocchi, Le monete della Repubblica fiorentina (Florence: Olschki, 1974), III, 81–88. 32. The tax coefficient, called catasto, was equal to 0.5% of the ‘overabundant’ (sovrabbondante), that is the difference between the ‘substances’ (sostanze) calculated on assets and the incarichi, represented by the expenses one had to incur, including the deduction for each head living under one’s roof (bocche). To

98  The Guild and Identity of Artifices this coefficient was added, at will and discretion of the officials of the catasto, a personal tax varying between two and six soldi for each male aged eighteen to sixty years: Conti, L’imposta diretta a Firenze nel Quattrocento, 145. 33. ASF, Catasto, 78, f. 202r. 34. ASF, Catasto, 65, f. 271r. 35. ASF, Catasto, 74, f. 4v. 36. ASF, Catasto, 76, f. 227r. 37. ASF, Catasto, 78, f. 425r. 38. “in detta entratura [avevano] un letto dentro,” ASF, Catasto, 66, f. 369r. 39. Antonio’s taxable assets amounted to 600 florins, and after appropriate deductions the sovrabbondante corresponded to the not inconsistent figure  of more than 173 florins; in fact to the rigattiere was also imposed a provision of f3 s12 d8. Furthermore, as he declared, only in the last months of that year, he had earned twenty-two florins net, which were added to his company share of goods and collected debts, amounting to £1236 (about 309 florins), and to the capital (the corpo di compagnia) invested in the company, as well as to the value of the goods paid by him (278 florins), ASF, Catasto, 78, fs. 231r-v. 40. ASF, Catasto, 79, fs. 491r-v. 41. ASF, Catasto, 78, f. 357v. 42. The church of Santa Maria in Campidoglio, popularly known as the Palla, was located in the old market like the other numerous churches in the area, and overlooked the square that opened onto the current Via de’ Brunelleschi, then Via de’ Rigattieri. 43. ASF, Catasto, 184, Vescovado di Firenze, beni mobili e immobili, Parte I, f. 236r. 44. ASF, ibid., Parte II, f. 686r. 45. ASF, Catasto (1480), 1016, fs. 516r-v. 46. From the division of the paternal inheritance, carried out in 1432, Galeazzo does not seem to have had possession of real estate in Florence, which instead fell to one of his two brothers, Giovanni. However, the Catasto is revealing that he was the owner, at least in undivided shares, of the many shops rented to rigattieri in the old market: see the entry, “Borromeo, Galeazzo,” by Florence E. De Roover in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 13 (1971). I wish to thank Francesco Guidi Bruscoli for the additional information on the Borromei. 47. ASF, Catasto, 77, f. 321r. 48. ASF, Catasto, 296, f. 110r. See also Meneghin, “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” 332. 49. ASF, Catasto, 74, fs. 4r-v. 50. ASF, Catasto, 78, f. 181r 51. From the fiscal surveys calculated after the appropriate deductions, Agnolo had a taxable capital of more than 8,000 florins, ASF, Catasto, 77, f. 4v. 52. Grossi, “Le botteghe fiorentine nel Catasto del 1427,” 15. 53. The tailors were not very numerous: Maria Letizia Grossi counted only thirty-three of them. They probably worked at home, or in a shop on the ground floor of their home, and this could help to justify the reduced official number of shops run by these artisans. The doublet makers instead, specialized in the construction of heavy jackets called doublets, were housed in about twenty-five shops: Grossi, “Le botteghe fiorentine nel Catasto del 1427,” 15 and passim. 54. From the census by Grossi, it looks as though rigattieri were hosted in thirtynine shops. 55. ASF, Catasto, 80, f. 228r.

The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System 99 ASF, Ibid., 76, f. 227r. ASF, Ibid., 77, f. 208r. ASF, Catasto, 76, f. 288r. See chap. 2, 59. See Cherubini, “Un rigattiere fiorentino del Duecento”. On zendadi see the Glossary, and Rosita Levi Pisetzky, Storia del costume in Italia, II (Milan: Istituto editoriale Italiano, 1964), 422; Egidia Polidori Calamandrei, Le vesti delle donne fiorentine nel Quattrocento (Florence: La Voce, 1924), 132; and also Carlo Merkel, Come vestivano gli uomini nel “Decameron”. Saggio di storia del costume (Rome: Tipografia della R. Accademia dei Lincei, 1898), 106. 62. “Dagged hems, that is hedges of cloth, which have been decoratively cut into scallops, leafy shapes or some other kind of pattern . . . they [were] a sign of sophisticated culture and indulgent lifestyle,” Jacqueline Herald, Renaissance Dress in Italy 1400–1500 (London: Bell & Hyman, 1981), 216. 63. Meneghin, “The Second-hand Clothing Business of Taddeo di Chello,” 535–537. 64. See the Glossary. The author of the Nencia di Barberino remembers with the pleased satisfaction of the lover that his beautiful woman possesses a scheggiale all finished with fine gold (“et lo scheggiale ha tutto d’oro fino”), and that she uses it to go to hear the mass, as Belcolore claims to do, La Nencia da Barberino, ed. Rossella Bessi (Rome, Salerno: Ed. Bocchi, 1982), V, 8, 5, 144. 65. Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, ed. Vittore Branca (Florence: Accademia della Crusca, 1976). 66. “una cioppa di cupo di peluzo con le maniche a mantellini, sfoderata,” Francesco di Matteo Castellani, Ricordanze A (1436–1459), ed. Giovanni Ciappelli (Florence: Olschki, 1992), 142. 67. “[dopo] fattala trovare . . . facionne il mercato quattro iscudi d’oro: valeva più di dieci, era còsta più di sedici,” Motti e facezie del Piovano Arlotto, ed. Gianfranco Folena (Milano—Napoli: Ricciardi, 1953), Facezia 59, 94. 68. The character by Piero di Francesco, a native of Vicchio in the Mugello, some fifteen miles north-east of Florence, has been already amply described in “Nursing Infants and Wet-nurses in Fifteenth-Century Florence”; “La tavola di un salariato fiorentino nel quindicesimo secolo”; “The Livery of a Florentine Employee in the Fifteenth Century”. 69. Meneghin, “The Livery of a Florentine Employee in the Fifteenth-Century,” 49–51. 70. Ibid., 51. 71. AOIF, 12618, fs. 27v, 52r. 72. Tommaso, nicknamed Maso was Piero’s and his wife Santa’s first and only male child, who was the only one among their offspring to reach adulthood. He would eventually die in Viterbo in 1461, aged thirty-nine, leaving an only child, Sandra, whom Piero, outliving his son by a few years, was to raise as his own, AOIF, 12618, passim; see also Meneghin, “Nursing Infants and Wet-nurses in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” 189. 73. AOIF, 12618, f. 80v. 74. See the Glossary. 75. On the lucco see Benedetto Varchi, Storia Fiorentina, con aggiunte e correzioni, ed. Lelio Arbib (Florence: Tip. Pezzati, 1838–1841), II, book IX (1529), 113. The Florentine lucco did not have sleeves, but lateral slits for the passage of arms; the lucchi appear regularly on the inventories of the family of Puccio Pucci: Carlo Merkel, “I beni della famiglia di Puccio Pucci. Inventario del sec. XV illustrato,” in Miscellanea Nuziale Rossi-Teiss (Bergamo: Istituto Italiano d’Arti Grafiche, 1897), 142. See also Meneghin, “The Livery of a Florentine Employee in the Fifteenth Century,” 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

100  The Guild and Identity of Artifices 76. AOIF, 12618, fs. 26v–27r. 77. AOIF, 12618, fs. 13v, 84r. 78. See the Glossary. 79. AOIF, 12618, fs. 42v, 43v, 46v. 80. AOIF, ibid., f. 30v. 81. AOIF, 12618, f. 31r. 82. AOIF, 5373, Ricordanze di Lapo di Piero Pacini camerlengo dell’ospedale (1444–1482) (hereafter 5373). 83. See the Glossary. 84. See the Glossary. 85. AOIF, 12618, f. 5r. 86. See for example the mantellino that Checo bought from Taddeo for £1 s16, Meneghin, “The Second-hand Clothing Business of Taddeo di Chello,” 534. 87. AOIF, 5373, f. 9v. 88. See the Glossary. 89. AOIF, 5373, f. 11r. 90. Ibid., f. 13v. 91. Ibid., f. 14r. 92. On November 17, three lined with cloth (“soppannati di fodero”) at £3 s1, Ibid., f. 14r.; on January 15, four, old, re-made and lined (“vecchi, rifatti, foderati”), at s25 each for a total of f5, Ibid., f. 19r.; the last four cloaks were purchased on January  28: more colourful, but much cheaper than the previous ones, since their cost amounted to only £5, Ibid., f. 22r.; on February 19, twelve little gonnelle (simple little dresses for unpretentious uses, for children) were bought, at s16 d6 each, for a total of £9 s18, Ibid., f. 24r.; on February 22, the last four children’s cloaks “lined with worn out lining” at s23 each were bought for a total of £4 s12, Ibid., f. 23r. 93. Meneghin, “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” 332. 94. AOIF, 5373, f. 29r. 95. 1 braccio = 0.583 metres, Raveggi and Mazzi, Gli uomini e le cose nelle campagne fiorentine, XI–XII. At a cost of £8 s10, AOIF, 5373, f. 26r. 96. The cost amounted to s20 per pound for a total of £12 s10, Ibid., f. 6v. 97. The oustanding total amounted to £24 s8. In this case, the bill was settled with two payments, one of three large florins paid on July 30, the other of £10, on August 11, of the same year, Ibid., f. 7v. 98. The cost of the gamurra was £16 s5, Ibid., f. 8v. 99. Ibid., f. 18r. 100. “si chomessono in questo ospedale detto di loro e loro beni presenti e futuri pel rogito fatto per Ser Silvano di Giovanni che sta all’Arte di Porta Santa Maria,” AOIF, 5377, f. 13v. 101. Meneghin, “The Livery of a Florentine Employee in the Fifteenth Century,” 52. For instances of clothes perquisites and embezzlement in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, see James E. Shaw, The Justice of Venice. Authorities and Liberties in the Urban Economy, 1550–1700 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 170–171; and Robert C. Davis, Shipbuilders of the Venetian Arsenal: Workers and Workplace in the Preindustrial City (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991). 102. “[una] cioppa turchina, filettata di pelli di lontra  .  .  . perchè [me] la vendesse,” AOIF, 12618, f. 51v. 103. “una cioppa verde foderata di panno bigio a ghiozzi,” see Meneghin, “The Livery of a Florentine Employee in the Fifteenth-Century,” 52. See also

The Rigattieri in the Socio-Economic System 101 Merkel, “I beni della famiglia di Puccio Pucci,” 50; “Brighe, affanni, volgimenti di stato”. Le Ricordanze quattrocentesche di Luca di Matteo di Messer Luca dei Firidolfi da Panzano, ed. Anthony Molho and Franek Sznura (Florence: Sismel—Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2010), 272; and Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi, Lettere di una gentildonna fiorentina del secolo XV ai figliuoli esuli, ed. Cesare Guasti (Florence: Sansoni, 1877), 15. 104. Ordine et officij de casa de lo illustrissimo signor Duca de Urbino, ed. Sabine Eiche (Urbino: Quattroventi, 1999,), 38. Also of relevance is Marco Folin, “Roma e Urbino: due corti rinascimentali a confronto,” in Atlante della Letteratura Italiana, I, ed. Amedeo De Vincentiis (Turin: Einaudi, 2010), 757. 105. Meneghin, “The Livery of a Florentine Employee in the Fifteenth-Century,” 53. 106. “È un costume  .  .  . in quelli paesi, che, quando uno va alla giustizia a morire, porta indosso una veste lunga di finissimo panno, e di verno foderata di pelle e di state di drappo, in modo è di valore di forse sedici ducati, e credo detta veste sia di colore giallo o verde. E poi, quando colui è giustiziato e morto, quella veste è donata al manigoldo per parte di suo salario: guadagna assai perché e’ va per tutto il terreno del duca di Borgogna, vende detta veste a’ rigattieri el manigoldo, e bisogna ne faccino buono mercato perché non è chi le comperasse se none per disfare o per rivendere,” Motti e facezie del Piovano Arlotto, Facezia 59. 107. Bernardo Machiavelli, Libro di Ricordi, ed. Cesare Olschki (Florence: Olschki, 2007), 27. 108. “un gonnellino nero rivolto doppio, tutto di saiettone, e una [sua] giornea monachina, aperta dinanzi rivolta foderata di valescio,” Ibid., 34. 109. Ibid., 38. 110. See the Glossary. 111. “rivolta soppannata di valescio,” Machiavelli, Libro di Ricordi, 67. 112. “una cioppa monachina da donna, vechia, volta capo piè, con maniche fatte quasi nuove, e uno paio di mie calze nere pirpignane a staffetta vechie,” Machiavelli, Ibid., 46. See the Glossary. 113. “catelan[i,] monachino con buche da trarre fruori le braccia,” Machiavelli, Libro di Ricordi, 49. On mantels see Levi Pisetzky, Storia del costume in Italia, II, 109–116.

Part II

Work, Investments, and Social Mobility

4 Credit, Concurrent Activities, and the Appraisal of Goods

1. Diversification of Activities: Issues of Marginality Exposed There was stratification in the second-hand trade. Not only did weaker status, economic position, capital at disposal, and entrepreneurial stance make some rigattieri ‘marginal’ and different from those at the centre, but also their engagement, more or less permanent, in other working activities, and above all, the motivation behind such work, marked a profound difference between rigattieri on the edge and those more financially able. The undeniable interoccupational stratification among second-hand dealers caused some weaker rigattieri to hold concurrent jobs. Did the presence of these jobs reflect a precise hierarchical scale anchored within the Arte? To answer this question one must ask, crucially, how a trade on the margins of production offered the chance to earn extra money in complementary sectors of the trade (tailoring, embroidering, etc.). It is important to tease these patterns out; they help to penetrate the shadowy activities of people otherwise unknown. By tracing the parallel activities for which data about our rigattieri exist, we can detect the motives for a second occupation. This, in turn, illuminates the strategies of the minor rigattieri for coping with life and hardship. Indeed, whether in agriculture, commerce, or craftsmanship, the activities that afforded the rigattieri a supplementary income were often subordinated to their occupational pursuit. What was the motivation for wanting supplemental income in the first place? Was it to save money for a down payment on a house or tax arrears? Was it to pay off their debt or save more for basic necessities and extra expenses? In many cases, these additional or concurrent activities were not planned as part of a strategy, with an eye to how much one needed every month to survive (food, rent, clothing, etc.). In fact, most of the rigattieri engaged in parallel occupations did not build a targeted supplemental income strategy to achieve calculated goals but did so out of bare necessity. Rigattieri of higher status rarely held another job to supplement the main proceeds from their trade; conversely, the rigattieri who held lower positions within the Arte rarely performed rewarding

106  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility alternative occupations. Usually, one sign of marginality was the inability to make a living by regatteria alone. The two most common situations: to be engaged in regatteria and, in addition, perform another activity as supplement; or to juggle both activities as main occupation. Finally, some rigattieri seem to have had no central line of work; perhaps these were workers who literally scratched out a living. There were those who lived on the margins of the guild and juggled a whole series of jobs. For example, in the many small or large shops of the old market, there was some room for general labourers who could be hired from day to day. These workers, perennially suspended between underemployment and unemployment, complained to the Catasto officers in charge of drafting their tax declarations that they had almost nothing to live on; although their words cannot be taken literally, still they speak of their inability to make a living as rigattieri alone. They were sometimes forced to resort to alms, or gifts, or donations, and served as a reserve of occasional and unskilled labour, continually harassed by the struggle to survive and the search for a stable job. Was it lack of skill or health that pushed them to search for work on an irregular basis? Did the privileges of the privileged keep them out or their inability to make use of fruitful business relations? Did the absence of a business network cause the lack of a permanent and (more or less relatively) rewarding permanent occupation? Above all, these workers were driven by the need for a better income than that offered by the trade in used clothes. So was regatteria work the centre or the edge of rigattieri’s occupational life? Note, first, the utility of the additional income from supplementary work, for survival and personal and family maintenance. In other words, was selling used clothes really the main occupation or was it secondary? Sometimes, the other activity was the main one. Sometimes, perhaps, the short resources and scant income due to a depressed trend in the sale of used goods may have forced the rigattiere to take a job that would help him afford the necessities. Furthermore, the lack of funds, thanks to poor business performance, sometimes made parallel occupations rather a permanent feature. This may have been true of Bartolomeo di Francesco di Neri from Grignano, who sold used clothes and household goods but also made stoves to round off his meagre commercial proceeds. He practised this craft in the small house he occupied with his family, composed of ten other mouths (his mother, Monna Agnola, a seventy-fiveyear-old woman, his wife Checca, and their eight children) in the San Giovanni district.1 Some men mixed lines of work because they had skills and assets. The example above suggests a wise branching out. Second, one must consider the presence or absence of capital and the degree of professional specialisation. Sometimes the regatteria benefitted or suffered from the ‘alternative’ employment. In the most fortunate cases, intelligence and skill at fitting into an organisational network could favour a different and remunerative occupation. Francesco, Bartolomeo,

Credit, Concurrent Activities, and Appraisal 107 and Bandino, sons of the late rigattiere Romolo Bandini, exemplify the pattern. In addition to practicing the art of regatteria in the old market, the three brothers, well endowed with capital, also ran a very profitable hostel in via San Gallo, a street full of traffic and goods, rich in opportunities in the popolo of San Lorenzo.2 Now, since the Catasto looked at one year only, it is hard to gauge without other data if the Bandini brothers were moving from the hostel to the regatteria trade or the other way, or if, alternatively, they were developing two lines of trade at once. In the tenth novella of the Decameron (ninth day), the priest Donno Gianni di Barolo (Barletta) only draws a pittance from the church, forcing him to earn additional money on the side. Thus, he roams the fairs of Puglia to sell and buy merchandise “here and there” on the back of his mare. Another poor man, Pietro da Tresanti, must do the same. Pietro, even poorer than the priest, carries out the extra job of peddler on the back of a mule.3 Both protagonists derive scant profits from this alternative activity of selling old clothes but hope to draw support from it for their miserable ménage. But there is a difference between the priest’s condition and that of Pietro’s: while the former, even if poor, has some income, the latter lacks even that. The priest’s side career is an occasional, supplementary retail activity, out of step with his primary calling. While buying and selling, he carries it out under the shadows of precariousness, puny yield, and insufficiency. This is of course a famously bawdy story, rich in puns and the usual Boccaccio sexual innuendos, but it is important to us as it presents two cases, that of Gianni and Pietro, both of them on work’s margins, not fully integrated into work processes, and forced to find ways of feeding themselves as best they can, perennially fluctuating between employment, unemployment, and underemployment and slipping between sectors. Some of our second-hand dealers may well have had the same work dynamics as Gianni and Pietro.4 Indeed, some rigattieri probably moved from city to countryside, countryside to city, or city to city. Economic and social transformations worked powerfully and widened the circle of second-hand dealers already pushed to the margins of the corporation for lack of the capital or knowledge required to sustain a network. These changes would allow such persons to sustain themselves and their families in a dignified manner. Indeed, “the discriminating factor between the undesirably marginalized and the socially acceptable seems to be the work.”5 Many workers of all sorts were short on skills, many lacked steady work, and many rigattieri were on the margins. Some marginal workers could rise via regatteria work, but some sank because their skills were weak. That last seems most likely: we have weak rigattieri, feeble for lack of funds or skills. But, even if weak, some still managed to get by. Was this due to simple luck; unexpected favourable circumstances such as favourable growth prospects (companies which had prospects

108  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility of growth required more working capital); high levels of competition, which increased the need for more working capital; or the simple business cycle?

2. Edges of the Trade: Concurrent Occupations and Businesses Many of the rigattieri engaged in secondary jobs were fairly poor. We know this from the Catasto and from the decina graziosa of 1442. Some among these, resident in the three districts of Santa Maria Novella, San Giovanni, and Santa Croce, in addition to selling cheap and used clothes, would sew, like Antonio di Tommaso, who declared his participation to the parallel profession of a tailor.6 Others, like another Antonio di Tommaso, a resident in the gonfalone of Leon Bianco, unlike the above-­ mentioned Antonio who lived in Unicorno, said that he sewed clothes for the rigattieri.7 Yet others, like Matteo di Piero, sewed hose,8 while Romolo di Iacopo crafted pianelle.9 Finally, Francesco di Fruosino di Domenico worked in another sector entirely, city provisioning, in the Arte degli Oliandoli e Pizzicagnoli.10 Included in this group were many used cloth dealers who had stable employment but low income or large families. Populating this group were individuals like Antonio di Giovanni, a poor rigattiere charged with five mouths to feed besides his own. He used to sell used clothes as a permanent activity but was only limitedly successful and earned little, and so he decided to also collect duties on crossbows entering or exiting the city gates (and probably also other weapons) on behalf of the municipality.11 Here we have a notion of centre, represented by the main job (regatteria) and edge (other work performed). This story of Antonio di Giovanni is interesting because we see the passage of time: over the years, and with the birth of yet more children, he simply needed more money and a complementary activity, not abandoning the former one. Although his story seems to evoke other narratives in the Catasto that might suggest the patterns of movement from trade to trade, it is not always so: first, not all rigattieri held two complementary jobs (one of which being the regatteria), preferring instead to migrate to other trades altogether; second, the complementary profession is not always specified, often appearing as a laconic “he [now] did something else” or “he no longer was rigattiere.”12 At any rate, sometimes longitudinal aspects emerge from synchronic, transverse Catasto records. Some rigattieri divided their enterprises between selling old clothes and performing menial tasks. However, if it were a fairly common practice, the supplementary trades practised by some second-hand dealers, especially those related to the agricultural and artisanal sectors, were insufficient to maintain the basic standards of living. In fact, the rigattieri who engaged in agricultural work turned out to be, most often, heads

Credit, Concurrent Activities, and Appraisal 109 of large families with many mouths, who tried to make ends meet with extra work. This was true of Antonio di Tommaso, mentioned above, a rigattiere residing in the San Giovanni district, in the gonfalone Vaio, whose low tax coefficient (s3) points to his lack of means.13 Antonio had eight other mouths to feed. With his wife Buona, twenty-seven years old, the forty-year-old had to raise and feed seven children, starting with the eldest, Maso, just eleven, and ending with his last born, Lorenzo, only eleven months old. Antonio himself worked a piece of land located in the popolo of Santa Maria in Peretola in a place called ‘Vignazzo,’ into which he had invested his meagre earnings, evidently to sustain the family. Given his very low annual income of just over fifteen soldi and the low value of the field, just over twenty-six florins, it seems unlikely that Antonio produced a surplus to place on the market.14 So they probably all ate what he could harvest. Again, to save money, this time not on vegetables, but on rent, another rigattiere, Domenico di Baldovino, acted as estate agent (villaro) for the Church of San Paolo. He established himself as a farmer of this estate, in exchange for a discount on the rent for a house where he lived, for the equivalent of twenty-five soldi a year (just over a lira). Domenico had only one son, Baldovino, five and a half years old, orphaned by the death of his mother. But what he had in abundance were debts, including an earlier debt with the commune due to a series of unpaid loans, which by then amounted to the considerable figure of three florins, ten soldi, and ten denari.15 The very young Matteo di Piero di Giovanni supplemented his salary as a garzone for a used cloth dealer, by working a vineyard and a piece of land (“un pezzo di sodo”) in the piviere of Settimo, in the popolo of San Romolo. The vineyard yielded around nine florins a year in wine, which the young man sold on the market.16 Instead, Nanni di Latino and his son, in their limited free time from the used clothing trade, worked a small farm (poderuccio) in the popolo of Santa Maria a Sesto. The land, part vineyard, part olive grove and forest, was a beautiful tract that yielded fifty bushels of wheat, plus wine, fodder, oil, and wood, for eighteen florins a year. The Catasto value of 202 florins for the plot and its expansion suggest that, in addition to self-consumption, the plot produced goods that found their way to the market and provided a supplement to the revenue coming from the trade of used cloth.17 Here we swing from those who moved outward from rigattieri to other work, to those who moved inward from other work and became rigattieri. Persons leaving their places of origin and searching for different lines of work were probably, among other causes, the motive for the progressive closing of the ranks by the Arte in the second half of the fifteenth century. This is when we witness immigration into the guild by men from other sectors: once they arrived in the city, they improvised, becoming dealers (of clothes, objects, rags, and so on) like the priest Gianni and Pietro in Boccaccio’s novella. It was then that the Arte implemented restrictive

110  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility measures to force these newcomers to renounce the trade and established a monopoly supported by the old families of rigattieri.18 Occasionally among the second-hand dealers who practised alternative trades, there were well-to-do individuals, some of them with substantial financial skills, or others who made good profits. For them, second occupations seemingly paid out. This seems true of Nero di Filippo Del Nero, for example. He was married to a Monna Caterina and father of six children (the smallest of whom, Bernardo, we will speak of extensively in the last chapter, played a leading role under Lorenzo de’ Medici). He owned a house in the immediate vicinity by a vineyard, in the popolo of Santa Maria a Novoli; the property (along with other real estate) was worth seventy florins. Nero declared to the Catasto officers that he worked the vineyard “on his time off” (“ai suoi ozi”). These words paint for us the picture of a small agricultural owner who lovingly looked after his vineyard, not leaving to others the cultivation of the land and its fruits.19 But it is also the image of a prosperous situation (as confirmed by the rigattiere’s tax declaration) in which the possession of a vineyard, and the work to make it productive, figured as a relaxing pastime and nothing like the work of those who were forced by necessity to take on supplementary occupations. Likewise, Battista and Sandro di Bartalo dal Gallo, rigattieri and heirs of another deceased rigattiere, and their brother Giuliano also, though prosperous, had a second line of work. In addition to practicing the Arte in Florence at the mercato vecchio, the two owned a workshop in Pisa; the traffic of goods and customers had to be considerable, judging by the volume of stock on hand for 1550 florins. Sandro, a character whom I have discussed in a recent essay, was also involved in a second Pisan company with Bernabò di Bartolomeo, having invested 660 florins.20 Sandro had found in Pisa the ideal conditions for setting up l’arte della regatteria. We do not know for sure when he arrived in the city, nor can we say what other second-hand dealers were doing there—with the exception of some isolated cases. In the short span of a few years, Sandro seems to have established himself in Pisa and done well. He managed to integrate his business into the vacuum left by the cessation of many other activities and by the trade crisis that had been unfolding for some time in Pisa, subject to Florence since 1406. We have no sign of a guild in Pisa before 1428 (the profession of second-hand dealer in Pisa appeared as ‘new’ only in the Catasto of that year). So Sandro’s business may well have seemed innovative or even ‘revolutionary.’ To an impoverished population, the chance to buy used stockings, skirts, jackets, and doublets on the cheap had to be very useful. In fact, the business soon generated good profits. As is clear from the land registry (poste catastali), Sandro and his young business partner, Bernabò, could soon afford to enlarge and rent a shop from Jacopo di Stefano Rosso for seventeen florins a year. Judging by Bernabò’s own taxable income, just under 543 florins net, the trade prospered.21 The story here does not

Credit, Concurrent Activities, and Appraisal 111 show the development of an alternative profession but recounts the exercise of one’s Arte in a different city, in a context of diversification not so much professional as territorial. 2.1. A Highly Valued Activity: Appraisal of Goods Among the secondary activities carried out by some second-hand dealers, but located within the corporate framework, was the job of appraising. The rigattieri tasked with the role of estimator were part of a restricted but lively community, deeply established in the urban fabric and closely intertwined through bonds of solidarity and competition. Estimators relied mostly on buying and selling clothing and clothing accessories for their livelihood, knew their materials, colours, and shapes, and often aspired to raise their social standing through their interactions with the persons of high social status they dealt with. By acting as advisors for wealthy and powerful individuals and by establishing relationships with clients coming from diverse social categories, the stimatori mediated between urban social groups in fifteenth-century Florence.22 It follows that they had to be people of substance or the stima lacked weight. Now, as we have seen, shady dealing had been believed to be the modus operandi of many rigattieri in earlier centuries. We have seen how legislation targeted fraudsters. Could the profession of stimatore (conceived as that of a true professional in the art of knowing the real value of a given object) have been regarded as a means to curtail fraud under the law’s eye? Since the Middle Ages, current prices, official maximum prices, together with evaluations made by experts represented the three forms of common estimation, used to set a fair price through a collective assessment carried out within the community. On the subject of these three forms, an elaborate theological and ethical debate took place in medieval and early modern Europe.23 The debate recognised three elements in the definition of a price’s justness: the communis aestimatio, political authority, and estimation by experts (prudentes). During the modern age, this last mode of estimation was almost exclusively reserved for rare and precious goods, for which it was difficult for the public or the political authority to know precisely the value. However, as Giacomo Todeschini has shown, the market was conceived and understood from the beginning as a place and space of trust in the conformity of goods’ values with the prices charged, in the presence of a guarantor. In other words, an element external to the contractors should be always introduced, in the field of trade, not only for objects and goods of high commercial value, but also for the most ordinary everyday items, such as food and clothes.24 If, moreover, the very need to establish external mechanisms for assessing conformity between the value and price of goods sold depended on a ‘social’ concept of exchange, then one must analyse those methods of estimation carried

112  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility out on various types of goods in the every-day market, since the dynamics of appraisal concerned not only those who actually carried it out but the community as a whole.25 The neutral figure  of estimator acted as mediator between the seller who determined the value of the item for sale and the buyer who tried to set the price. Was the appraiser always neutral? If so, who vouchsafed for his neutrality? Was it the Arte as a whole? If so, was the appraiser’s neutrality central and useful to the maintenance of the Arte’s reputation? To talk about estimates and prices within the market, we must first introduce the concept of ‘fair price.’ The concept of ‘fair’ or ‘right price’ shows that, to be perceived as ‘just,’ a price must conform to certain standards, combining fairness (the ‘honest’ price) and lawfulness (the ‘due’ owed to the buyer, although there is, of course, also a fair price in light of market conditions). As to monetary values, ‘justness’ looked to official prices, whenever they existed, or to current prices (the ‘usual’ price). The usual price could fluctuate. Of course, when speaking of ‘fair price,’ one must take into account the complex tangle of personal ties, social connections, political implications, and mutual obligations in which all things pertaining to the market were embedded. The price of goods was highly variable, being influenced from time to time by the ‘social dynamics’ that were linked to objects, as argued by Tom and Elisabeth Cohen, as much as by social status of the participants and by their reputation and mutual trust.26 Since to appraise was to take a risk, the appraiser was staking his reputation for good judgment. If that risk was appreciated by other persons, such as sellers and buyers, not only did it win some trust, but it also made these other parties more willing to cooperate. On the other hand, there are risks on both sides: the appraiser risked his reputation and that of the Arte. Moreover, if a seller showed his goods to an appraiser and received an erroneous estimation, he could lose money or not earn what he hoped from the sale. So we have a delicate situation of asymmetric but reciprocal vulnerability between appraiser and seller. The frequency of buyer-seller exchanges also had an impact, as did their profession, their gender, and their social function. In this regard, for instance, there were remarkable differences between the prices obtained by professional dealers, artisans, members of the elite, and members of the lower orders of society and women. Did the elite pay more out of their magnificence or less out of advantage and privilege? Prices in the early modern period were not formed by an established, free, and equal series of factors determining a ‘rule’ of the marketplace. Prices paid in the market were not determined in abstract terms either, but through everyday experience, and were decided by demand, rather than by the cost of production only.27 Furthermore, as stated, factors such as status, reputation, gender, and profession, as much as the quantity or quality of the item or items on offer, generated the price one paid. The price was not determined by the market alone. The price was a social statement,

Credit, Concurrent Activities, and Appraisal 113 and the purchase was a social act. And, to push further, even the stima was deeply social; it kept an eye on the parties as well as on the goods. Another way to put it: the stimatore was neutral in a world where it was impossible to be neutral. As we shall see shortly, records from the Florentine Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli let us trace the impact of social and political factors on price. In the medieval and early modern times, potential buyers and sellers could gauge the ‘market price’ by observing public auctions or by approaching specialist stimatori, often rigattieri who had a sense of what items would fetch, and therefore valued garments, furniture, ornaments, and suchlike. Indeed, stimatori or estimatori were regarded as experts in assessing and apportioning. They valued chattels and items belonging to the sphere of commerce of the guild. Historians have long underestimated the figure of the appraiser or estimatore—someone who operated on the market on behalf or under the request of a second and even a third party, or, as in the case of public auctions, under solicitation of public institutions—always for a fee. Some studies have dealt with the role of agents in the antiquarian market especially, and one, in particular, by Laurie Nussdorfer, has engaged with the role of public notaries in the process of trust building connected to stime, in early modern Rome.28 However, critical attention has not been extended to those professional groups of individuals tasked by the corporations with these duties on an ordinary, day-to-day basis, and even less attention has been paid to the legislation regulating their activities.29 Indeed, studies in the history of the market activities and the art market have treated estimators mostly as exceptional but marginal figures who occasionally intervened at the request of buyers, sellers, and institutions endowed with precise requests and necessities.30 On the contrary, I  argue that they should be seen as professionals who, relying on their knowledge of the market, brought their information on supply and demand in the second-hand sector. They thus became indispensable for the market formation and its functioning by evaluating the quantity and the quality of goods and by defining their prices. Thus, they gained respect and praise for themselves and the Arte they belonged to, which eventually shaped individual as much as collective identity for themselves and the Arte. They reacted to the kind of items they were called upon to appraise. That is, they ultimately incarnated (more or less temporarily) a function: they guaranteed on behalf of the guild the ‘right price’ of the object estimated, ensuring the goodwill and reputation of the guild and, de facto, embodying the idea that a physical barrier existed between those honestly practising the profession against those who wanted to commit fraud instead. Thomas and Elisabeth Cohen have argued that the Italian term stimare “had a double meaning visible in its root but lost in English, which needs two words; it meant both to estimate and to esteem.”31 Assessment has always existed, but it carried with it a risk: in fact, next to the

114  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility appreciation of a certain object in possession of the owner who had it evaluated, there may be also some disapproval, contempt, or envy for the object in question. Therefore, the act of estimation was not always neutral, pertinent to the mere evaluation of the object, but would be covered by potentially negative connotations; that is, there were risks. We have danger on both sides: the stimatore could misjudge and hurt the owner or could put to shame the owner’s behaviour if the latter tried to carry out a fraud. However, if the stimatore erred, he lost status and might even lose the right to appraise. Meanwhile, sometimes, an appraisal could produce more or less overt fraud. That is why, between the end of the Middle Ages and the early modern age, it became more and more necessary to define the character of the professional estimator. This figure  not only possessed all the tools of market knowledge and corporate legislation, but also knew thoroughly the goods and all the means that could be used to counterfeit items and to defraud a buyer. Here then the Arte dei Rigattieri (which by its very nature needed the work of such individuals) defined and regulated the profession down to the smallest details, which we find in the extensive documentation in the registers entitled Deliberazioni e Statutaria—­Deliberazioni e Statutaria dei Consoli 13 (1446–1452), and Deliberazioni e Statutaria dei Consoli 14 (1471–1475).32 The Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli needed appraisers because, unlike the major guilds, it lacked real brokers. Thus in Florence, in order to guarantee a correct and efficient execution of the estimators’ procedure, the magistratures of the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli listed the estimators’ professional qualifications and activity with detailed prescriptions. These regulations were enforced all through the Quattrocento, with whole sections of these sources dedicated to the procedure of appraisal as well as to the duties and commissions and payments due to estimators. Thus, however, a conflict of interests invaded the profession, because those chosen as estimators were the most prominent members of the Arte. Let us go examine how these documents regulated the appraisers’ activity. As the qualifications of all stimatori had to be checked and approved, the consilium and the consuls of the Arte convened to choose who would be elected. This process might require up to a month, usually in March. Once the consuls finally made their decision, two estimators were chosen every four months (for a total of six each year) and most likely asked to swear, on the Bible, to exercise their profession “honestly and judiciously” (“onestamente e giudiziosamente”), to avoid that “in [the] guild, as much as in [the] entire city the dissensions and dishonesty that each day are done to the discredit of the guild in different ways and especially by the garzoni and factors of our masters and subordinates, would still take place.”33 Thus, the stimatori were to protect the trade. But what if they turned out to be untrustworthy? Who protected the stimatori’s clients from the stimatori? Once the names were chosen, the consuls decreed that any estimate made by the rigattiere now officially installed was binding,34 and that

Credit, Concurrent Activities, and Appraisal 115 its value would be valid for one year. In other words, sale could take place at any time during the current year, at the estimator’s price. After the year’s expiration however, the item had to be re-evaluated, by new estimators. Note how the invisible hand did move, but so slowly that a price sat still all year. All new estimators were obliged to take the solemn oath to carry out honest estimations “well and diligently and rightly, and [. . .] to estimate item by item, and [to communicate these estimates] within three days to the bursar of the aforesaid Arte [so not to incur in] any penalty.”35 Just as the estimators’ opinion was binding for those who required their services, so the estimator had to follow precise rules. Stimatori were barred from partnership with the seller or the buyer or both. Moreover, they could not sell “per modum baraccholi vel conii.”36 A curious expression: ‘coniare’ meant to change from one form to another form, or to deceive. Meanwhile, baraccholo or baraccolo perhaps a derivative of baro, i.e., cheater, indicates usury, disguised by a fictitious gift or by a sale at an exaggerated price. In essence, with an estimator’s complicity, after a first low appraisal an item was then sold at a much higher price; trick could also go the other way: the estimator could appraise an object for a high price, it being sold at a much reduced price. Since the voluntary loss, the difference between the initial appraisal and the later sale could conceal interest payments or moneylending; this type of such a contract was considered as a hiding place of usury and condemned not only by ecclesiastical and civic laws but also by commercial courts.37 The estimators had at all costs to avoid being tainted with these fraudulent practices. Therefore, every time they were called to perform their role, estimators were obliged to enter their estimation activities into ­registers—which had legal and probative value in court—kept by the guild’s notary or bursar. There were also precise rules around counterfeit goods. The penalty for evaluating a counterfeit item, one so good as to trick an expert appraiser was high: twenty-one florins, of which one-half would be paid to the Arte, one-fourth to the secret accuser, and the other fourth to the Universitas Mercatorum. Counterfeit goods, precisely like counterfeit coins, were a crime punished severely. But how much was paid a rigattiere for carrying out this appraisals? The Deliberationi e Statutaria prescribed that, each year, those who intended to serve as an estimator had to declare for a product sector where they intended to practice, be it linen or second-hand goods, and pay a deposit of £10—a sort of license, like the one paid today to work in any profession. A  similar provision also stipulated that the estimators from the membrum of the linaioli had to pay the same amount to the camerario dell’Arte, but that they could make their payment in two instalments, six months apart.38 While the payment of this £10 almost certainly functioned as a license, its nature is not clearly expressed as such in the documents. The statutes just note vaguely: “the £10 paid for

116  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility such estimates were to be considered the reward for the estimators’ services” (“[il] premio per la loro fatica”) and stipulate that they could not demand anything more for their estimates (although things in practice were different, as we shall see): be they obliged to pay each year to the guild £10 for such estimates that they will make and for their payment be they understood to be free and quitted and said ten lire be considered their reward and that they cannot ask anything more for such estimates.39 Thus, concerning the sale of various commodities, the Capitoli enacted specific guild regulations. However, over time the Capitoli of the Arte dei Rigattieri modified slightly the estimators’ commissions, making them proportionate to the value of ‘deals’ concluded and not to the £10 paid to the Arte. In essence, estimatori could ask the person requiring their services the sum of d2 per lira (i.e., 2d/240d) of the appraised value. Two things mingle here: the money the stimatori paid out for the right to estimate and the money they took in for the service. And they had a stake in a high stima. How did they handle this conflict of interest? And, above all, how did the Arte handle that? Why for example not allocate stimatori a fixed income, paid by the Arte? That would have made them less partial and partisan. 2.2. Estimators and Retributions The lists of the estimators of the Arte, for 1446–1452 (see Table 4.1) and 1471–1475 (see Table 4.2), respectively, show prosopographic data that, Table 4.1 Number of estimations per years 1446–1452 Estimator

Total of estimations*

Guasparo di Nicola Parrini Bartolomeo di Iacopo di Bartolomeo Bartolomeo di Simone Gherardo di Domenico ‘Stazza’ Clemente di Piero Filippo di Piero Francesco di Antonio Bandini Marco di Filippo Antonio di Iacopo Del Biondo Blasio di Lorenzo di Nicola Monti Antonio di Paolo Masi Cristofano di Angelo di Cristofano Chiaro di Piero

39 13 10 8 7 7 7 7 6 6 5 4 3

* The figures are comprehensive of retributed estimations and estimations with no data on retributions.

Credit, Concurrent Activities, and Appraisal 117 Table 4.2 Number of estimations per years 1471–1475 Estimators rigattieri

Number of estimations

Cristofano di Angelo di Cristofano Clemente di Piero Antonio di Piero Bene di Giovanni Del Bene Francesco di Simone Francesco di Domenico di Cante Marco di Domenico di Vieri Pace di Giovanni di Pace

60 29 4 3 2 1 1 1

if enriched with other information, would allow us to gauge the weight of individuals or even entire families; think for example to the three brothers rigattieri Clemente, Filippo, and Chiaro di Piero, all in the formation of a language common to the clans of elite rigattieri. This language was made up of identity paradigms created not only by affluence and by success in business, but also by an excellent reputation, gained through irreproachable commercial conduct, and therefore that facilitated the repeated estimation activity, as representatives of a true elite within the Arte. Thus, the constant presence of certain men on the appraiser lists, such as Guasparo di Nicola Parrini (thirty-nine estimates between 1447 and 1451), Bartolomeo di Iacopo di Bartolomeo (thirteen estimates from May to August  1447), and Bartolomeo di Simone, also drawn several times to fill this assignment, suggests that their expertise in handling garments of various types and qualities explained the preference of the officers of the Arte in charge of selecting the names of men to be drawn as estimators. The high reputation that these men enjoyed within the Arte and within society must have contributed to the hierarchy of stimatori. At the top were the men often summoned, while at the base were those who only sporadically served, perhaps on items of minor value. For a big purchase, one wanted a high-end stimatore. Not only because he would be expert in the trade and guarantor of the transaction, but also because, as with one rich stimatore, being rich, he was less inclined to cheat as he did not need the money. Rectitude was moral capital—a virtue that not all rigattieri possessed—and not all could afford, as rectitude was also a luxury, although many invested wisely in reputation, as this could propel a man upwards in the trade. These tabulations, which come from the registers Deliberazioni e Statutaria 13 and 14 and allow a full and comprehensive definition of the profession and its regulation, even in the smallest details. They are extremely useful. Not only do they shed rare light on the everyday transactions of a profession, but they also conserve complete lists of all ­second-hand dealers chosen to perform as estimators, to assess

118  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility clothes and accessories, and list the clients as well. Although the legislation clearly defines as legal only those estimates performed by legally appointed stimatori, of course other estimations must have occurred, although not regulated by the Arte. They likely happened in a more informal way, at both seller’s and buyer’s will, to avoid the fares established by law. Some estimators were accorded a higher status than others due to their reputation and prestige. This is clearly expressed in the high frequency with which they were chosen by the Arte consuls (as seen in Table 4.1 and Table 4.2, in the periods 1446–1452 and 1471–1475, for example, Clemente di Piero was chosen twenty-nine times to make estimates, and Cristofano di Angelo di Cristofano sixty). The remuneration was directly proportional to the number of estimates they were called upon to perform. In other words, they were paid for the times they were called and the items they estimated each time. The high consideration in which they were held could add substantially to the payment. Bartolomeo di Iacopo di Bartolomeo, for example, who is first on the top of the list (see Table 4.3), with an average salary of £1 d1 per estimation, enjoyed an excellent reputation and was often called upon to estimate objects of various kinds. Blasio di Lorenzo di Nicola Monti and even more so the previously mentioned Guasparo were also recognised for their great experience in the sector; Guasparo, above all, had evidently been able to gain the trust of many sellers and potential customers during his long-standing estimation work. In the previous paragraph, we discussed the by-law remuneration due to each estimator for the performance of his work. We saw that each of them was expected to receive d2 for each £1 of value of the goods appraised. If we look at Table 4.4, where we see both the income

Table 4.3 Rank per retributed estimation (1446–1452) Estimator rigattieri

Average payment per appraisal in d.

Bartolomeo di Iacopo di Bartolomeo Blasio di Lorenzo di Nicola Monti Guasparo di Nicola Parrini Clemente di Piero Chiaro di Piero Antonio di Iacopo Del Biondo Bartolomeo di Simone Filippo di Piero Gherardo di Domenico ‘Stazza’ Marco di Filippo Antonio di Paolo Masi Cristofano di Angelo di Cristofano Francesco di Antonio Bandini

241.00 148.00 147.75 124.67 88.00 81.33 65.50 58.67 52.00 36.00 28.00 28.00 20.00

Credit, Concurrent Activities, and Appraisal 119 Table 4.4 Percentual retributions per total of estimations (1446–1452) Estimator rigattiere

Total retribs. for all estimates in d.

Total value of estimates in d.

Retribs. in %

Bartolomeo di Simone Clemente di Piero Bartolomeo di Iacopo di Bartolomeo Blasio di Lorenzo di Nicola Monti Berto di Angelo Corsi Antonio di Iacopo Del Biondo Filippo di Piero Marco di Filippo Chiaro di Piero Gherardo di Domenico ‘Stazza’ Antonio di Paolo Masi Guasparo di Nicola Parrini Francesco di Antonio Bandini Cristofano di Angelo di Cristofano

68 460 2340 268 252 228 112 136 112 64 40 720 36 20

4080 27840 167040 25800 29760 27360 16800 23160 24480 16260 11568 265560 13680 7800

1.660 1.652 1.400 1.038 0.846 0.833 0.660 0.587 0.457 0.393 0.345 0.271 0.263 0.256

from estimates and the market value of the goods appraised, something becomes at once evident: while the law established that each assessor’ fee was set at 0.833% of the estimated good, the documents show that only in one case, that of the appraiser Antonio di Iacopo Del Biondo the law was exactly met; Berto di Angelo Corsi did come very close, while most men were well below the limit set by law. Two men (Bartolomeo di Simone and Clemente di Piero) earned about double, while two others (Bartolomeo di Iacopo di Bartolomeo and Blasio di Lorenzo di Nicola Monti) well exceeded the limit of 0.833%. These data confirm once again that, in everyday practice, regulatory instructions were frequently infringed, and the law was rarely applied.

3. Practices Revealed The registers Deliberazioni e Statutaria are sources that not only give detailed information on those who entered transactions and record the estimated price for any item. They also abound with minute descriptions pertaining to the shape, colour, and materials of the clothing that estimators appraised. Indeed, the estimations carried out by rigattieri were generally rather detailed, and to guarantee the quality of transactions and their fair prices, in some cases the estimators together with the buyers went to inspect the sale from the buyer’s shop. Note, however, that our records are not alike. The two registers of Deliberationi e Statutaria, although of the same nature and seemingly belonging to the same documentary category, were probably in fact used

120  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility to different purposes. Indeed, estimation activity was the object of both documentations. But the register of Deliberationi e Statutaria 13 records requests for an estimate made by potential buyers. Meanwhile, register 14 tracks heirs almost surely, or those who had been given clothing in payment for a service or a debt. In the market a multiplicity of roles were interpreted by the actors themselves. Guigo Guerzoni has argued, “if wholesalers, and several retailers, were actually playing the role of both buyers and sellers, it is profoundly misleading to consider their prices as socially neutral market prices, or as reliable bench-marks for comparative analysis.”40 Guerzoni’s words remind us of the blend of ‘trader’ and public function in the rigattiere, who, while sometimes a seller, also served the public by assessing goods.41 Might this combination of roles invite fraud and improper speculations? Were misdeeds more cleverly covered up by a rigattiere who also served as estimator? Were frauds committed by compliant stimatori or were they denounced to the public authorities thanks to the rigattieri stimatori? Indeed, were many goods at public auctions systematically undervalued? At auctions, rigattieri could rig the bidding and secure themselves fat bargains. When it was their turn to sell, it was as often as not the opposite story: old goods were passed off as new and the badly shabby went as almost new. Unfortunately, the registers of Deliberationi e Statutaria do not tell us whether the descriptions of the status of the estimated clothes or accessories (old, worn, used, almost new, etc.) were true. The last word belonged to the estimator, whose judgment, having legal value, was considered unquestionable. The fact remains that some transactions must have represented underthe-counter agreements between sellers or buyers and estimators, who would receive additional pay or favours in exchange for a favourable first estimate. Old mattresses were a typical example: often made of shabby materials, they were presented to deceive the purchaser and sold as products of high quality, as is well evident in our documents. Note an estimate dated November 19, 1474, at the petition of Marco di Domenico Mei, who had evidently received a series of objects as part of an inheritance, or possibly as a payment for services rendered to a Filippo di Francesco Lippi. In addition to four and a half pounds of bedding, a five libre cloth sheet of valescio and a blue hood, Marco was also given a mattress of cloth, stuffed with “bad chicken feathers”—which, obviously, he intended to resell as almost new and in good condition. The Arte prohibited the sale, without screening by the eventual buyer, of feathers “defective or those that signalled a fraud” (also those feathers that featured like padding were prohibited).42 Despite this, the estimators Clemente di Piero di Lorenzo and Bene di Giovanni Del Bene ruled the mattress and the other things together worth twenty-nine lire and declared them absolutely ready for sale.43 We find another padded mattress of capecchio, or coarse filth, usually made from linen or hemp (which produced

Credit, Concurrent Activities, and Appraisal 121 a stuffing of bristly hairs), purchased with a multitude of other objects from Goro di Giovanni Michelozzi in the bottega of Giovanni di Latino de Pellis. Once again, it was doubt about their actual value that pushed the buyer to ask an official of the Arte of second-hand dealers to commission Gasparo di Nicola Parrini and Giuliano Baldini to give an estimate, signed on March  7, 1447.44 Once again, the estimators confirmed the price suggested by the seller. But does this imply that ill-practice had actually taken place? The stimatore has a reputation, and this was underwritten by the Arte. But did the stimatore also enter the market? Did stimatori in a transaction where they performed a stima, for example, buy to their advantage what was estimated in order to sell it later? That would be a gross conflict of interest, an example of ‘self-dealing.’ Or did the stimatore took bribes from one party? So who policed the stimatori: the Arte, the state, the market, or social commentary? It is curious that the Deliberazioni e Statutaria make no reference to it, apart from a rather matter-of-fact recommendation that the stime must be done “honestly and judiciously.” The second-hand dealers were also asked to solve problems fairly, or to display an impartial and fair assessment on judicial issues concerning debts, for example. In 1474, the consul of the Arte Mariotto di Marco commissioned two estimators to gauge a series of garments and objects of various types evidently belonging to the blacksmith Blasio di Bartolomeo and to a Francesco called Pietro, both bad debtors. The petition originated with the injured party, Guasparo di Simone della Volta, to whom the two owed a lot of money. It was therefore necessary turn to the law for the requisition of the assets of the two to cover the debt with Guasparo. The bailiffs availed themselves of the estimate given by the two second-hand dealers at the consul’s request. Unfortunately, the document left us no details on the exact debt, neither the estimate laid on each item nor the overall estimate of the assets seized. But this account still shows how, in two cases, the estimate of two professionals of the Arte sufficed to set the exact legal value of a commodity.45 The higher the value of a garment or object, the more necessary estimates became. Examples in this regard are not lacking. On March 23, 1447, an Antonio, who came from the popolo of San Quirico di Legnaia (located on today’s Via Pisana),46 went to the rigattiere Marchionne di Stefano Bellandini and associates (et sotiis) to make an important purchase: a scarlet gamurra silver sleeves (“cum manicis inge”), and an old ‘sack’ (an overdress with sleeves, similar to the cioppa) with a turquoise cloth with velvet frayed sleeves.47 The rigattiere Guasparo di Nicola and the linaiolo Giuliano Baldini set the value of the clothes at £52.48 Another dress, with a turquoise cloth, sleeves a ghiozzi and threaded with trimmings,49 was put up for sale by the rigattiere Giovanni del Vespino and his partner Giovanni d’Ambrogio. This dress was valued at £41 by Clemente di Piero and Giuliano Baldini at the request of the potential

122  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility buyer—Francesco di Martino linaiolo—and it was purchased by Francesco on July 27, 1448.50 Instead a light silk mazzocchio,51 decorated by some pearls (for three once and eight denari) with a handkerchief, also of hand-worked silk, was spotted by Matteo di Piguccio linaiolo, among the things for sale at the rigattiere’s Matteo di Cristofano Masi on September 23, 1448. The estimators, the rigattiere Marco di Filippo and the linaiolo Pace di Zanobi di Pace, estimated the mazzocchio at the high value of about fifteen florins.52 Similarly on March 2, 1449, Guando di Nicola, before buying a magnificent garment of green velvet for men, with sleeves a ghiozzi and with silver frappie [sic] applied from behind from the workshop of the brothers linaioli Cosino and Giovanni Cosini, requested an estimate from Michele di Simone and Bernardo Tanucci, which they established at £64.53 Sometimes women who wanted to make a purchase in the market required professional intervention by members officially appointed as estimators by the Arte. So Donna Papera, wife of Marchionne di Gino Spadini, wishing to buy an old pink cloth soppannato (that is, lined with another cloth, which was a drape of expensive grain), a towel, and a handkerchief from the second-hand dealer Domenico Bonsi and Lorenzo di Guccio Benini insisted first to have their value estimated (in this case at £50) by Gasparo di Nicola and Bartolomeo di Francesco.54 Specialised knowledge in the sale of some objects in particular, such as weapons, was essential in selection for the role of estimator of assets of a given sector. Thus, to be able to determine the right price needed expert knowledge, and, preferably, one rigattiere who sold similar objects. This was true of Gasparo di Nicola, but also of Blasio di Lorenzo di Nicola Monti and Gherardo di Domenico called the ‘Stazza,’ who, as former sellers of ‘used clothes and weapons,’ were repeatedly called upon between 1447 and 1451 to estimate cuirasses (“panziere e corazze”) for amounts varying between ten and seventy lire.55 Furthermore, second-hand dealers were also asked to estimate clothing for bridal trousseaux. Estimates were valuable in order to avoid spending real fortunes, a risk, especially when there were several daughters to marry off. Andrea Minerbetti, studied by Carole Collier Frick, was able to marry only about one-third of his daughters.56 As Collier Frick has argued, a bride’s traditional source of clothing was her trousseau, which she and her family put together in the months and weeks preceding her wedding. It was usually the father of the bride who paid for the trousseau, or, in his absence, the person acting as household head.57 In the Quattrocento a trousseau was composed of two parts: first, a formal donora (made up of ornate gowns, a belt furnished with decorations, hats and hoods, some shirts, handkerchiefs, and even some small devotional books). The value of these objects was legally assessed and estimated by an outside broker as part of the dowry, like the donora consisting of “a white giornea of perpignan cloth, eight sciugatoi, a

Credit, Concurrent Activities, and Appraisal 123 handkerchief, a brocade pagonazzo girdle with eight ounces of silver and a pearl necklace.” These were purchased by Angelo di Michele, probably for his daughter, on March 16, 1472, after an evaluation of £58 by Cristofano di Angelo di Cristofano and Bene di Giovanni Del Bene.58 The second part of a trousseau was the informal donora, intentionally not appraised, and made up of items of less substantial nature (such as linens, headscarves, stockings, socks, towels, purses, shoes, as well as small toilette items and sewing paraphernalia).59 Let us look at other examples. On May 26, 1447, Matteo di ser Guccio, looking for an elegant dress for a woman, probably for his daughter, decided to evaluate the purchase of a magnificent dress of crimson velvet with lined sleeves, open at the front. The dress was probably a giornea, an overdress, open in front and down the sides, to allow the cotta worn underneath to show through. The rigattiere Cherubino del Galluzzo had evidently already fixed a price for the dress, proposed to be sold together with a light-coloured bedcover. But the two parties decided, perhaps by mutual agreement to facilitate the transaction, to first have the garments estimated by Bartolomeo di Iacopo di Bartolomeo and by the linaiolo Piero di Salvatore, who priced them at the remarkable amount of £260.60 Here the two parties involved, Matteo and the rigattiere Cherubino, had a potential conflict of interest. But having a third party such as Bartolomeo and Piero acting as officially appointed stimatori certainly was easier than fighting over the value of that fine dress. In general, estimations facilitated transactions, especially where two parties were involved in the deal: heirs and the executor of an estate, two parties to a marriage, seller and purchaser. Sometimes a public estimator was crucial to a sale. This applies in particular to private citizens who wanted to buy directly from other individuals, without going through the classic channels of intermediation (that is, without having to resort to a second-hand dealer). Valuations were in these cases particularly important. More than to confirm or change the proposed price, they were used to establish right price and market value, as neither contractor was an expert in commercial practices. This implied an honest merchant, who played the honest broker as well, as he might value the future custom of both parties. In some ways, the rigattiere was always brokering: he took in goods, set them out again, and fairly established prices (although, as owner, he had an interest). The stimatore was like a rigattiere who never owned the goods which moved and circulated. We have numerous examples of this practice, including one concerning the purchase of two splendid tunics,61 one with flowers (floradata)62 with rose-coloured cloth sleeves, the other scarlet with sleeves of monachino. These items, estimated at £30 by Clemente di Piero and Bene di Zanobi, were bought from Salvatore di Filippo Baldini on April  10, 1472, by Carlo di Ser Palla Strozzi, an influential and wealthy citizen of Florence.63 Likewise, a clamide of precious lucchese cloth (perhaps a silky cloth) for women64 was valued at £52 and sold by Barone di Nicola Ceschi directly

124  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility to Matteo di Ser Lorenzo on July 27, 1472.65 A “frenello di perle minute,” weighing thirteen once,66 was evaluated by Cristofano di Angelo and Simone di Matteo for as much as ten florins and was sold by Paolo di Blasio del Vetri to Paolo di Francesco di Cenni on July 5, 1473.67 Finally, some partly lined women’s sleeves in satin alexandrine were evaluated at £44 before being sold, on April 3, 1475, by Spinellino di Marco de’ Spinellini to Zanobi di Lorenzo.68

4. Conclusions This chapter is about the edges of the trade. There is the centre: plain old rigattieri work. And then there is stepping out and doing side trades. In this chapter, we have analysed the various types of alternative jobs carried out by rigattieri in compliance with the principle of integration of income from the sale of second-hand goods. We have also described cases of second-hand dealers with sufficient financial capacity who used an alternative profession as an investment for their capital rather than as a form of supplementary income. This is the case of the second-hand dealers and brothers Battista and Sandro di Bartolo dal Gallo. Thanks to their solid financial situation, these brothers diversified their investments not by practicing an alternative trade, but by following the same profession in another city, Pisa. Sometimes the second-hand dealer’s practice lacked any degree of specialisation, had no capital, and had no network to facilitate inclusion in a different sector. Not by chance, the rigattieri located at the bottom of the Arte pyramid were generally condemned to practise jobs with little continuity and with very low profits, offering little additional money. This condition placed many of them on the margins of the Arte, reducing them to a non-skilled labour force for shops, laboratories, or fields, sometimes working as poor sharecroppers. This was certainly not true of those who used the possession of real estate as a means towards social redemption or even as a pastime like Nero di Filippo Del Nero, who declared to the Catasto officers in 1427 that he “[faceva] la vigna ai suoi ozi.” Among the alternative professions within the Arte, we have considered here in great detail that of the estimator. Estimation was a side trade, but very germane to the main trade, as it used the same skills—­making sense of quality and value. We have shown that during the fifteenth century, rigattieri increasingly developed a self-conscious identity as a professional group with knowledge of the items that they were called to appraise. Although this activity was linked to a particular place, the bottega, their services were required everywhere in streets, squares, and private houses. The case study of those rigattieri acting as estimators allows us to investigate their ability to cross the boundaries of social groups, since they had to deal with people from all walks of life. From here, we learn that price assessment was indeed the clue to the professional identity and prerogatives only of those of the highest reputation and status

Credit, Concurrent Activities, and Appraisal 125 within the guild. The market economy needed such a service in order to handle not just bigger transactions, but also a broad range of operations outside the formal act of selling and buying, including support given to the creation of dowries and wills. The rigattieri stood in this strategic position, favoured by variable conditions in the market and in people’s circumstances, which also differed from the variations of the most common patterns in fashion. The stimatore served party to transactions. He also served the Arte by giving its operations more credito in the eyes of Florentines. The need to curtail the misuse and abuse of fraudulent practices, combined with a host of expertise in the field, enabled the rigattieri estimators to build impressive strength and reputation precisely in those fringe areas of trade where their skills and expertise were sought after and most needed. Thus, a group such as the rigattieri, springing up on the edge of the main market stage, initially oblivious to professional pride or prestige while remaining indifferent to technology and innovations, valued remaining in a local market without ever going beyond it. In this was their strength, but also in the fact that meanwhile economic crisis, or even the bankruptcy of individuals or professional groups, simply spelled opportunities for better business and a chance for the unscrupulous to exploit the role of public assessor. As we shall see in the last chapters, the success of some of the commanding rigattieri consisted in financial opportunism and the ability to manipulate professional and social cohesion.

Notes 1. ASF, Catasto (1427), 78, f. 516v. 2. Ibid., f. 553r. 3. Boccaccio, Decameron, day 9, novel 9. 4. On issues of marginality especially for the Italian area, bibliographic references are scarce with few exceptions such as Mazzi, “Ai margini del lavoro,” and Giuliano Pinto, Il Lavoro, la povertà, l’assistenza. Ricerche sulla società medievale (Rome: Viella, 2008). The most consistent results come from the works of Bronisław Geremek: “La popolazione marginale tra il Medioevo e l’età moderna,” Studi Storici, IX (1968); “Il pauperismo nell’età preindustriale (secc. XIV–XVIII),” in Storia d’Italia, V, I (Turin: Einaudi, 1974); Truands et misérables dans l’Europe moderne (1350–1600) (Paris: Gallimard, 1980). See also also the collective volume by Guy-H. Allard et al., Aspects de la marginalité au Moyen Age (Montréal: Les Editions de l’Aurore, 1975), and the synthesis by František Graus, “Pauvres des villes et pauvres des campagnes,” Annales ESC XVI (1961) (also in in La concezione della povertà nel Medioevo, ed. Ovidio Capitani (Bologna: Pàtron, 1974); and Brian Pullan, “Poveri, mendicanti e vagabondi (secoli XIV–XVIII),” in Storia d’Italia, I (Turin: 1978). 5. “La discriminante fra il marginale indesiderabile e quello socialmente accettabile sembra essere proprio il lavoro,” Mazzi, “Ai margini del lavoro,” 364. This ‘hybrid’ condition of the late medieval rigattiere (not only Florentine or Tuscan, therefore) was probably typical of the entire pre-industrial age.

126  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility 6. ASF, Catasto (1442), 619, f. 95r. 7. “cuci[va] panni ai rigattieri,”ASF, Ibid., 621, f. 131r. 8. ASF, Ibid., f. 707r. 9. ASF, Ibid., 623, f. 804r. 10. ASF, Ibid., 614, f. 183r. 11. ASF, Catasto (1427), 65, f. 263r. 12. “egli [ora] faceva altro,” or “non era più rigattiere.” 13. In the Catasto of 1427, almost all the artisans were accountable for amounts ranging from three to fifteen gold soldi (soldi a oro), depending on personal financial situations. Many craftsmen, who had been classified by the Catasto officers as miserabili, asked to be charged three soldi, the lowest share of the tax coefficient, thus signalling their belonging to the lowest tier of contribuents, see Conti, L’imposta diretta a Firenze nel Quattrocento, 146. 14. ASF, Catasto (1427), 81, f. 168r. 15. ASF, Ibid., 76, f. 288r. 16. ASF, Ibid., 77, f. 304r. 17. ASF, Ibid., 78, f. 396v. 18. On this see chaps. 2 & 3, 55–56, 83. 19. ASF, Catasto (1427), 64, f. 409v. 20. ASF, Ibid., 975, f. 540v. 21. See Meneghin, “Rigattieri, cenciai e ferrovecchi dello stato territoriale fiorentino,” 9–11. 22. On the estimation activities of some rigattieri, see Francesco di Matteo Castellani, Ricordanze II. Quadernuccio e Giornale B (1459–1485), ed. Giovanni Ciappelli (Florence: Olschki, 1995), 89 and passim. 23. Barry Gordon, “Aristotelian Economic Analysis and the Medieval Schoolmen,” History of Economics Review 20 (1993); Giacomo Todeschini, Il prezzo della salvezza: lessici medievali del pensiero economico (Rome: Carocci, 1994), 187; Odd Langholm, “The medieval schoolmen (1200– 1400),” in Ancient and medieval economic ideas and concepts of social justice (Leiden: Brill, 1998); Monica Martinat, Le “juste” marché. Le système annonaire romain au XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Rome: École Française de Rome, 2004), 36–37, 72–75, 83–84, 93–104; Credito e usura fra teologia, diritto e amministrazione: linguaggi a confronto, secc. XII–XVI, ed. Diego Quaglioni et al. (Rome: École Française de Rome, 2005), in part. 191, 205–207; Paolo Prodi, Settimo non rubare. Furto e mercato nella storia dell’Occidente (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2009), 79–85. 24. Giacomo Todeschini, I mercanti e il tempio: la società cristiana e il circolo virtuoso della ricchezza fra Medioevo ed Età Moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002), 148–149. 25. Karl Polanyi, La sussistenza dell’uomo. Il ruolo dell’economia nelle società antiche (Turin: Einaudi, 1983). 26. The objects bring with them actions of stime by people who act as viewers for the objects or clothing displayed, and by those who acquire and wear them. The community of viewers can become a community of connoisseurs who can then either appreciate and value a certain item or dislike it entirely: on this see the seminal work by Thomas V. Cohen and Elisabeth S. Cohen, “Postscript: Charismatic Things and Social Transaction in Renaissance Italy,” Urban History 37, 3 (2010), 479–481. 27. Joel Kaye, Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century: Money, Market Exchange and the Emergence of Scientific Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 49. 28. For a detailed survey of the bibliography published on agents or sensali in early modern Europe see Your Humble Servant. Agents in Early Modern

Credit, Concurrent Activities, and Appraisal 127 Europe, ed. Herman Cools et al. (Hilversum, the Netherlands: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2006). Artists, soldiers, clergymen, diplomats, merchants, and bankers were everywhere and were employed on diplomatic missions and also negotiated economic, cultural, and intellectual dealings between patrons and clients as well as being engaged as agents in the transmission of political news. Rome has been a city much dealt with by scholars engaging in the subject: two symposiums were held in Rome, one in 2004 at the Royal Netherlands Institute: “Agency in early modern Europe”; the other in 2005 at the Hertziana Library: “Rome and the constitution of a European cultural heritage in the early modern period: the impact of agents and correspondents on art and architecture”. A four-session panel, entitled “Agents, brokers, and intermediaries: the circulation of art works in the early modern period (1500–1650),” was organised and presented by Elena Fumagalli and Cinzia Maria Sicca Bursill- Hall at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America in Venice in 2010. For futher reference see also Deborah Krohn, “Taking Stock: Evaluation of Works of Art in Renaissance Italy,” in The Art Market in Italy (15th–17th Centuries); Laurie Nussdorfer, Brokers of Public Trust: Notaries in Early Modern Rome (Baltimore, MD, and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). Evelyn Welch and Christina Antenhofer have both studied the various ways of purchasing goods via familiari at the court of the Gonzaga: Welch, “The Art of Expenditure: The Court of Paola Malatesta Gonzaga in Fifteenth-Century Mantua,” Renaissance Studies 16, 3 (2002); Antenhofer, “ ‘O  per honore, o per commodo mio’: Displaying Textiles at the Gonzaga Court (Fifteenth– Sixteenth Centuries),” in Europe’s Rich Fabric. The Consumption, Commercialisation, and Production of Luxury Textiles in Italy, the Low Countries and Neighbouring Territories (Fourteenth-Sixteenth Centuries), ed. Bart Lambert and Katherine A. Wilson (Farnham: Ashgate, 2016). 29. Armando Sapori, “Il mercante e il ritorno della città nel mondo occidentale in Studi di storia economica: secc. XIII–XIV–XV,” III (Florence: Sansoni, 1967), 277–284, 282–283; Jean Favier, L’oro e le spezie. L’uomo d’affari dal Medioevo al Rinascimento (Milan: Garzanti, 1990), 90–94. 30. On the role of estimators for evaluating luxury objects see Laurent Feller, “Évaluer les objets de luxe au Moyen Âge,” Anales de Historia del Arte 24 (2014); see also the collected essays of the volume Expertise et valeur des choses au Moyen Âge. II. Savoirs, écritures, pratiques, ed. Laurent Feller and Ana Rodríguez (Madrid: Collection de la Casa de Velázquez, 2016), and in part. see Juan Vicente García Marsilla’s chapter, “Expertos de lo usado. Pellers, ferrovellers y corredors de coll en la Valencia medieval,” in Ibid; on evaluative practices among professional painters see also Étienne Anheim, “Expertise et construction de la valeur artistique (XIVe–XVe siècle),” Revue de synthèse 132 (2011). 31. Cohen and Cohen, “Postscript: Charismatic Things and Social Transaction in Renaissance Italy,” 480–481. 32. ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri Linaioli e Sarti, Deliberazioni e Statutaria, 13 & 14, respectively. 33. “nella nostra arte e universita quanto per tutta la nostra citta le dissensioni e disonesta che ogni di si fanno per larte in diversi modi et vie per garzoni et fattori de nostri artefici et sottoposti,” compiled on November 24, 1491, ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri Linaioli e Sarti, 7, f. 62v. 34. “qualunque persona di qualunque qualita sexo o natione o stato sia tenuto et debba observare in tutto e per tutto,” ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, Electio sensalium regatteriorum (13 agosto 1480), f. 51v. 35. “giurare fare tali stime bene et diligentemente et iustamente et sieno tenuti stimare cosa per cosa et capo per capo et quelle stime infra tre di camerario

128  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility di detta arte [comunicare] senza alcuna pena,” ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (25 gennaio 1470), f. 42r. 36. Statuti dei Rigattieri (1318), LX, Quod nullus vendat per modum baraccoli vel conii, 79–80; Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1324), 130; Statuti dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (1340), 219. 37. On this see Carlo M. Travaglini, “Credito e mercato finanziario a Roma, secc. 17–19,” Roma Moderna e Contemporanea 1, 2 (1993). 38. ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (25 gennaio 1470), f. 41r. 39. “sieno obligati pagare ogni anno alarte £10 per tali stime che faranno et per loro paghamento sintendino liberi et absoluti da dette lire 10 et quelle sintendino essere per loro premio et non possino per tali stime dimandare piu alcuna cosa,” ASF, Ibid., f. 42v. 40. Guido Guerzoni, “The Social World of Price-Formation: Prices and Consumption in Sixteenth-century Ferrara,” in The Material Renaissance, 88. 41. One should not believe that public authorities exerted an absolute control on the market. First, heavy public intervention was not a permanent feature of those societies. In general, control was exerted when competition subsided or provisions were in short supply, with particular attention to the goods essential for daily life. Free trade and free prices were otherwise considered compatible with the pursuit of the common good. This factor is less visible in documents because in periods of scarcity, instead of abundance, public authorities were more likely to intervene and to explicitly state the principles underlying their actions. 42. ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli e Sarti (7, 24 Novembre 1491), f. 64r. 43. ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, Deliberazioni e Statutaria 14, f. 242v. 44. The other things estimated together with the mattress (for a total of £304) were “a picture with four locks and a key and a desk to write with a box, sixteen pieces of old boards, of different kinds, two key storers, two damaged baskets, three damaged desks, a coffer, a pair of shears, a small sachet, a blade, a cane, a measurer, a weighing scale, a Roman measurer, a black cloth to cover the door entrance, a damaged box, other iron tools, a pair of pans, two sad little boxes, two poles, a broken window frame, a mousetrap, a rattle, an old half wooden door, a wooden shovel, a showcase, a bag for the bread, a warping machine, a carder bench, a pair of scissors, a fork, two desks with cloths around, a small little box for embroidery that contained forty spools of threads, a pair of men’s slippers, a sad fishing net, pieces of pillowcases, two sachets with carvings” (“una mostra a quatuor ferrami et una chiave et uno descho da scrivere colla cassecta, sedici pezi dasse vechie de piu ragioni, due chiavatoi conficti con dete chose, due panieri tristi, tre descheti tristi, una chaseta da danari, uno paio di cisoie, uno sacchellino, una lama, una canna, uno passetto una bilancia a stadera, uno romano di ferro, una vela nera da uscio, una cassaccia, altri ferrami, uno paio di teglie, due casette [sic] triste, due stanghe, uno telaio rotto da finestra, una trappola da topi, uno strectoio, mezo uscio vechio, uno [im]buto di legno, una pala di legno, uno letuccio da mostra, una sachola da pane, uno orditoio, una panchetta da scardassiere, uno paio di forbici, uno forcheto, due deschi con panni intorno, una chasetina trista dericomi cioe quaranta rocheti, uno paio di pianelle da huomo, uno tramaglio tristo, piu pezi di federa, due sacheti con intagli”), ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, Deliberazioni e Statutaria 13, f. 64r. 45. ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli e Sarti, Deliberazioni e Statutaria dei Consoli 14, f. 230r. 46. As the name implies, Via Pisana was the ancient road that led to Pisa. Outside the circle of outer walls, it would wind through pastures, fields, and small villages.

Credit, Concurrent Activities, and Appraisal 129 7. See the Glossary. 4 48. ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, Deliberazioni e Statutaria 13, f. 73v. 49. For maniche a ghiozzi, see the Glossary. As for the trimmings, here probably made by sucklings (lattizi), they are reported in a novel by Franco Sacchetti, where a woman—who has been told by Messer Amerigo and his notary that she cannot wear ermines because they are prohibited by law for someone of her own status—answers, knowing she is circumventing the law, that what she wears are not ermines but lattizi and when the notary asks what the lattizi are she answers that they are just animals, and therefore she has not broken any law, see Sacchetti, Il Trecentonovelle, novel 137, 367. 50. ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, Deliberazioni e Statutaria 13, f. 84v. 51. See the Glossary. 52. ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, Deliberazioni e Statutaria 13, f. 99r. 53. ASF, Ibid., f. 153v. 54. The transaction was recorded on August 6, 1449, ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, Deliberazioni e Statutaria 13, f. 135r. 55. These transactions were recorded between November 7, 1447, and November 5, 1451, ASF, Ibid., fs. 45v, 170v, 210r. 56. Collier Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence, 133–135. 57. Ibid., 135–144. 58. “una giornea bianca di panno perpignano, otto asciugatoi, un fazzoletto, una cintola di broccato pagonazzo guarnita d’argento del peso di otto once e un vezzo di perle,” ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, Deliberazioni e Statutaria 14, f. 147v. 59. Christiane Klapisch Zuber, “Le ‘zane’ della sposa: La fiorentina e il suo corredo nel Rinascimento,” Memoria: Rivista di storia delle donne 11–12 (1984), 15. 60. ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, Deliberazioni e Statutaria 13, f. 22v. 61. See the Glossary. 62. On floradati cloths see the Glossary and also Levi Pisetzky, Storia del costume in Italia, 168; Roberta Orsi Landini, Il lusso proibito in Tessuto e ricchezza a Firenze nel Trecento. Lana, seta, pittura, ed. Cecilie Hollberg (Florence: Giunti Editore, 2017), 226–230. 63. ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, Deliberazioni e Statutaria 14, f. 95v. 64. On clamidi see the Glossary. 65. ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, Deliberazioni e Statutaria 14, f. 113r. 66. On frenelli see the Glossary. 67. a “braid of tiny pearls,” ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, Deliberazioni e Statutaria 14, f. 165v. 68. ASF, Ibid., f. 266r.

5 Land Ownership, Investments, and Profits

1. Rents and Investments in Commercial Activities How did the rigattieri invest? Variously, but in the large cautiously, in real estate, both urban and rural. In this chapter we will analyse the multifaceted investment strategies of our second-hand dealers. We will show how diversification in their use of capital often expressed itself by favouring a type of investment linked to the traditional possession of the safe haven par excellence, urban properties and, above all, land, even if there was no lack of credit or financial speculation. We can point out, by way of example, how they often aimed for a more varied range of ownership of commercial premises, as we will see shortly. Second-hand dealers also entered into partnerships with significant investments in other productive sectors, although to a lesser extent. We have analysed, for example, the case of Ghirigoro di Iacopo Cardinali and of his peculiar way of obtaining an additional income. Cardinali went to live in the Kingdom of Apulia, in the service of the Prince of Salerno, who had granted him the collection of taxes in Naples. Along with this secondary activity, Ghirigoro was also engaged in a commercial enterprise with an unspecified merchant from Salerno. Ghirigoro had joined a compagnia, whose identity he did not specify to the Catasto. However, it seems clear that the agreement between the two saw Ghirigoro provide the capital while his business partner furnished the merchandise. The Florentine, in return, exploited the clientele and the socio-professional network of the Salernitan merchant with whom he had decided to operate.1 Apart from the considerable trading capacity of the company, as evidenced by the brief description of the merchandise sold therein (“fine and silver Venetian, Genoese, and Catalan cloth”), this ‘endogamy’ in business is interesting, as it seemingly privileged associations with exponents, if not of one’s own guild, at least of guilds whose members sold products similar to those dealt with by one’s own, in this case the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli. Ghirigoro’s business partner was likely a member of some merchants’ guild, while Ghirigoro belonged to the Rigattieri’s: they sold merchandise different not necessarily in nature but rather in status,

Land Ownership, Investments, and Profits 131 Ghirigoro generally selling old and used, while the other new clothing; the condition of the clothes may have differed but they both sold the same commodity. The second-hand trade was also one of the preferential forms of investment of other second-hand sellers. We see this for instance with the story of the rigattiere Bartolomeo di ser Michele d’Antonio, owner of a shop that he rented out to a stracciaiolo, a rag-seller in Via del Fico, in the district of Santa Croce, that made £60 a year.2 Or with Bartolomeo di Simone, who also seems to have had a lively entrepreneurial spirit, who contributed his capital of 200 florins to the supply of merchandise sold by the company of two other rigattieri, Leonardo and Michele di Guido Lottini.3 Or with Niccolò di Giovanni Lapi, who rented the entratura of a shop in the popolo of San Tommaso that he owned, pro non divisa, with Galeazzo Borromei, “per un traffico di regatteria.”4 However, endowed with enterprising spirit and financial means, some of these second-hand dealers found excellent conditions for the growth of capital not only in privileged investments in the sector of the regatteria but also in other mercantile sectors. This happened with the sale of armour, for example, sold by Neri di Nuto, who rented his shop (next to the church of Santa Maria in Campidoglio, then facing the small homonymous square, giving into Via dei Rigattieri, today Via dei Brunelleschi) to Neri di Fioravanti and Giovanni D’Agnolo armaioli for f4.5 a year;5 or in the resale of cloths and linen, like Bantacchino di Giovanni Zane;6 or in moneylending (a flourishing banco di prestito was opened by Zanobi di Giunta and his son Nofri, both rigattieri in the old market, in the quarter of Santa Maria Novella).7 There was a mix of investments, although we should not assume that these were carried out as ‘investment strategies,’ at least not by most of those who invested. In addition, there was no pattern in the way the rigattieri poured money into a different activity from their own to gain supplementary income; most likely they decided to invest in sectors they perceived as remunerative or that generated good income. Hence, the activity preferred and chosen for their investment could be of different types and position on the social and professional scale. It would not be totally out of place to say that at times the choice of investment was random.

2. Urban Real Estate Another form of investment was the acquisition of urban and extraurban real estate. Here we return to the investment strategies centred on the idea that the possession of immovable assets was perhaps the most secure for financial gains. In the first Catasto, the tax declarations listing all residencies in the city always identified the street and neighbours of the houses where one resided. These dwellings were exempted, as were household goods and all personal objects, from the payment of any tax.

132  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility The buildings and houses in the countryside likewise were also exempt if the houses were considered farmhouses, or if they were used by the owners as a residence. However, additional real estate owned by rigattieri (that is, houses they owned but in which they did not live) were not exempted from taxes. Their annuities, capitalised at 7%per year, showed an estimate ​​based of course on factors such as the presence of mezzanines, wells, gardens, and so on, features that increased the value of the property.8 The data at our disposal inform us clearly about the properties owned by rigattieri inside and outside the walls. Obviously, we keep distinct from these properties all buildings located in the countryside and forming an integral part of rural estates. From the description of all the properties held by our rigattieri, we come to know the value of some of their investment in real property in 1427. For example, the total assets of Matteo di Piero di Giovanni were reckoned at over 185 florins in that year. They represented a house located in the alley (chiasso) degli Ammannati in the district of Santa Maria Novella, which was rented by Lorenzo di Zanobi, a Milanese citizen, who paid the rent of £13 a month.9 A widow, Monna Antonia, the wife of the late rigattiere Pagolo di Giovanni, declared in 1480 that she owned a house in the district of Santa Maria Novella, which was worth little more than f128, one half of which she held “as her dwelling,” while the other half was given out for rent for £36 a year;10 Antonio di Piero del Mangano owned three houses: one in the alley of the Velluti, where he lived with his family and household goods; then a small house situated at the side of the first house, estimated at £50; and finally another small house in the chiasso dei preti next to the church of San Felice in Piazza, which was worth a little more than seventy-eight lire, but which gave him £26 in rent each year, with an annual staggering yield of approximately 33%.11 Quite often it could happen, precisely because of the poverty of the materials used for the construction of poor houses, that the owners had to carry out maintenance work. Although it remains to be seen how the costs were divided between labour, materials, and transport (bear in mind that it is not possible to know exact data, since the items are almost never separable), it is clear that these expenses aimed at the preservation and maintenance of real estate. Improvements were also undertaken, as owners clearly realised that to invest in an asset to improve its appearance and functionality would increase its value in the event of rent or sale. As happened with Mariotto di Cristofano, owner of a one-storey house (“senza palchi”) in Costa San Giorgio (on the road that still leads to Forte Belvedere), near the church of San Leonardo in Arcetri, who spent sixty florins to get the property “set up” because “[it had] fallen,” meaning probably that it was damaged and needed repairing.12 The low estimates on these properties may be explained by their being poor houses, properties that a person willing to make a ‘prudent’ but

Land Ownership, Investments, and Profits 133 not too high investment could afford to buy. But what led our rigattieri to purchase properties that were worth little and returned low rents? Apart from the obvious lack of capital of many rigattieri, we have little evidence to answer this question. What we do know lets us argue that it was not the desire for particularly productive investments that motivated the purchase of houses in the city. The rate of return on rental income was almost always significantly below that for their mercantile income or even below the yield from limited agricultural production on lands owned outside the city or in the countryside. Instead, the motivation for repeated real estate investments must have been the desire of our rigattieri to acquire social prestige by expanding their property and perhaps also to buffer the risks inherent in their volatile commercial trading. While rigattieri did make modest investments in urban real estate, they put very little money into rural property. On the contrary, the wealthier city property owners, those who owned many, or larger, properties made massive investments in country holdings. It could be we find so many rigattieri owning city buildings simply because, for these owners, their properties were the houses where they actually lived and on which they would not have to pay taxes. In fact, like the shop in which one works, the house in which one lives was for many modest owners likely their primary possession and the only one they could afford to buy if they managed to have some savings set aside. In 1427 most of the real estate investments of rigattieri were concentrated in the area of San Lorenzo, between Campo Corbolini, Via Guelfa, and Via San Barnaba (see Figure 3.1). The area was bounded between the borgo of Campo Corbolini, Via Panicale (the current Via Guelfa), and the street of San Barnaba, a very populous area, located near the old market and incorporated in the Medici quarter, San Lorenzo. Here the houses flowed into the ghetto adjacent to the market, and one must imagine a remarkable promiscuity of men, goods, and animals in the area’s streets and squares. In this zone in the distant Dugento, the Corbolini had established their residence. They were an ancient family that had its houses in the square, today called Piazza Madonna degli Aldobrandini, where Matteo di Piero di Giovanni, Marco di Zanobi di Cenni, and Giovanni di Gianino also owned houses or portions of them.13 Not far from the church of San Barnaba (near the intersection with Via di San Gallo, a street that daily brought men and goods from the countryside to Florence through the city gate) was located the Compagnia del Bigallo, built to celebrate the victory of the Florentine Guelphs in the battle of Campaldino in 1289. Here Pagolo di Luca had invested in the purchase of some small “case e casette,” and on another modest property not far away, in Via Guelfa.14 Unfortunately, the land registry declarations for 1480, unlike those available for 1427, offer little data about the locations of the real estate investments of rigattieri. One thing, however, immediately catches the eye,

134  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility that San Lorenzo was no longer the main area for real estate investment and or location of the many and small houses owned by our rigattieri, for example Francesco di Giovanni’s, Zanobi di Lorenzo di Tommaso’s, and Andrea di Lorenzo d’Andrea’s.15 Their activities, and consequent forms of investment, would seem to have moved farther north along the axis that runs from the central market through the current Corso and Borgo Albizi, up to the current Arco di San Pierino, once the corner of the ancient walls of 1173–1175, and where the church of San Pier Maggiore was erected, and later demolished in the eighteenth century, because it was considered unsafe. Here we have further evidence that, towards the end of the fifteenth century, the exclusion of less visible and financially skilled sellers of used clothing from the city centre resulted not only in professional displacement, but also in a physical ‘removal’ of private investments from the centre, with a greater concentration in increasingly peripheral areas.

3. Profits From Other Forms of Investments 3.1. Investments in the Private Sector: The Credit System of the Rigattieri The practice of credit in its various forms appears as one of the rigattieri’s sectors of investment, even if not the favourite (which, as I  will show, was instead agricultural real estate). However, they showed a lively entrepreneurial spirit by implementing a wide speculative diversification, particularly evident among the most dynamic and active operators. The fundamental supporting role of credit for the economy, in its dual form of credit for economic enterprise and for consumption, has been highlighted by many scholars.16 Several rigattieri invested a considerable part of the income derived from their business performance in credit-related activities. Once again, the Catasto of 1427 comes to our aid, with verifiable data on the credit activity carried out by rigattieri. One of the main forms of lending was, of course, commercial credit, granted by a small number of rigattieri who managed the market for second-hand clothes and objects. In the absence of much evidence of the motives for using a loan, it is hard to gauge which credits can be defined as ‘productive,’ that is, aimed at supporting productive activity, and which cannot. However, among those soliciting such credit, there were dealers in used clothing, such as those rigattieri (whose names we do not know) who received a loan of forty florins from Filippo di Iacopo called ‘Sanpicio,’ a secondhand dealer located in the banner of the Leon d’Oro in the district of San Giovanni.17 Or, like the brothers Antonio and Tommaso di Niccolò, also rigattieri, who asked Geri di Michele rigattiere at San Iacopo sopr’Arno, in the district of Santo Spirito, for the sum of f21 £1 s5.18 In these cases, credit was likely granted in order to cope with cash shortages. Faced

Land Ownership, Investments, and Profits 135 with lack of money and with the need to furnish the shop or to pay, more generally, say, the expenses of the Arte, debtors and creditors might sometimes switch places, since a lender in turn might himself ask for a loan.19 Thus, men who had both many debts and many credits appear often in the Catasto. In fact, the rigattiere’s tendency to extend credit certainly reflected his hope to avail himself of the benefits of having (rather than giving) mutual aid in various situations, from people who were also part of his business network. The presence of a web of debts of different sizes reveals complex personal and social relationships as well as credit networks. There was another type of credit, the so-called credito al consumo (commercial credit), which was used very often, and in many directions, for the purchase of clothing and used items. Was credit already lodged in a vendor-client connection, or did the granting of credit itself initiate a long-term relationship between rigattieri and their clients? Did, for example, regular acquaintances or regular customers receive more ‘easy credit’ because they were better known, or simply because the seller wished to maintain a close bond with them? This practice would have been particularly useful in the presence of important and wealthy customers (this borrowing would prove especially interesting if one wanted to study patronage). Let us now try to decode some records from the tax rolls. For example, consider the eighty-seven florins of credit granted by the rigattiere Dino di Lapo Dini (who worked in Florence but was a resident of Pisa) to Cosimo and Lorenzo di Giovanni de’ Medici, and the other 300 florins granted to 124 different debtors, among whom, as we imagine, there must have been other prominent members of the Florentine elite.20 Here the Catasto is precious, since it shows us how this type of commercial or consumer credit (we do not know exactly) was clearly distinguished from other kinds. For example, Giovanni di Lapo (a customer) declared debts “for the shop,” that is for his purchases of goods in the shop of a rigattiere, amounting to just over sixteen florins.21 Similarly, Leonardo di Michele Bettini (who kept a rigattiere shop with his father Michele) granted a loan (to a non-specified customer) for the purchase of goods to a total of forty-four florins and seventeen soldi;22 the same amount of consumer credit granted by Tommaso di Pagolo.23 There were rigattieri, like Lorenzo di Bartolomeo d’Orlandino and nephews, but above all Niccolò di Iacopo, who opened lines of credit with very high figures: florins 518 £2 s2 d4 the first,24 and above 775 florins the second.25 Here the high amount of credit granted for purchases probably matched the high value of the used garments put up for sale by Lorenzo and Niccolò and the presence of wealthy people in their shops. But it could also be that the two trades simply had an excellent turnover. In fact, the universe of those who benefited from this type of loan seems to have been vast and varied. There were two kinds of consumer credit: for items purchased in the shop, and for consumption of other products, thanks to mutual

136  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility knowledge, friendship, neighbourly relations, work, or kinship. Clearly the loans, especially when granted without a pledge, were made to persons considered solvent or who could have someone vouchsafe on their behalf. There are, of course, cases of large sums paid to well-off Florentines, for example a member of the Del Nero family, wealthy and powerful Florentine rigattieri (of whom I will speak in the last chapter) who owed Michele di Simone, resident in Santa Maria Novella in the gonfalone del Leon Rosso, f253 £ 3 s15.26 Or Giovanni Carradori (another member of an important family of rigattieri who will be discussed later) debtor for 278 florins, as appears on a note written on May 8, 1427, to Giovanni Conbolano.27 Even important religious institutions were debtors, such as the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. The hospital owed fifty florins to the aforementioned Bartolo di Paolo Bartoli.28 Even when these private loans amounted to just a few florins, they were still higher than most loans disbursed at pawnshops. We also have some information on the so-called pure loans, small sums usually guaranteed by pawns, destined to ease sudden daily needs. These small loans solved a temporary liquidity problem (personal or professional), or they allowed a purchase. The availability of liquid capital therefore placed the rigattieri in a position, even if not in competition with other operators in issuing consumer loans, to satisfy the needs of individuals. For example, the notary Giovanni di Bonamati owed the rigattiere Pagolo di Luca £17, and Francesco di Bernardo also owed him an even smaller amount (£4).29 The issue of loans to meet temporary needs or to finance small purchases is evident from the names found in the debtors’ lists of the various rigattieri. These individuals were a clientele, mostly persons of low social status. For example, small artisan Giuliano di Guglielmo, comb maker (pettinaio), obtained from Pagolo di Luca a loan of just over £2, because his precarious economic situation left him no room for making purchases in the market.30 In fact, those on the lowest step of the economic ladder were most likely to pawn an object at a second-hand dealer’s in exchange for a small loan. This was one way to gain a lira or two. Moreover, that some rigattieri offered small loans against pledges is confirmed by their statutes, where, on public holidays and days of the Arte festivities, they could neither accept nor give back pawns.31 The wide use of consumer credit is clearly linked to the diffusion of deferred payments, due to the rigattieri’s need to win and maintain ties with indigent clients. This practice raises questions about the quality of trust relationships between sellers and their customers. The information exchanged between both parties during a business transaction of any type was crucial. Generally speaking, the greater the regard in which a customer was held, the more easily he could establish a good business relationship. I have shown this dynamic in the case of Taddeo di Chello of Prato and his clientele of women, and individuals of medium-low socioprofessional station in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.32

Land Ownership, Investments, and Profits 137 The problem of credit is inextricably linked to that of credit recovery. It does not seem that rigattieri always managed to recover all their credits. There are references to loans never returned or feared lost. Indeed, as the Catasto documents reveal, several sellers thought they had bad debts. These ranged from the thirty-seven florins and ten soldi owed by as many as 133 different individuals to Bartolo di Paolo Bartoli, who called them half lost (“mezzo perduti”)33 to the 511 florins £1 s16 from ninety-three different debtors (but now lost), due to Niccolò di Iacopo.34 Or the 299 florins due to Tommaso di Bartolo Boni35 and the large sum of 1,200 florins that Nero di Filippo Del Nero declared to the Catasto officers in charge of calculating his tax rate. He recommended himself to them in prayers (“in preghiere”), asking them to go easy on him, for he deemed the credits now lost forever.36 An interesting question to pursue would be the rigattieri’s collection rate and see its range, but unfortunately the sources do not aid such an investigation. Finally, debts and credits could be transmitted as inheritances via two situations. Sometimes the new debtors became the heirs of the old debtor, now deceased. Thus we see the heir of Berto Marmiglioni become a debtor to the second-hand dealer Simone Del Nero, who in turn beseeched the Catasto officers to have good consideration of him and so to spare him the taxes on this credit, since he reckoned it lost forever.37 At other times, the rigattieri became heirs of creditors, in turn new creditors, as did Bartolo di Paolo Bartoli, who lived in the San Giovanni district in the gonfalone del Drago. He was heir to sixty florins of credit loaned to one Monna Tessa.38 Or Francesco, Bartolomeo, and Bandino, brothers and sons of Romolo di Bandino, also a rigattiere, from whom they had inherited, besides their profession and probably also their clientele, an imposing f2198 £2 s6 d5 of credits. Or Niccolò di Donato, whose father had left him 292 florins of credit.39 Sometimes, of course, credits were also inherited by widows at the deaths of their rigattieri husbands. Monna Caterina of Antonio di Chello, widow of the second-hand dealer Francesco di Romanello, received in inheritance some eighty florins of credits.40 Monna Giuliana, who lived in Santo Spirito and was the widow of Francesco di Iacopo, inherited f153 s19 d8 of credit.41 Monna Piera, a resident of the district of San Giovanni and widow of Iacopo Sogliani, was instead credited by the aforementioned Pagolo di Luca for payments, evidently in arrears, for the rent of “a place” (f7 s11). The credits that her husband boasted against another, Antonio di Matteo, allowed her to live in a house owned by this Antonio without having to pay the rent.42 3.2. Investments in the Public Sector: Monte Comune and Monte Delle Doti A brief introduction is needed for understanding investments in the public credit sector and what the Monte was. The consolidation of the Florentine public debt, formalised with the laws establishing and regulating

138  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility the Monte in 1345, started the transformation of the so-called prestanze, or forced loans imposed on the wealth of citizens, into non-redeemable credits on which the commune paid annual interest. This state of affairs inaugurated a secondary stock market, concentrating public debt, soon after the establishment of the Monte, in the hands of a circle of citizencreditors of the commune. If Monte titles were originally descendants of tax contributions and not real voluntary investments, nevertheless their market offered opportunities to those who could master the complicated mechanisms of finance. Until the reform of 1446, the Monte comune absorbed most of the public debt. The original interest of 5%, then reduced to 3.3% in August 1392 for three years, had settled at the beginning of the fifteenth century at 3.75% (5% with a restraint on the fourth part of the interests of the Monte (the “ritenzione del quarto”), generally applied to the Monte comune, or to the “monte dei prestanzoni dell’otto per cento,” and to the Monte di Pisa), and was further reduced to 3.375% in 1444 and to 3.25% in 1471.43 Every time a citizen paid a forced loan, depending on whether he paid it “to lose it” (“a perdere”) or “to get it back” (“a riavere”) within or after the deadline set by the law for payment, the payer held a proportional packet of securities, which was registered in the Monte’s books. Starting from a certain date, always precisely foreseen by the law establishing the gravezza, these titles “went to Monte,” in other words began to accrue interest. The so-called paghe, quarterly instalments, respectively called, according to the Florentine calendar style, “the wages of May, September and January” (“le paghe di maggio, di settembre, e di gennaio”), were the interests on the public debt, which from that moment began to be paid periodically to the owners of the securities. The Monte’s securities, with the Monte’s paghe that were not yet disbursed, would then be declared in the subsequent tax report, according to an estimate more or less corresponding to their market value. While the Monte titles had a value roughly corresponding to 33.5% of the sum initially paid, other loans, the so-called accatti, whose repayment was much more frequent, received a higher estimate, corresponding to about 80% of the sum disbursed, provided that these securities had not been used by the creditor in the meantime for transactions. They could in fact be sold, or put to pay, for example, other gravezze, or used, after the establishment of the Monte delle Doti in February 1425, to constitute gifts on that Monte. As well as being sold, they could also be bought for pure investment or to obtain advantages in particular transactions where they could be used instead of cash. Moreover, these securities for a long time readily substituted for cash in a society where cash was scarce.44 Rigattieri intervened in the flow of capital that passed through the Monte. The matter was complex. To make sense of it, for each of the rigattieri, we would need to know the initial profit expectation (also depending on the economic situation and on decisions taken within the

Land Ownership, Investments, and Profits 139 Councils) to monitor the actual payment of interest over the years and to evaluate alternative investments in the private sector (as we have done, even if not exhaustively, for the small credit sector granted mainly for ‘consumption’). Only citizens of the Republic had access to these forced loans. The legal framework for this type of investment came with the granting of citizenship: in fact, sometimes prominent individuals received the title of “cives ex privilegio” in recognition of a special friendship with the Republic. These citizens were often exempted for a certain period from taxes, and they could buy a certain sum from the administration of the Monte, which might supply them with a not negligible annuity. However, foreigners could not participate to the secondary market of public debt, very flourishing in fifteenth-century Florence, but only to the main one. Thus, in giving the green light to the “cives ex privilegio,” the Republic established the maximum amount of Monte credits that the buyer could buy, indicating the money paid to the Monte offices and the nominal value the securities acquired, as well as a series of variable clauses. The mechanism that united the interests of the investor and those of Florence was never separated by administrative and political considerations. Lorenzo Tanzini outlines these conditions in his work, on investments on the Monte comune by foreigners wishing to play a leading role, or in this sense, already possessing a substantial role in the Florentine Republic.45 Purchases of Monte titles by our rigattieri were of several kinds. The first involved the transfer of credits already in place, for relations with third parties when rigattieri received Monte titles as an inheritance, or as payments of debts they held. The second type protected the deposits, which were moderately fruitful, of people of a certain importance, almost ‘friends’ of the Republic (the members of the families of richer and more prominent rigattieri), such as Nero di Filippo Del Nero, who obtained interest on the Monte comune, with various interests accrued at 45% and 50%, equivalent to a total of f328 £4 s1 d4. Finally, the last type envisaged real investments by large-scale operators but through the payment of small amounts. These conditions left many strategic options for creditors, who by a logic of risk-profits could hope to achieve a reasonable yield in the medium and long term. The logic of considerable profit behind credit investment in the public debt was short-lived. When the regularity of the payment of the paghe di Monte was interrupted, the credits on the Monte often ceased to be easy money but remained a prudent investment, with weak yield. In the fifteenth century, the market for the transfer of securities, pumped up in an inflationary manner, would have been an investment strategy neither cheaper nor more profitable than others.46 It is in this phase that we have to situate the investments in the Monte comune of some of our rigattieri, who thus placed their money in an institution that by this time did not

140  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility yield profits any more substantial than other investments in the private sector. The reason that led them to invest still in this sector is then to be understood as a strategy of diversification. But let us see in detail the concentration of shares of the public debt in the hands of our second-hand dealers. If we look at the three categories of investors in the public debt mentioned above, we have to discuss first those who inherited credits on the public Monte. This group includes Matteo di Piero di Giovanni, who received a legacy from his father for f16 di paghe on the Monte comune for a payment of f31 s16 d11, made by the parent a few years before in 1427. Monna Margherita, a widow and the daughter of the late rigattiere Damiano di Giovanni di Dono, who had invested in the Monte de’ (di) 5 interi (established in 1424, which made 5% without any ritenzione) f247 and a half,47 inherited interest amounting to f123 s15. Monna Giuliana, also a widow of a deceased rigattiere, Francesco di Iacopo, declared to the Catasto officers, among other possessions, that she had inherited from Francesco the accrued paghe del Monte di Pisa (this Monte went back to the loans imposed by the conquest of Pisa in 1406, and yielded a net interest of 6%, 8% with the “ritenzione di un quarto”) with a variable interest between 12% and 23%, and therefore collected interests for the sum of f228 £8 s4, on what her husband had previously paid.48 The second group of public investors includes citizens who invested considerable sums in the Monte (probably with a view to their inclusion in the financial policies of the Republic). For example, Taddeo di Cristofano di Piero, Florentine rigattiere who lived in the district of Santa Maria Novella in the gonfalone del Leon Bianco, was heavily invested: from his father he had inherited as many as 3070 florins and s15 in the Monte comune, which gave him paghe amounting to f1535 s8. To this he added the investment of more money (although it is not clear whether this was a forced loan and thus a non-repayable tax), which resulted in little accrued interest on the public debt, corresponding to £3 s3. He also had other paghe, on which the quarto was withheld. Finally, he collected f13 s17 against a loan of £92 s6, and further f69 s4 against another loan of £92 s6. The paghe paid were marked according to the five-year period in which the deduction had taken place, and according to the retained quotas. Their market value therefore depended on the date scheduled for their repayment. We read in fact in the words of Taddeo di Cristofano: “And I must have for the paghe di Pisa [held by [14]15 to [14]19, f15”; “I must have for additions, f2 s13”; “I must have for the f37 s10 of [paghe] incurred [for the Monte] of Pisa from [14]19 to [14]23, f5 s13”; “and in addition I ought to have for f9 s13 d6 [of paghe that] I have sustained from [14]15 to [14]16, f9 s13.” He had also matured f263 on the Monte di Pisa, at an interest of 70%, while on the Monte de’ prestanzoni (which yielded 6% net, 8% with “ritenzione del quarto”), he had matured, at 60%, f254, and at 70%, another f283 s14.49 Other rigattieri had also invested in the Monte de’ prestanzoni, including wealthy and influential men like

Land Ownership, Investments, and Profits 141 Simone Del Nero, who had paid the sum of f410 £3 s5, which, at 70%, would have given him f287 in interest payments.50 Some rigattieri invested small sums in the public debt. These were Lorenzo di Bartolomeo d’Orlandino, who had accrued interest for 60% (£12) on the money paid in the Monte di Pisa;51 Giovanni di Iacopo di Francesco and Niccolò di Iacopo rigattiere, who had both, respectively, paid the sum of f25 on the Monte comune. They received 50% of interest on the money paid (f12 s10 each).52 A little more was paid out to Tommaso di Bartolo Boni: £66 which at 50% would have given him £33.53 Giovanni di Tuccio had invested a greater share of his savings: f150 at 50% of interest, while he began to collect the paghe of other sums paid in more securities between 20% and 100%, corresponding to f10 s39.54 Obviously, the amount of interest matured on a bond increased with the amount of money rigattieri invested in Monte credits: the higher the sum paid in, the higher was the profit they could expect to achieve. Clearly, to know the interests accrued is already a good indicator of a lesser or major financial ability. There were also rigattieri who, like Leonardo di Michele Bettini, together with his father Michele, had riskily invested in the Monte comune their mother’s and wife’s dowry, respectively.55 The two were thus owners of a share of f200, corresponding to an interest of 50% for the f400 of Monte comune in which they had invested. So we understand that this asset had two pieces, the nominal capital and the very much more tangible interest. But the capital also measured the future interest, a potential value. In fact, another Monte which offered a chance for investment was the Monte delle Doti, founded to favour the amassing of alms for girls and young people of Florence and its countryside and district. This latter Monte was founded to attract money into the coffers of the Treasury, but unlike the Monte comune with the additional intent to remove from circulation consolidated debt securities, which by this point were heavily inflated and devalued. In fact, inflation eroded the purchasing power of Monte credits. Put simply, the higher the rate of inflation, the higher the yields rose across the yield curve, as investors demanded higher yield to compensate for inflation risk, with the consequence that fewer and fewer of them were willing to invest in the secondary market of Monte credits. Over time, the rules that regulated investments in the Monte delle Doti underwent many changes.56 The Monte delle Doti was based on the difference between the nominal value of the titles of the Monte and their market value, which ensured that the sums deposited for the creation of dowries were transformed into titles of the Monte, at an interest of three, four, or five times higher than that collected by securities of equal nominal amount. Florentine fathers were required to pay a deposit with the officials of the Monte comune, consisting of 100 florins in cash for a term of seven and a half or fifteen years. One hundred florins left on deposit

142  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility for fifteen years would yield a dowry of 500 florins or, if deposited for seven and a half years, 250 florins. At the expiration of these periods, and only if the girl in whose name the deposit had been made had married and consummated her marriage, the Monte officials were to pay the dowry to her husband. If the girl died before the deposits expired (even if in the meantime she had married young and consummated her marriage), or if she never married, the deposit reverted to the commune. The aim of this legislation was twofold. On the one hand, it sought to attract numerous cash deposits with which to reduce the commune’s substantial inflated secondary market of Monte credits. Indeed, the legislation creating the fund stipulated that deposits were to be used to redeem the Monte comune credits. Furthermore, the promised nominal rate of return—at compound interest—on deposits left with the Monte was extremely high, compared to that of any other form of investment (and therefore very attractive), amounting to ca. 12.99%  per annum for the seven-and-ahalf-year term, ca. 11.33% for the fifteen-year term in 1425, and in 1433 rising to 20.96% for the seven-and-a-half-year term.57 The data at our disposal highlight the investments of some secondhand dealers in the Monte delle Doti. Bartolomeo di Iacopo di Bartolo, for example, lived in the district of Santa Maria Novella and ran a shop in the old market. Helping in his shop were the boy Giovanni di Gualberto and his son Piero, a twenty-seven-year-old. Another son, the twenty-year-old Jacopo, was learning the arte from the banker Davanzo di ser Francesco, and yet another son, Francesco, just seventeen, was cleric at the church of San Lorenzo. He also had a daughter, Francesca, sixteen, for whom he had paid the Monte delle Doti f470 in two instalments. Presumably, Bartolomeo had begun to pay the first part of this sum when Francesca was about seven years old and paid the remainder of the investment when she completed the fourteenth year of age, as parents often did.58 As known, investing in the Monte delle Doti was meant to prevent the impoverishment of the family by avoiding excessive dowries (in case there were several daughters to marry off) or excessive payments. For Bartolomeo, this meant the ability to endow his own daughter with substantial money, yielded by the sum initially paid and the interest accumulated, calculated over a period of approximately seven and a half years from the first payment. While the terms of seven and a half and fifteen years were stringent, neither a minimum nor a maximum deposit was fixed. After 1433, when investing in the dowry fund depositors risked very little; in contrast, the possible gain was very substantial. Monna Antonia, whom we have already met as the wife of the secondhand dealer Pagolo di Giovanni, became a widow in 1480, at the time of the land registry. Her son, Giovanlorenzo, aged sixteen, had been sent as an apprentice to the workshop of the linaiolo Benedetto Benvenuti, where he probably received food, but no salary. Monna Antonia also had a daughter, Leonarda, a twenty-five-year-old and not yet married,

Land Ownership, Investments, and Profits 143 since she was probably still waiting for the maturation of interest on the Monte delle Doti paid years ago by her father, before the latter’s death after 1470, at the time of the previous Catasto.59 In this second case, Monna Antonia was burdened by a situation less prosperous than that of Bartolomeo, who could afford to pay up front, although in two instalments, f470 for his daughter’s dowry. The fact that Leonarda was twenty-five and still unmarried could signify many things, among which that her dowry was not yet big enough. Perhaps the two women were still waiting for the sum initially disbursed by the girl’s father years before, to accrue more interest. We see a different situation with Filippo and Leonardo, sons and members of second-hand dealer companies founded by their father, Braccio di Filippo di Biagio, who had not yet begun to pay his due for their sisters, two twins just four years old, Mattea and Agnola.60 There was no payment yet, probably because the brothers still thought the little girls very young. Similarly, Francesco di Giovanni had not paid any money for his little daughter Sandra, just three.61 But there were also grown-up women like Manetta, the daughter of Bartolomeo di Ser Michele d’Antonio, thirty and still unmarried, since her father could not even pay a small amount of money on the Monte delle Doti to make her a dowry.62

4. The Genesis of the Rigattieri’s Ownership: Land and Poderi The tendency of wealthy citizens to invest in lands, to lock in gains from their domestic and international traffic, is well known. We have seen how, starting from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a conscious and enterprising group of people, the homines novi, coming from the countryside and directed towards the urban centre, injected massive ‘human capital’ into the ranks of the lower people and the rising middle class. Alongside this territorial mobility from the countryside towards the city, we also witness the opposite steady trend, across the years, of a more strictly individual character. Citizens bought land in the countryside and, like the merchant banker or even the wealthy small businessman, invested in vineyards, plots, and campi coltivati. In short, ever-increasing contacts between the countryside and the city led those who could afford it to acquire rural possessions. The phenomenon of citizen investment in land, from the early Dugento, assumed increasing importance and grew over the thirteenth century. Even the fourteenth century did not block but increased this trend, since this type of investment was more trusted than was investment in movable goods. This type of speculation also widened the range of those who made investments, encompassing in due time salaried workers and small artisans. However, if, for the well-to-do entrepreneurs, land investment was a way to diversify speculations, for those of a lower social position, it could represent a very conspicuous

144  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility strategy to invest in fruitful resources (think of the possibilities offered by self-consumption that the possession of a small plot of land allowed, as I have noted in the case of Piero di Francesco da Vicchio, discussed in my previous work).63 This type of investment could also ensure a certain stability, given the extremely volatile nature of wage work. Contemporary literature abounds with references to and reflections on the many advantages derived from a ‘possession’ in the countryside. From Pagolo Morelli to Giovanni Rucellai, from Benedetto Dei to Lapo Mazzei, down to Vespasiano da Bisticci and Leon Battista Alberti, authors praise the “possessioni in campagna.”64 The reasons that may have induced the rigattieri to choose particular areas as the best place for their land investments do not emerge from the readily available documents. However, some may have chosen to buy lands near their family’s place of origin, as the records of their holdings suggest. For example, Bartolomeo di Francesco di Neri from Grignano declared to the Catasto officers that he owned a house (where Pietro di Mino the sharecropper and his son Matteo lived) and another little house in a place called La Montanina located in the popolo of Santo Stefano, in Grignano.65 Was a desire to go back to his homeland behind his purchase of this house in Mugello? Similarly, Bartolomeo di ser Michele d’Antonio, originally from Chianti, bought a farm near the Abbey of Santa Maria in Montemuro, near today’s Radda on the Chianti hills,66 as did Niccolò di Marco di Filippo, originally from San Martino la Palma, who, although working in Florence, bought a farm of twenty staiora in the same area.67 Historically, most of Chianti has always been a bone of contention by medieval powers such as Arezzo, Florence, and Siena, for it was fertile in wines, extra-virgin olive oil, and agricultural products. Furthermore, the purchase of farms in certain areas was also catalysed by their easy, accessible location, healthy climate, and abundant water (conveniently exploited for the irrigation of land), and where agriculture could flourish. While all this appears in line with the principles of rationally invested resources, these purchased properties were in areas likely well known to the rigattieri who probably grew up there. Thus, on the one hand, there was the wish to go back or to retain a foot in one’s homeland after years spent away in the dominant city, trading used clothing; on the other hand, we see the search for nice and fertile lands in a wellknown landscape. The houses scattered on land owned by our second-hand dealers were in most cases poor buildings, those casine or casoline of little value and limited dimensions. They housed sharecroppers and workers of the lands and vineyards outside the city, such as the two “little houses” located on three pieces of land that Andrea di Neri owned in the popolo of San Piano, in the parish church of San Busano.68 Or like Berto di Marchionne, who, in the popolo of Sant’Antonio a Canne, in the piviere of San Giovanni in Val di Sieve owned a “worker’s cottage” placed behind a field,

Land Ownership, Investments, and Profits 145 with seven pieces of land, ploughed to produce olive oil and wine by Giovanni di Dino (to whom Berto had lent £100 and two oxen for a value of f18).69 The type of home on these properties depended wholly on the economic situation of its owners or occupants. Rare were the case da signore or the belle ville. However, alongside small houses there were scattered big ones, such as the one that Lorenzo di Bartolomeo d’Orlandino owned on his farm.70 Or like that of brothers Filippo and Leonardo (sons of Braccio di Filippo di Biagio rigattiere), who had such a house on the farm in Montughi, in the popolo of the Badia di Fiesole in a place called Capezzule, next to the worker’s little house built on the property.71 In fact, the house of the worker often sat near to the house of the signore, the city owner, a symbol of prestige, but also as a holiday and shelter home in which to live when the city became unhealthy or dangerous thanks to political or social turmoil. We can imagine the owner going to the villa regularly, or at least in the season for meting out the production, when the distribution of agricultural products took place, for example after threshing and harvesting. Big houses and farms often had a whole series of annexed outbuildings. Next to the real houses, the worker’s home and the gentleman’s, sometimes we find in the documents concerning our rigattieri mention of vaults, loggias, a portico, court, courtyard, furnace, or well, plus the wine canals, oil mill, barn, and pigsty, the “cottage to keep litter,” the “cottage to keep straw,” and finally the dovecote. Seldom were all these items present. Geography and economics determined these outbuildings, which cost serious money. Based on the documents, the oven and the well (the latter above all) seem to have been the prerogative of the more comfortable settlements. Where a well was impossible, the landlord or owner might build a cistern. However, the most modest countryside dwellings rarely featured either, and instead, much more frequently used springs, streams, or ponds. Among these outbuildings, dovecotes stood out. If still relatively rare in the first half of the fifteenth century, from then on the dovecote spread, an emblem of prosperity. It was not only the edible meat of pigeons, a widespread and widely appreciated dish, that made the dovecote a symbol of prosperity, but the fact that it yielded colombino, a much appreciated fertilizer, especially recommended for the care of grape vines. The dovecote, however, remained the prerogative of a privileged few, and its presence within the listed taxable assets was surely an index of the wealth of the owner rigattiere. It is possible, however, that even in the absence of a place such as the dovecote to receive pigeons, others resorted to holes situated in the walls of the house in order to breed these birds. The records on three rigattieri (Antonio di Tommaso, Buono di Bartolomeo, and Leonardo di Michele Bettini) show what a well-equipped holding might contain.72 Each had a casa da signore, all three houses included a dovecote, and Buono’s also had a vegetable garden. Leonardo’s

146  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility home, in addition to a vegetable garden, even had a walled courtyard, an oven to bake bread, a well, and a threshing floor. Even if the land registry sources do not tell the function or architecture of the courtyard, we know that it could be paved and can surmise its many uses. For example, such a space could keep small livestock, shelter poultry, and furnish storage for agricultural tools and abandoned gear. In the court, moreover, there may have been a well with a pulley and a bucket to pull up the water, as at Leonardo’s house. Another very useful outbuilding was the hut. A hut often stood near the house, but sometimes it was isolated in the fields. It was to accommodate manure, hay, and straw, but also tools and agricultural products if circumstances required. Sometimes the hut could also be used if needed to house cattle and could replace the barn, which was generally connected to the main house, next to the cellar, where the barrels and wines were kept. The home of Tommaso di Bartolo Boni was actually a stable, as reported by his statement to the Catasto officers. His property in a place near Querceto in Chianti, called Lucco in the popolo of San Martino, included a worker’s home equipped with a ‘stable’ for the shelter of the animals used to work the fields on the six pieces of land that he owned.73 4.1. Agricultural Pacts, Remuneration, and Crops Sharecropper farms had already begun to conquer a prominent place in the fifteenth-century Florentine landscape. As known, the mezzadria contract was a concession of land plots roughly sized to a family-run land enterprise and equipped with a farmhouse and agricultural infrastructure (stables, granaries, barns, cellars, ovens, wells, etc.). It was a short-term commercial lease, with rather detailed rules, most of them in writing, following an agreement stipulated between two juridically free contractors (one of whom possessed land in full ownership). These contractors would agree to divide in half the main agricultural and livestock products and would become partners (in various forms) as master and sharecropper, in order to meet operating expenses and to share the capital necessary for the rural company.74 For land granted in sharecropping, or rent with payments in kind, the value of the so-called dominical rent was calculated by the product. This rate could be variable. For example, grain prices decreased with the distance from Florence. Meanwhile, wine prices varied depending on the reputation of the production area.75 The stable presence of a farmer and his family in an isolated living unit was seen as a guarantee of efficiency and hard work, as commuting from a distant village would hamper production. The sharecropper house organized both family life and agricultural production. The household saw to basic necessities, such as baking bread, storing water, and salting meat, and carried out some stages of the harvest, which was then transmitted to the signore or sent to the city.

Land Ownership, Investments, and Profits 147 The mezzadria was not, however, the only form of contractual agreement: we find small landowners, or other figures intermediate between the peasant and the artisan, who cultivated with their own hands the vineyards, the vegetable gardens, and the lands particularly productive and close to Florence. In addition, the bigger plots in areas close to the city market sometimes preferred to rent out, instead of leasing mezzadria contracts (as to rent out one’s land yielded well out-earned sharecropping leases). Finally, owners themselves often tried to manage directly their land through the work of salaried workers who were members of their own familie, that is, their domestic servants. For example, those employed by the rigattiere Matteo di Piero di Giovanni, who, to work a vineyard and a fifteen staiora plot in the piviere di Settimo in the popolo of San Romolo, “impieg[ava] tutta casa.”76 Thus, the presence of a house on a farm was not always a secure sign that a mezzadria was in place. When, however, a house stood isolated in the fields, it was almost always there for sharecropping. For example, Lorenzo di Banco, Giovanni di Dino, Mariotto di Niccolò di Mariotto, Antonio di Maso, and Latino di Nanni di Latino all appear as sharecroppers entrusted with the management and care of the land, according to pacts that provided, from time to time, the rent of vehicles and animals such as oxen to work the fields. As to what was cultivated on the land owned by second-hand dealers, sources tell us little. We can, however, see how grain and wine made up the lion’s share of crops. Fifteenth-century society, still profoundly medieval, struggled with subsistence. The cultivation of cereals aimed to assure the population their basic staple food. Wheat’s progressive victory over minor cereals had already occurred in the early centuries of the Middle Ages. Although millet, spelt, and panic grass required less care and yielded better, they had less nutritional power. Therefore, their replacement with wheat signalled not only an improvement of techniques but also a higher standard of living. It is no coincidence that among the meagre lists of cereals that were found in cultivation on the farm units of our rigattieri, minor cereals appeared much less frequently than wheat. The cultivation of the olive tree is less documented. Indeed, no tools related to olive production are mentioned. This cultivation did not demand as much care as other crops, such as grape vines. Unlike wine production, olive cultivation was limited, even if, as we see in the fiscal declarations of our second-hand dealers, olive trees and their cultivation were present. The other crops often associated in a polyculture system with the olive were fodder, panic grass, beans (panic grass, beans, and young plants were sown in the spring), barley, sorghum, and, rarely, flax. We see this mix of crops on the farm of Lorenzo di Niccolò di Monte located in Campi, in the popolo of San Martino, on the road to Cafaggiolo, where stood one of the Medicean Villas.77 Or with the poderi owned by Simone Del Nero in San Michele in Chianti, by ​​today’s Cavriglia in San Pancrazio, in the locality called Le Corti and in another

148  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility area known as The rose garden where “lino grosso” was cultivated.78 In the various processing stages of linen, female labour predominated. Linen production was a complicated process. Mature flax was left to macerate in stagnant water, and then dried in the sun. Only then could the separation of the textile fibres from the stem take place. After beating and smoothing the fibres with appropriate tools, one combed out the last impurities so that the fibres were then ready to be wrapped and twisted on the spindle. The thread, wrapped in skeins, then was washed and was finally ready for loom weaving. While part of this linen production could be sold, some remained for family needs. The intense cultivation of these plots catches the eye at once. Uncultivated strips of land and woods were few and small. More often than not, the division of a plot into a portion cultivated with cereals and a portion planted with vines replaced the more promiscuous polyculture, where crops of various cereals (wheat, millet, panic, barley) and other crops such as beans all shared one field. On these lands, cereal farming must have been dominant, but the vine, coupled with cereals or standing alone, also covered much agricultural land. Among the crops, fruit trees appear rather sporadically in the agricultural investments of our second-hand dealers. It is true that almost all productive lands had small or tiny plots of trees that bore a large part of the family’s fruit resources and required particularly careful care. But it is difficult to distinguish what kind of fruit was grown, as the sources merely record the simple yield of ‘fruit,’ although sometimes the documents refer to “figs, walnuts, or chestnuts.” The references to firewood probably signify the results of pruning olive trees and vines, even if the need for wood was certainly not sufficiently satisfied this way. Income from the land that the rigattieri owned outside the city allowed them to cope with household expenses by selling a part of the product of these fields and farms. Net of purely economic considerations, it was still the land, perhaps even more than the buildings in the city, and the possibility of living on one’s own land that gave a certain prestige to our rigattieri. Rural property offered an air of noble self-sufficiency, to which even the man who came from the rag shop in the mercato vecchio often aspired, as the ultimate goal of his social ascent and a tangible sign of his ‘changing state.’ 4.2. The Animals and the Soccide Alongside agricultural production and the various forms of land leasing, naturally rigattieri had other traditional investments, such as livestock breeding. In that sector, some operators with a lively entrepreneurial spirit and liquid capital took up soccida contracts, supplying those with limited financial possibilities with animals for cultivation in exchange for payment of a certain quantity of wheat, probably so much for each

Land Ownership, Investments, and Profits 149 animal. Aside from renting animals to mezzadri and other workers on the land, the soccida contracts functioned as suppliers of supplementary income for second-hand dealers, a useful investment, strongly speculative but always at low risk.79 The soccida was a contract that established an agricultural enterprise of an associative nature, creating economic collaboration between the one who provided the livestock (the soccidante) and the one who had to raise it, the breeder or soccidario. This contract increased and exploited livestock, sharing the expenses and profits of animal husbandry and the products (milk, cheese, etc.) the livestock produced. There were three types of soccida. In the first, the simple soccida, the soccidante granted the livestock and the soccidario did the breeding. The livestock’s offspring, other products, and proportional expenses, as listed in the contract, were divided between them. Then there was the partial soccida, whereby the livestock was conferred to both contractors, while the soccidario saw to the breeding. Finally, there was the soccida with grazing rights, by which the soccidante provided the land for grazing and held the management of the company, while the soccidario put into the company the cattle and the necessary work and held the right to management. In his sermons, San Bernardino da Siena, commentator on the capitalist spirit of the merchant-entrepreneur and therefore on the new essence that animated and perfected the new legal and contractual forms of trade, discussed among other things soccide animali. In his Lenten sermons, immediately after the section dedicated to the theme De contractibus usurariis et de securitatibus mercantiarum ac de varietate multiplici cambiorum, sermon forty is entirely occupied by the various types of animal soccide. The preacher ponders cases of sheep and cattle and other animals given in soccida, as well as the soccide with animali grossi (“big animals”). He reviews the obligations of both the soccidante and the soccidari, including damages.80 As always, Bernardino’s observations about the economic and social reality of the time are very acute. His desire to morally clarify issues that affected everyday life pervades the sermon’s opening lines, gliding smoothly from the divine light to livestock contracts: In order to illuminate the darkness of our ignorance, therefore, in order not to fall into others, at the present time, let us walk in the light of him [of God] in matters of soccide contracts. Which is not one of the other contracts, it is an understanding of the soccide in various ways, [which] are mixed together.81 Rent contracts, most often for sharecropping, which we have discussed and which often appear next to the soccide, also take into consideration the animals that an owner could provide or that a tenant had to keep.82 Contrary to a purely modern vision that expects any farm to own its livestock, the fifteenth century was very different. Only those who had

150  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility the means and capital could afford animals. In fact “to have cattle, big and small, [was] a tangible sign of abundance,” and the possession of “an ox [meant] also fertility of the fields.”83 So the soccidanti among the second-hand dealers usually had the capital to invest in this profitable business. For the purchase of pigs, the owner shouldered two thirds of the purchase price, and for oxen, one third. The employment of many inhabitants of Florence as shepherds who looked after cattle owned by the city dwellers (in our case owned by rigattieri) proves that soccida contracts supplied Florence with food. Certainly, sharecropping had a decisive influence on the relationship between land and animals. Local breeding could help diversify the consumption of Florence, a city that ate large quantities of beef, pork, sheep, veal, lamb, goat, and cheese. The city had to set up markets to handle its imports.84 There was a real variety of rented species one might breed or raise (oxen and cows, mules and donkeys, castrated bulls, lambs and sheep, goats and pigs), but the distribution of livestock was very unequal, depending on the financial availability of the rigattiere. For example, Baldassarre di Falco, whom we have already met (whose trade was enough for him to live on, but obviously not enough to provide him and his family with substantial income), was conditioned by his limited wealth, which determined the number of animals he kept (three in all) but also in their variety (two goats and “a small mule”). The situation was different for Simone Del Nero. Small-sized grazing animals, where lambs, goats, and sheep had a prominent place, were among those held in soccida with larger holdings. There was a soccida that involved a flock of about forty head of sheep (between lambs and sheep), at one of the various farms he owned, in Colle San Pancrazio in the popolo of San Michele, in a place called The rose garden, which was worked by the sharecropper Maso d’Agostino and his son Giovanni. In addition to the flock, the two kept two oxen (estimated at eighteen florins), a donkey with a poltruccio (foal, estimated at four florins), “ten pigs,” and two sows with six piglets of an estimate of seventeen florins. In another case, Simone even kept a flock of fifty sheep, at a farm located in Cafaggiolo, worked by the sharecropper Lorenzo di Piero and his son Nardo. At this farm, in addition to the usual pair of oxen estimated at fifteen florins, there was a donkey with a poltruccio (estimated three florins), four pigs, and a sow with eight piglets valued at fourteen florins. Another farm, bordering the one in colle San Pancrazio, located in a place called Alle corti, was equipped with a worker’s house, vineyard, and elaborate land, with three pieces of land and the garden, and was granted in sharecropping to a certain Piero di Giovanni called Gallassie. There he kept two oxen valued at twenty florins, two donkeys with the poltruccio estimated at four florins, and seven pigs (which, as Simone pointed out to the Catasto officers, “were not for meat”), and a sow with six piglets, estimated at f3 and s10. Finally, in a piece of land located in the popolo of San Iacopo in Sambuca, Simone

Land Ownership, Investments, and Profits 151 kept a sow with five piglets (estimated f2 s10), two porcellastri (halfgrown pigs) equalling f2, and four other pigs, one of which was owned by the sharecropper Iacopo of Michele. One of the sows estimated at a florin had died leaving four piglets, which would probably have soon been used for meat. Some of this meat was likely consumed by Simone’s family, but a great part was surely sold on the market. Finally, regarding animals, another form of income deriving from their rent should be mentioned: simple transport or travel, as with those two mules lent as vettura (beasts of burden) by Lorenzo di Niccolò di Monte and his nephews, to men who wanted to use both animals for their trades. The income deriving from the rent of the basto and finimenti (the saddle and harnesses) added to the income from the animals themselves.

5. Conclusions The chapter is about the economy outside the core activity: selling and repairing used clothing. The alternative activities went in two directions, credit, which was rather integral to the rag trade, and agriculture, which had nothing at all to do with it and which had a double nature, providing first income and sustenance, and second social standing. The lending facilitated both of purchases and sales and also the social relationships that a merchant wanted to sustain. In fact, many rigattieri made speculative investments in the credit market, both by granting loans for consumption and for commercial purposes, to support the expenses of other businesses. Many of these exercises were operated in sectors parallel to the trade in used goods, or in sectors vaguely related, like the resale of fabrics and linen. We suspect the tendency on the part of our rigattieri to use speculative loans to favour persons who circulated within a common socio-professional environment. In fact, we see no investments in other productive sectors, nor any participation in profits, except in rare cases, nor do we find capital of the rigattieri supporting activities completely different from their own, as for example the wool trade or in the construction industry. On the other hand, the Monte investments were a form of banking, of investment, largely stripped of social ramifications. They were a place to park one’s money. Many rigattieri speculated on the Monte credit market, the institution created to consolidate the Florentine public debt, which quickly stimulated a secondary market for securities, concentrating public debt in the hands of a circle of citizen-creditors of the commune. On the other hand, rigattieri also invested in the Monte delle Doti, established with the additional intent, unlike that of the Monte comune, to remove consolidated debt securities from circulation and furnish alms for girls and young people of Florence. However, only some of our second-hand dealers invested in these forms of speculation, probably

152  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility not trusting them too much or considering them riskier and less reliable than traditional forms of investment. In fact, the availability of considerable financial resources for some of our rigattieri, coming from targeted investments and from commercial activities in the old market, and gradually increasing thanks to financial investments, did not inspire in many of them the desire to expand their commercial activity (something amply justified by the constant demand for their used goods). Instead, rigattieri opted to increase the modest assets transmitted by their fathers, or inherited by marriage, or with a view to social advancement.85 Finally, we reviewed the operations carried out by some second-hand dealers: their real estate investments in Florence and in the countryside. Their investment strategies in the country properties, more than in urban and extra-urban properties, reveal that they most likely bought land to lay a more stable basis for their business, to guarantee self-sufficiency with the sale of surpluses, to consolidate their assets and their social position, as well as to find prestige, and sometimes, perhaps even a tinge of nobility.

Notes 1. On the case of Ghirigoro di Iacopo Cardinali see Meneghin, “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” 333. 2. ASF, Catasto (1480), 992, f. 171r. 3. ASF, Catasto (1427), 77, fs. 208r-v. 4. ASF, Ibid., fs. 321r-v. 5. ASF, Ibid., 69, f. 578r. 6. ASF, Ibid., 78, f. 273r. 7. ASF, Ibid., 77, f. 374v. 8. The rate used to capitalise cash income deriving from this calculation was slightly lower than that applied to bank deposits, which corresponded to 8%, Conti, L’imposta diretta a Firenze nel Quattrocento, 139–149. 9. ASF, Catasto (1427), 77, f. 304v. 10. ASF, Catasto (1480), 1009, f. 74v. 11. ASF, Catasto (1427), 65, f. 271r. 12. ASF, Ibid., 64, f. 336r. 13. Respectively: ASF, Catasto (1427), 77, f. 304r; ASF, ibid., 80, f. 436r; ASF, ibid., 78, f. 571r. 14. ASF, Ibid., 78, f. 455r. 15. Respectively: ASF, Catasto (1480), 992, f. 297r; ASF, ibid., 993, f. 323r; ASF, ibid., 996, f. 21r. 16. For the general lines see the essays contained in Credito e sviluppo economico dal Medio Evo all’Età contemporanea. Atti del primo Convegno nazionale della «Società Italiana degli Storici dell’Economia», 4–6 giugno 1987, Verona (Verona: Società Italiana degli storici dell’economia, 1988); see also the essential work by Melis, “La grande conquista trecentesca del «credito di esercizio»“; Ago, Economia Barocca; Muldrew, The Economy of Obligation; Fontaine, L’économie morale; on the private market of credit see Golthwaite, “Il mercato privato del credito,” in The Economy of Renaissance Florence. 17. ASF, Catasto (1427), 78, f. 307r. 18. ASF, Ibid., 65, f. 342r.

Land Ownership, Investments, and Profits 153 19. See the case of Taddeo di Chello, who frequently borrowed to support his activity as a dealer of used clothes in Prato. Taddeo’s tendency to pay cash for his own supplies and debts—thus withdrawing liquidity from the capital at the disposal of his own business—was possibly also among the chief reasons for the failure of his business activity, Meneghin, “The Second-hand Clothing Business of Taddeo di Chello,” 547–548. 20. ASF, Catasto (1427), 79, f. 433v. 21. ASF, Ibid., 81, f. 307r. 22. ASF, Ibid., 79, f. 293r. 23. ASF, Ibid., f. 551v. 24. ASF, Catasto (1427), 78, f. 96v. 25. ASF, Ibid., f. 425v. 26. ASF, Ibid., 76, f. 349r. 27. ASF, Ibid., 78, f. 231v. 28. ASF, Ibid., 987, f. 616v. 29. ASF, Ibid., 78, f. 612r. 30. ASF, Ibid., f. 612r. 31. See chap. 3, 85. 32. Meneghin, “The Second-hand Clothing Business of Taddeo di Chello,” 546–548. 33. ASF, Catasto (1427), 987, f. 616r. 34. ASF, Ibid., 78, f. 425r. 35. ASF, Ibid., f. 189v. 36. ASF, Catasto (1427), 64, f. 409v. 37. ASF, Ibid., f. 192v. 38. “the aforesaid [Monna Tessa] is dead of which money remain f60 to Bartolo di Paolo aforesaid as it appears from his writing, f60” (“la quale è morta de quali ne rimane f60 a bartolo di paolo detto come appare in la sua scritta, f60”), ASF, Catasto (1427) 987, f. 616r. 39. ASF, Ibid., 78, f. 553r. 40. ASF, Ibid., 77, f. 279r. 41. ASF, Ibid., 67, f. 314r. 42. ASF, Ibid., 79, f. 629r. At the end of the Trecento, among the debtors of Agostino Cane “whom the Lord may forgive” (“a cui Cristo perdoni”) there were two rigattieri. One of them (Barone del Coso) seems likely to have acted as moneylender. I wish to thank Sergio Tognetti for this information. 43. The bibliography on late medieval Florentine taxation and the public debt is now huge: for a classification of the problems and a historiographical summary on the subject, see the essay by Giovanni Ciappelli, “La fiscalità urbana a Firenze e in Toscana,” in Fisco e società a Firenze nel Rinascimento (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2009); on the origin of the Monte see Anthony Molho, “Créanciers de Florence en 1347: un aperçu statistique du quartier de Santo Spirito,” in La Toscane et les Toscans autor de la Renaissance. Cadres de vie, société, croyances. Mélanges offerts à Charles-M. de la Roncière (Aix-en-Provence: Université de Provence, Service des publications, 1999); Firenze nel Quattrocento. I. Politica e fiscalità (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2006); on the fifteenth-century developments of the Monte see Giovanni Ciappelli, “Il mercato dei titoli del debito pubblico,” in Fisco e società a Firenze nel Rinascimento. 44. Ciappelli, “La fiscalità urbana a Firenze e in Toscana,” 38. 45. Lorenzo Tanzini, “I  forestieri e il debito pubblico di Firenze nel Quattrocento,” Quaderni Storici 147, 3 (2014). 46. For an anthology of fiscal data and tax coefficients, also related to the Monte comune, and for the calculation of the financial situation of Matteo Palmieri

154  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility see Ricordi fiscali (1427–1474). Con due Appendici relative al 1474–1495, ed. Elio Conti (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1983), passim. 47. See Molho, Florentine Public Finances, 102–103. 48. ASF, Catasto (1427), 67, f. 314r. 49. ASF, Ibid., 77, f. 149v. 50. ASF, Ibid., 64, fs. 192r-v 51. ASF, Ibid., 78, f. 96r. 52. ASF, Ibid., fs. 549r, 425r. 53. ASF, Ibid., f. 189r. 54. ASF, Catasto (1427), 69, f. 355v. 55. ASF, Ibid., 79, f. 293v. 56. Conti, L’imposta diretta a Firenze nel Quattrocento, 30–38. 57. Julius Kirshner and Anthony Molho, “The Dowry Fund and the Marriage Market in Early Quattrocento Florence,” The Journal of Modern History 50, 3 (September 1978). 58. ASF, Catasto (1480), 996, f. 220v. 59. ASF, Ibid., 1009, f. 74v. 60. It follows part of the Catasto declaration of the sons of Braccio: “[the] aforesaid Braccio used to run a shop of rigattiere selling old stockings and used doublets and the like in the old market behind the stalls of the butchers and graziers and [it was] the rent of the abbot of Moscheta and the entratura was ours, we paid f11 a year, died the said Braccio the past month of September 1479. . . and then the month of October of that year [we sold the entratura] [to] Bartolomeo that is Meo di Lotto the stonecutter in place of the aforesaid shop (the rigattiere shop) and to Baldino di Michele di Jacopo di Baldino rigattiere [we sold] the little that was inside (the bottega), I had per year between the entratura and the other things minus the rent of the abbot fiorini dieci di suggello. The time of this said contract began on the first day of November of said year 1479 for three years, [the shop] is worth f. 171.8.7” (“faceva detto braccio per l’adietro bottega di rigattiere minuto di calze e farsetti vecchi et simili in mercato vecchio dietro ai deschi dei beccai et [era] il fitto dell’abate di Moscheta et l’entratura nostra, pagavane l’anno di pigione f11, mori’ il detto braccio il mese di settembre 1479 passato . . . e poi il mese d’ottobre di detto anno, [abbiamo venduto l’entratura] [a] bartolomeo overo meo di lotto scalpellatore a luogo di detta bottega [e] a baldino di Michele di Jacopo di Baldino rigattiere con quell poco in si trovava dentro, habbi anne l’anno fra l’entratura e le cose sbattuto la pigione dell’abate fiorini dieci di suggello. Comincio il tempo di detta allogagione adi primo di novembre di detto anno 1479 per tre anni, vale [la bottega] fl. 171.8.7”), ASF, Catasto (1480), 1015, f. 639v. 61. ASF, Ibid., 992, f. 297r. 62. ASF, Ibid., f. 171r. 63. Meneghin, “La tavola di un salariato fiorentino nel quindicesimo secolo,” 252, 261. 64. In magnifying the beauty of the Mugello, see the descriptions of the places in Pagolo Morelli, Ricordi, ed. Vittore Branca (Florence: Le Monnier, 1956), 89–101; Giovanni Rucellai, Zibaldone Quaresimale, ed. Gabriella Battista (Florence: Sismel—Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2013), 8; among the mottoes of Benedetto Dei, one stands out on possession of lands: “who owns a house and a farm can bend but not fall” (“Chi à chasa e podere può pieghare e non chadere,”) Maria Pisani, Un avventuriero del Quattrocento. La vita e le opere di Benedetto Dei (Genova: Perrella, 1923), 104; on the delights of the countryside and the benefits brought by it see Ser Lapo Mazzei, Lettere di un notaro a un mercante del secolo XIV. Con altre lettere e documenti,

Land Ownership, Investments, and Profits 155 ed. Cesare Guasti (Florence: Le Monnier, 1880), passim; on the passion for agriculture of Cosimo de’ Medici see Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vite di uomini illustri del sec. XV, Paolo D’Ancona and Erhard Aeschlimann (eds.) (Milan: Hoepli, 1951), 419; Leon Battista Alberti, I Libri della Famiglia, ed. Ruggiero Romano et al. (Turin: Einaudi, 1994), 237–246. 65. ASF, Catasto (1427), 78, f. 516v. 66. ASF, Catasto (1480), 992, f. 171r. 67. ASF, Ibid., 998, f. 136r. 68. ASF, Catasto (1427), 78, f. 226v. 69. ASF, Ibid., 80, f. 268v. 70. ASF, Catasto (1480), 516, f. 1016r. 71. ASF, Ibid., 1015, f. 639v. 72. Respectively: ASF, Catasto (1427), 81, f. 168v; ASF, Ibid., 77, f. 45; ASF, Ibid., 79, f. 293v; also Lorenzo di Niccolò di Monte owned a casa da signore but in his tax assessment he made no mention of any annex attached to it, ASF, Catasto (1427), 78, f. 357r. 73. ASF, Ibid., f. 189r. 74. For a comprehensive bibliography on sharecropping in late medieval Tuscany see Maria Ginatempo, “La mezzadria delle origini. L’Italia centro-settentrionale nei secoli XIII–XV,” Rivista di storia dell’agricoltura 42, 1 (2002). 75. Conti, L’imposta diretta a Firenze nel Quattrocento, 140. 76. ASF, Catasto (1427), 77, f. 304r-v. 77. ASF, Ibid., 78, fs. 357r-v. 78. ASF, Ibid., 64, fs. 192r-v. 79. For some examples of soccide in Val D’Orcia see Gabriella Piccinni, “Ambiente, produzione, società nella Valdorcia nel tardo Medioevo,” in La Val d’Orcia nel medioevo e nei primi secoli dell’età moderna, ed. Alfio Cortonesi (Rome: Viella, 1990), 48–50. 80. Bernardino da Siena, Opera Omnia, ed. Pacifico M. Perantoni and Augustino Sépinski (Florence: Quaracchi, 1950), Tomus IV, Quadragesimale de Evangelio Aeterno, De variis soccidis animalium. 81. “Ad illuminandum ergo tenebras ignorantiae nostrae, ne in alias incidamus, ad presens ambulemus in lumine suo in materia contractum soccidarum. Ad intelligentiam igitur soccidarum et aliorum contractuum qui inter se varie commiscentur,” Bernardino da Siena, De variis soccidis animalium, 296. 82. On the so-called mezzadria poderale or sharecropping and the related literature see Giuliano Pinto, “Mezzadria poderale, contadini e proprietari nel Catasto fiorentino del 1427,” in Campagne e paesaggi toscani del Medioevo (Florence: Nardini, 2002). 83. Mazzi and Raveggi, Gli uomini e le cose nelle campagne fiorentine, 189. 84. On this see Meneghin, “La tavola di un salariato fiorentino,” 261–266; Charles M. de la Roncière, Firenze e le sue campagne nel Trecento. Mercanti, produzione, traffici (Florence: Olschki, 2005), 7–9. 85. On investments made through the purchase of land, and on the economic impact in terms of income, there is a vast and varied bibliography for Italy between the Trecento and Quattrocento. It will suffice here to cite the volume Medioevo delle campagne. Rapporti di lavoro, politica agraria, protesta contadina, ed. Alfio Cortonesi and Gabriella Piccinni (Rome: Viella, 2006), with particular attention to Cortonesi, “L’agricoltura italiana fra XIII e XIV secolo: vecchi e nuovi paesaggi”; and Piccini, “L’evoluzione della rendita fondiaria alla fine del Medioevo.”

6 From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite

1. Grasping Opportunities for the Gens Nova: Electoral Office Holders and the Rigattieri Especially after the 1430s, Florentine society would undergo profound modifications to which Cosimo de’ Medici’s return was connected. His homecoming signalled the beginning of the Medicean era, erecting the apparati, composed, among others, by new men, that would sustain the new familial dominance. Many of these new men, even if they became accustomed to the practices of state administration, were not and never would be sophisticated people. Unlike many of the regime’s elite supporters, they had little humanist education or love of literature. They often lacked school training and had limited culture. Their only learning reckoned within the market. In Francesco Guicciardini’s Dialogo del Reggimento di Firenze, his political treatise, written between 1521 and 1526, Bernardo, the best known and most successful exponent of the Del Nero family, a clan of rigattieri whom I discuss shortly, figures in dialogue with Piero Capponi, Piero Guicciardini, and Paolantonio Soderini, real politicians all, about their political visions on the best form of government. Bernardo makes this statement: I have had a very long friendship with the Medici, and I have endless obligations to that House, through which, not being [born] of noble family, nor surrounded by relatives as you are all three of you, I have been benefited and exalted and made equal to all those who ordinarily would have gone before me in the honours of the city.1 Neither supported nor favoured by a family political tradition, as were the Soderini, the Capponi and Guicciardini, the Del Nero, as well as (although to a lesser extent) other members of families of rigattieri, like the Carradori, Orlandini, Mannucci, Panuzzi, and others, knew how to take advantage of the favour the Medici showed them. In due time they

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 157 built themselves a remarkable space of autonomy and power. Bernardo for one was of humble origins, without refinement or sophistication, and Lorenzo introduced him into political life following a very calculated strategy, already begun with Cosimo. Guicciardini writes in the Istorie fiorentine that “[Lorenzo moved] giving favour to those men whom he did not have to fear, as they were devoid of relatives and credit, as was at that time one [. . .] Bernardo Del Nero.”2 The Del Nero were not the only such men associated with the inner circle of Medicean supporters: at the beginning of the Medici period, in fact, the circle of friends and cohorts of the pro-Medicean faction was associated with a few families enrolled in the Arti Minori, including the Pucci. Let it not be forgotten that “after 1434 the Medici became regular and skilful manipulators of both elections and elected officials.”3 But let us see how everything began. In September 1433, Cosimo de’ Medici and his brother Lorenzo were forced into exile in Padua by their rivals, the Albizzi faction. Some months later, Agnolo Acciaiuoli, a principal ally of Cosimo, was also forced to leave Florence. However, the following autumn, on September 29, 1434, with the election of a proMedicean Signoria, Cosimo, his family, and his entourage would victoriously re-enter the city. After the Medici returned, members of the Reggimento were, over many decades, forced to make decisions about their relationship and political alliance with the family in power. Either they became adherents to Medici politics or they became their enemies and joined the opposition. By doing so, they knew they risked position, wealth, and honour. Thus, from now on, the Reggimento, of which the Priors were the focal point and executive body, was shaped with a view to promoting the collective good, but, even more, to furthering the Medici and their supporters. While the Reggimento was in essence the whole system of government, the families composing the so-called gens nova, on which much has been written (among their ranks were several rigattieri), asserted themselves in power with Cosimo’s return, and even more so under Piero and Lorenzo, when they became members of the Reggimento by right. Lauro Martines has argued that the political system of Florence can best be understood and described as a series of concentric circles,4 and Nicolai Rubinstein has said the same.5 The whole governing body that promulgated, regulated, and administered the law must be interpreted as a whole office-holding class. Solid footing in the Reggimento was thus naturally associated with family wealth and distinguished birth, attributes considered essential. In Florence, where politics was an obsession, it was extremely hard to untangle the political from the social. Nevertheless, the ruling class of the patriciate was not one with the Reggimento. Although the two were largely coincident, new families continually became upwardly mobile by qualifying for the Priorate.6 New families

158  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility might elevate themselves by fitting into spaces left temporarily vacant, by acquiring a certain pre-eminence or rise in the neighbourhood councils or by championing the Medici cause. Some of these new men, “the shady dealers  .  .  . of base condition,” of whom Gino Capponi spoke in his memoires, opposing them to the “worthy and good men,”7 were those whom Giovanni di Pagolo Morelli warned his son to stay away from as “upstarts, shady dealers and petty traders.”8 Earlier, in the Dugento, Guido Cavalcanti had already defined them with contempt “cruel and bestial people,” who, as new men (new to everything), “do not understand what they do.”9 But things were rapidly changing. In fact, although in 1433, only one year before Cosimo’s return from exile, of those drawn for office, few citizens had been first-timers. Florentines, despite the stigma on the new men, willingly admitted them to the highest offices: gens nova who decoded the profound changes of the times and were chosen for office were the Mannucci, Orlandini, and Carradori, but especially the Del Nero. But how did it happen? How did the collective perception of these people gradually change, and, above all, why did the Medici decide to avail themselves of men from the ranks of the lesser guilds who had such modest status? Once they returned to Florence in 1434, the Medici could not have governed without the support and assistance of the leading families of ottimati, faithful to their cause, such as the Acciaioli, the Pitti, and the Neroni. These key families had ties with the Medici that bound them together in many ways, and they were crucial to the establishment and maintenance of a political and social order.10 But Cosimo needed even more the support of people who had nothing, who were nothing, but were hungry for wealth and power and were therefore ready to take chances and risks; people whom he could favour and raise through ‘gifts,’ thus creating a system of alliances that over time proved both tough and supple. Some new men broke in, allying with Cosimo and shoving old families aside. How these new men themselves became eminent in Florence, the very men upon whom Cosimo and his family could rely, is something I investigate here. I examine when and how the men of this group came to see that they had interests like those of the Medicean cause and could work together; furthermore, I explore in what circumstances did serving consecutively in the most important offices in the Republic became so widespread a destiny that some such men would devote much of their time to politics. Ultimately, I will see at what moment political office holding became a major determinant of their identity and the principal source of upward mobility for these families of eminent rigattieri. In this chapter, I try to answer these questions by examining the events and situations that advanced some pro-Medici rigattieri. But first, I need to outline the composition of the Reggimento and to spell out its executive bodies and prerogatives.

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 159

2. Offices and Nomenclature of the Reggimento Just as the Arte to which rigattieri belonged did not constitute a single, homogeneous lot, so, similarly, the political apparatus the rigattieri engaged and entered was very complex. First, one could not enter politics, and thereby join the Reggimento, without belonging to a guild, which provided, in small, the template for the body politic of the Republic. As we have seen, the guilds enforced modes of matriculation, production, and marketing and supervised internal disputes and jurisdiction. Each guild, and here the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli was no exception, was governed by a magistracy of consuls drawn by lot from among eligible guild masters. Consuls of the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli were drawn from two borse: Rigattieri’s and Linaioli’s, according to the principle that the different borse from which guild consuls were drawn had to have a different composition. The drawings by lot and vetoes (divieti) for the final seating worked as they did for the Tre Maggiori. That is, prohibitions or bars on standing for office were dictated by various factors, such as the presence of another family member in the lot, having held office too recently, absence from the city, tax arrears (if so, the note in speculo, or in the specchio, appeared next to an individual’s name), or even having died since being put in the borsa (candidate names were generally scrutinized every five years). Meanwhile, subordinate workers such as peripatetic vendors or tailors (the sub-groups of tailors were for some time associated with the rigattieri and linaioli in the fifteenth century) were ineligible. As we have seen, the consuls of the Arte (whose number varied according to statutory regulations)11 served for six-month terms (except for what was established in the 1340 statutes of the newly formed guild of Rigattieri e Linaioli, setting the term at four months), entering office in January, May, and September. Some of the rules and bodies of the Republic were different from those for the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, but in essence, the hierarchies within the Arti reflected, in a nutshell, those in force in the Reggimento. There, the highest offices of the Tre Maggiori were the highest executive bodies of the Florentine Republic, as were the consuls for the Arte. The city’s officers included the Gonfalonieri di Giustizia and priors (assisted by a notary), and two assisting advisory councils, the Buonuomini and the Gonfalonieri di Compagnia. The Gonfalonieri di Giustizia and the priors were called the Signoria, while the two advisory bodies of the Buonuomini and Gonfalonieri di Compagnia made the Collegi. The age requirement for election to the office of Gonfaloniere di Giustizia was forty, versus thirty for all other offices. Legislation was generally initiated by the Signoria, in consultation with the Buonuomini and the Gonfalonieri di Compagnia. Sometimes, the Consiglio del Popolo or del Comune approved or rejected the decisions of the Signoria. During particular times, specifically appointed Balìe, where members of the Tre

160  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility Maggiori and other officials could participate, were also involved in governing meetings. Towards the late Trecento, a further distinction arose between the Gonfalonieri di Compagnia and the Buonuomini, a matter of office rotation. The system of rotation implied that a quarter of the men chosen for each election came from the ranks of the Arti Minori. In fact, at the end of the 1340s after the expulsion from Florence of the Duke of Athens, it was decided that two out of eight Gonfalonieri di Giustizia must be chosen from the minor guilds, while the other six must come from the major guilds. Thus, the selection of the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia by neighbourhood, say San Giovanni, determined also the zone from which the priors of the minor guilds imborsati for the successive round of elections would be selected. For the Buonuomini this also meant that three (one for each neighbourhood) out of the twelve men chosen for each election came from the Arti Minori. For the Gonfalonieri di Compagnia, the rotational system assured that at each election four men from the Arti Minori were chosen by rotation among the four Gonfaloni, of which each quarter was composed.12 The electoral system depended strictly on the eligibility of those people whose names were scrutinized and held in bags (borse). Names were first pulled out from the borse, eligibility for office checked, and the man’s name was put to a vote and finally approved. A first extraction of a name from the borsa meant that a man was ‘seen’ (lit. veduto), but did not necessarily mean that he was also ‘seated’ (lit. seduto) for office. Increasingly, over the Quattrocento, in order to multiply a family’s chances to have some members seated in at least one of the Tre Maggiori, fathers tended to enter the names of underage sons to be scrutinized, often omitting to declare their age or baldly lying. As a result, among the names drawn could be those of men who could not perform the task for which they had been chosen. If so, the extraction went on until the legal number of electoral offices was filled and sufficient people ‘seated.’ Meanwhile, the more men from the same family entered the ‘game,’ the likelier it was the family would be represented. The borse were kept safely under lock and key in the sacristy of Santa Croce. Once the time arrived to extract names from the bags, the chest in which they were kept was transported to the Palazzo della Signoria and opened in the presence of the Gonfalonieri di Giustizia, priors, Buonuomini, Gonfalonieri di Compagnia, the assisting notary, and other officials. Since the extraction of a name veduto in a previous scrutiny did not nullify one man’s right to be chosen again for office, the extraction began with pulling out names from the oldest existing set of borse. In order to be extracted, of course, a man had to pass one of the periodic reviews of eligible candidates and be enrolled in a guild, and, at least at the beginning, had to exercise a trade. Reviews were carried out and the proposed names were then voted on by a commission, whose composition could vary.13

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 161 In the following discussion, we shall see how our families of rigattieri managed to penetrate this system, placing their men in key positions, often scheming, and making cosy side arrangements to secure prominent places within the central administration. Administration of the city, however, was not the only structure of power the rigattieri wanted or attained: if on the one hand there was the very centre of politics, to control from within, on the other hand there were positions to be gained away from Florence, less prestigious but still an expression of control.14 And indeed, the circulation of political personnel in the fifteenth-century Florentine territorial state seated many rigattieri. In the highest offices, beginning under Cosimo, they were also ‘used’ and ‘exported’ to localities across the Dominio. Since the Dugento, Florence had been a major supplier of officials. It ‘exported’ the highest number of podestà and captains to other cities, not only of its stato territoriale but also of the entire peninsula.15 During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a large supply of Guelph personnel were drawn from families of ancient tradition. By the fifteenth century, increasingly these officers were chosen from those ascending via commerce. Towards the middle years of the Quattrocento, many members of the gens nova, from the Arti minori, were called to play the same role. If, as we shall see, the outlying centres where our rigattieri were called to perform the functions of podestà, castellano, or capitano del popolo apparently had scant importance and lacked economic scope, they still lay in territories inside the Florentine sphere of influence. So, once again a red thread somehow links the alternation of podestà and capitani del popolo, among Florentine rigattieri, to the city’s political vicissitudes and its relationship with its territorial state. Note, for instance, the career of Lorenzo di Iacopo Benincasa (whom I shall discuss shortly) who held many of these seemingly minor positions. Among the posts assigned him outside Florence was the office of podestà in San Donato in Poggio (elected July 10, 1473, for six months); podestà of Cascia (elected October 17, 1474, for six months); castellano of Castrocaro di Sopra (elected July  3, 1477, for six months); and finally podestà of Campi (date unknown). His son, Jacopo, instead became podestà in Bibbiena (elected February 1, 1478, for six months).16 For Florence, some of these places were of strategic importance, like Cascia, in today’s Umbria, or Bibbiena, in the Aretino. Castrocaro di Sopra was one of the twentyone castellanie of the territory subject to Florence (which had begun to extend its Dominio in Romagna as early as the fourteenth century, so that Castrocaro was already considered part of its territory in the statutes of 1415). Another strategic place was San Donato in Poggio, whose importance derived from its location on the Via Regia Romana, on the road to Siena and Rome. Although by the end of the fourteenth century men and goods preferred the Siena road through Tavarnelle and Barberino, San Donato retained some significance for Florence, which kept it run by trusted men, Lorenzo Benincasa, for instance.

162  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility Another rigattiere chosen to serve in minor centres of the Dominio was Iacopo di Niccolò di Iacopo Panuzzi, who held many minor offices, including the podestà of Belforte (elected September 26, 1478, for six months). His brothers Panuzio di Niccolò di Iacopo instead held the office of castellano of Modigliana (elected May 25, 1489, for six months), while Salvi di Niccolò di Iacopo repeatedly represented the family in the administration of justice as mayor of rural localities. His posts included Portici (elected April  1, 1478), Modigliana (elected April  1, 1477), Larciano (elected May 17, 1479, for a year), Barga (elected February 26, 1480), Borgo San Lorenzo (elected June 9, 1482) where, however, he did not exercise this last role, as he was already podestà in Barga, and Colle. He was also elected castellano to the old Cassero of Borgo San Sepolcro (elected December 25, 1482) and to Sant’Agnese di Pisa (elected February 21, 1473).17

3. Social Relations at a Local Level: Rigattieri Between Patrons and Friends The gonfalone, the social hub of political and economic life, not only offered a sense of identity, lineage, tradition, and honour, but also fostered social ties such as those among parenti, amici, vicini, equally important to social identity. Thus, the gonfalone supported the social identity of rigattieri, whose political eligibility and taxation were decided at this local level. Meanwhile, social identity could also be attained beyond the gonfalone, through friends, business associates, and marriage connections. The whole social map of Florence both reflected and reaffirmed rigattieri’s social identity. How did rigattieri fit into this larger pattern? And, what was it about their economic function that made them useful patrons or eager clients? Local patronage was of course important for all, and many rigattieri acted as both patrons and as clients. Consulting a series of patronage letters (missives to influential patrons whereby one sought a job or help) from the late fourteenth through the early sixteenth centuries, Paul McLean has demonstrated that the patronage letter writing was an institution of Florentine society, an important tool (for both writer and bearer, although more often for the former) for acquiring social mobility, security, and a certain reconnaissance.18 McLean’s book has demonstrated, usefully, that Florentines used their friends and parenti to their advantage, but also understood that they themselves had risen thanks to protection, alliances, and favours. The political careers of many rigattieri were thus constructed on relations and associations with the guild organisation and with men of note and weight. Their careers were made through interactions with others and through the performance of the tasks they shouldered, thanks to their connections. In all this process, networks mattered greatly.19 They

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 163 were crucial in a city like Florence, where Florentines, for the whole Quattrocento in particular, sought upward mobility, honour, and protection through patronage. Neighbourhood relations and the social and professional network of our rigattieri lent themselves to maintaining a social structure made up of a whole series of intricate human relationships, often based on neighbours’ connections. This pattern is confirmed by the well-known story of Giovanni and Lusanna, analysed by Gene Brucker. The two protagonists, born and raised, though in completely different environments, in the parish of San Marco, not far from the Dominican convent where Fra Girolamo Savonarola was to later place his headquarters, moved within the boundaries set by the parish church. In the end, the broker who tried to find a suitable husband for Lusanna (to save her honour and reputation), was, it happens, a rigattiere, one Mazza di Iacopo del Mazza, who, needless to say, came from the same parish church. He was considered the ideal person to perform this task, someone trustworthy who, in virtue of his knowledge of all people and circumstances in the area, could be trusted to perform a good job.20 The rigattiere Iacopo here functioned as a broker and as a voucher (garante), something that made him a natural recommender. Now, if mobilization rested on reciprocal obligations, any gift-like action thickened the general mix and made resources available. But these exchanges conserved inequality and reinforced differentiation. Patronage was in a way a device to create scarcity: does that mean that rigattieri who lacked a patron lacked a way forward? And do we think of social structure as separation or juncture? We often find the rigattieri consuming patronage, not furnishing it. Florentine rigattieri, like other petit bourgeois, and small artisans (to whom some of them can certainly be assimilated) had their values sharply defined by the traditions and lifestyles where they lived. Like others, they were typically attached to a particular parish or neighbourhood where they, their parents, and their grandparents before them had forged bonds of marriage, friendship, and clientage and patronage with their neighbours. Within these social enclaves, they arranged marriages the way Mazza did, selected godparents for their children, formed business partnerships, and established clientele for their shops. They belonged to an elaborate kinship structure that easily provided support. Not only could they expect help and counsel from individuals linked to them by guild membership, marriage, godparentage, and friendship, but in addition they found patrons and benefactors among the neighbourhood’s wealthy and socially prominent families. So it was for the Carradori, for example. The Del Nero, like other families before them, were most likely subject to the influence exerted by powerful and ambitious lineages on a day-to-day basis in their crowded neighbourhood, fifteenth-century Santo Spirito. The Del Nero can be rightly called ‘Medici partisans.’ They

164  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility were one of those families elevated to the ranks of the ‘pro-Medicean faction’ after Cosimo returned from exile.21 They managed this even though they were not physically close to the Medici. First, they did not live in San Giovanni, where the Medici resided, but off in Santo Spirito. Second, they were not among the partisans who originated from the Mugello and maintained familial ties there, like the Della Casa and the Ciai. What made them Medicean partisans, besides their unconditional support for the Medici cause, was that they negotiated constantly with the other Medici supporters and amici and were active in a circle of connections in its structure rather like a political party. Some at least, amongst the rigattieri’s ‘lineages’ that I shall analyse, appear as though they made up some of the city’s ruling class, having played a role in the formation of the city’s Reggimento in the first stages of the Medicean regime. Now, even in such a strong family of rigattieri as the Del Nero, patronage was given as well as received. It may look as though, with the Del Nero, it was all benefits and zero costs. But that was not always so. For instance, the allegiance to the Medici costed one member of the family, Bernardo, in 1497 (recently elected for the third time to the Gonfalonierato di Giustizia), his life, when the Savonarolan regime beheaded him. One paid one’s dues as a parishioner, neighbour, friend, client, or partisan like Bernardo. The more reliably one paid, in honesty, courage, support, conformity, praise, and tact, the more one, or one’s family, received in return. If it is true that every taker ends up giving (even though with a different coin), Bernardo repaid all the favours bestowed upon him and his family (as we shall discuss shortly) with the most precious of all things: life. The Orlandini were another clan who risked a great deal when Bartolomeo Orlandini led, together with Papi de’ Medici, the Medicean militie, a private army and, when circumstances allowed, an army of the state.22 Indeed, as commander of the citizen army, in 1434 Bartolomeo had protected the pro-Medicean members of the Signoria and blocked off all the entrances to Piazza Signoria, not allowing any opponents to enter, letting Cosimo come back to the city unchallenged. The great risk run by Bartolomeo was amply repaid by the Medici: not only did they promote Orlandini’s career and upward mobility, they also saw to the repayment of the latter’s debts (this aspect of the Orlandini’s upward mobility will be analysed later in this chapter). It goes without saying that the higher the number of households a family had, the greater its chances were to affirm its cohesion and power within the society of fifteenth-century Florence.23 However, although family was useful, it was also expensive. To advance a single member of the clan might cost other Del Nero, for example, in services, choices made, gifts given, opportunities lost, and so on. So the rise of a Del Nero did signal, perhaps, the willingness of the kinfolk to support one another in accordance to the logic that if one wanted one’s family to succeed, one would help members who actually had the chance to advance. Of

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 165 course, surnames are poor interpreters of cohesion within a family, as we can find the same surnames distributed for different trades and even widely distributed between the major and minor guilds. However, they help show how families managed to propel single individuals from within their group up into the ranks of politics, by sticking together and displaying a degree of unity.

4. ‘Dynasties’ of Rigattieri in the Fifteenth Century 4.1. The Beginning of a Remarkable Social Trajectory: The Del Nero The Del Nero moved to Florence and swiftly settled there. They were originally from Genoa, from where they immigrated to Florence during the fourteenth century. They obtained Florentine citizenship in 1356, settling in the district of Santo Spirito in the gonfalone Scala.24 The Del Nero were new men. Their circumstances probably reinforced their dependence upon the Medici, who in the years to come not only became their patrons but also favoured them at the expense of aristocrats.25 The Del Nero were, at least initially, associated with the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, and in this capacity they filed their declarations to the Catasto officials. They appeared as such in the Secondo Libro delle Matricole dell’Arte, once the time came to be matriculated in the guild. By the 1420s the Del Nero were firmly devoted to the esercizio della regatteria, confirmed by a series of beneficii enjoyed by sons and brothers of one master rigattiere within the family, Simone Del Nero, who had matriculated before them. Then Bernardo di Simone Del Nero and Francesco del Nero di Filippo Del Nero both matriculated on April 9, 1421.26 Bartolomeo di Filippo Del Nero entered the regatteria on April 30, 1426, following the footsteps of his brother Simone.27 Filippo di Simone di Filippo Del Nero (the latter’s son), joined the Arte on December 26, 1428.28 In 1429 Bernardo, son of Nero di Filippo Del Nero, had matriculated on June 2, avoiding the entrance fee because his father was also in the Arte. Finally, a few days later, on June 6, Antonio, brother of Bernardo, resident in the popolo of Santa Maria Sopr’Arno, also matriculated, with the customary formulaic expression “he was registered [using] the benefit of Nero, his father”29 (see Figure 6.1). In 1430 Simone Del Nero was elected consul for the Arte dei Rigattieri and again chosen for this role in 1433, 1434, 1439, and 1441.30 Simone, a sixty-year-old man, lived with his wife Betta, forty, and his five children in a house in the Oltrarno district, in Santo Spirito, in the gonfalone Scala, in the popolo of Santa Lucia dei Magnoli,31 also known as Santa Maria dei Magnoli (located in today’s Via de’ Bardi). But let us see how the destiny of this family came to be entangled with that of the Republic and the Medici’s.

Figure 6.1 Genealogical tree of the Del Nero rigattieri

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 167 It is with Nero di Filippo that this family changed its traditional affiliation from the regatteria only to being also associated to the Wool Guild.32 As we shall see shortly, with Nero begins the family’s vertiginous climb to power, as he was the first member of the family clan to rise to a political role of some importance. He had matriculated in 1409 as a rigattiere in the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli and had been a member of the Lana Guild since 1427.33 His double membership looks somewhat unusual, if one expects a family always to be associated with a single trade. This was not always so, as there could be some flexibility in guild membership. In a given family, for example, a few members could be enrolled in the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, while others were associated with the Lana, finding advantages, both economic and political, in associating with more than one guild. In 1418 Nero had been one of the Signori that had honoured Pope Martin V, nee Oddone Colonna, at the high altar of Santa Maria Novella.34 He had been chosen together with cardinals, archbishops, and high prelates; each of them was gifted with fifty gold florins, plus sugared almonds, wax, wine, and fodder. Nero became a personage of some importance, and his name was drawn from among those who managed Florentine finances during the difficult years before the establishment of the Catasto in 1427. In 1424, Milanese threats to attack Florence via Genoa set off war against the Visconti; it lasted until 1428. The next year, Florence also ventured to launch another unfortunate war, this time against Lucca, which lasted until 1433.35 Such a long period of almost unbroken hostilities stressed the state’s finances. Thus, Florence’s political and institutional bodies and the wider ruling class under the leadership of the Albizzi jockeyed for power and frantically debated over how to cover the huge costs of war. At the same time, they were faced with containing the protest against it (these internal factions were among the chief causes that would bring the Medici to power).36 On January 11, the Council of the Dugento deliberated a new forced loan (gravezza), 50,000 florins, to be paid, according to their assets, by the wealthiest citizens. Twenty individuals were chosen, one for each gonfalone and one by district, to serve as loan officers and supervise the fiscal assessment. On March  25, Nero was chosen as one of the several Artefici per la gravezza for the district of Santo Spirito.37 These twenty men set the contribution of each wealthy citizen. We do not know if Nero brought some recommendations to a board of peers that diluted his responsibility, or, rather, if he decided all by himself how much each family would pay: what we know is that the family lived in Santo Spirito, and therefore Nero may well have set the burden of his own neighbours, as was typical. It would be nice to know what reaction this generated among the neighbours, and if, for instance, relationships with those who were asked to pay more would become strained after Nero’s decisions.

168  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility It was during the Priorate of 1434, while the city was still under the leadership of the Albizzi, just shortly before Cosimo’s return, that Nero distinguished himself as a Medicean man. Signoria had summoned a parliament to induce Rinaldo degli Albizzi to agree to the arrival of some 6,000 armed men under the command of Papi de’ Medici, Cosimo’s distant cousin.38 Under the menace of this improvised army, the Balìa voted to recall Cosimo and to exile the Albizzi and many other families (among whom was Matteo di Simone Strozzi, the husband of Alessandra Macinghi) to create what Cavalcanti termed “the new Reggimento.”39 Nero, from the Medici partisan inner circle (with Luca Pitti, Piero Guicciardini, and Giuliano Davanzati) was one of the minor guild men chosen for the Dieci di Balìa. He voted, on Sunday October 6, as one of the accoppiatori agli Uffici:40 “and in the day six for the Balìa they made all the Alberti and all the Medici people as they used to be before.”41 This office demonstrates the unprecedented powers assigned to the accoppiatori (who soon came to dominate the electoral machinery, thanks to their power to add and exclude candidates for sortition). The event also signalled the cultural and political transformation of the new regime. That a Del Nero was chosen accoppiatore is a sign of how far the family had risen.42 Nero would be chosen as Accoppiatore per il quartiere di Santo Spirito again in 1438 and in 1439. In 1438, he was again drawn for the Dieci di Balìa, and therefore served in the Balìa convened in that year to prepare the transition to the new regime. This Balìa of 1438 was the first of three of the Medicean regime. Also called “the great council of 1438,” it consisted of 348 members, two thirds of them chosen by the other third, all members ex officio. So important was this Balìa that all fiscal and military matters had to be approved first by it and only then be sent to the statutory councils. The Balìa of 1438 was even given the right for the next three years to approve a mano elections of the Signoria. When its term ended, however, it followed its natural course, stepped down, and was never recalled.43 From this moment on, firmly rooted in the inner circle of the Medici, Nero was repeatedly elected consul of the Arte dei Rigattieri, and was chosen, in 1437 and 1443, to serve as councillor of the Mercanzia tribunal. This high commercial court, that in the late Trecento and Quattrocento operated alongside the Signoria, called the Universitas mercatorum or Sei di Mercanzia (its fifteenth-century name), was an expression of the Florentine ruling class and its privileged instrument of control.44 This magistracy, which served for a three-month period, was composed of five consuls, one for each of the more mercantile-oriented guilds: Por Santa Maria, Lana, Cambio, Medici e Speziali, and Vaiai e Pellicciai. After 1372, in addition to the five members, a sixth was added from the minor guilds (drawn from the combined borse of the fourteen minor guilds), while a foreign jurist also was part of the Mercanzia. In 1394, the statute of the Mercanzia had subjugated the Arti to its governance. The Mercanzia was powerful because

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 169 its members sat ex-officio in the Consiglio del Popolo and participated in the drawings for the Tre Maggiori.45 The Mercanzia court supervised fundamental issues related to commerce, bankruptcy, and state affairs. Its great power declined in the later Quattrocento, especially from the 1470s under Lorenzo de’ Medici, who reduced the number of its consuls to only three. However, in the Trecento and early Quattrocento, its authority had been enormous. Thus, the role of councillor of the Mercanzia tribunal for which Nero was chosen belonged to one of the most powerful Florentine institutions, whose tribunal settled disputes between Florentine merchants, anywhere in the world, as well as commercial disputes between the members of the Florentine corporations.46 However, Nero could not take up this office since he was in arrears with his taxes. Next to his name, on the slip of paper drawn from the borsa, appeared the words in speculo, signifying that he was in arrears with his citizen duties. Nonetheless, the role of advisor of the lesser guilds that Nero was chosen to cover once again reflects the visibility, influence, power, and confidence that Nero now exhibited, exercised and emanated. This family would also express its authority by entering the leadership of the powerful Parte Guelfa. Alongside the Signoria and the Mercanzia, the Parte Guelfa, a third institution, almost a governing body, was extremely wealthy and influential. In the 1420s, the Parte was still rich and relatively powerful, though by the early 1440s it entered a slow but irreversible decline.47 In the fifteenth century its executive bodies were nine captains—to underscore the importance of this role one must remember that in 1465 a young Lorenzo de’ Medici held the office.48 For two-month terms, the captains served as the guardians of civic orthodoxy. They exercised ceremonial functions in the state, visiting the podestà, the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia, and the Priori. They organized charitable activities and on feast days made offerings on behalf of the Parte. The other offices were two advisory colleges of fifteen Priori di Pecunia (responsible for supervising the Parte’s sprawling finances), twenty Secretari di Credenza, and two legislative councils, the Cento and the Sessanta. In 1439, Nero was chosen to be one of the Secretari di Credenza. His sons Antonio, Bernardo, Francesco, and Roberto were also many times elected among the secretaries, while Francesco and Bernardo both were Capitani di Parte; Francesco in 1453 and Bernardo twice, in 1454 and in 1488.49 Finally, Francesco, Roberto, and Bernardo would again hold the role of Priori di Pecunia (in 1454, 1462, and 1482 and 1493, respectively), as shown in Table 6.1. To have held, like other rigattieri such as Lorenzo di Bartolo di Segna Guidi in 1438 (and other members of families like the Orlandini, Panuzzi, and Dello Strinato),50 the office of captain of the Parte Guelfa was as great an asset as to have been one of the Tre Maggiori, for it allowed one to be voted on before less privileged citizens. Moreover, the nine captains were entitled to sit ex officio in the reviews, and belonged, also ex officio,

170  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility Table 6.1 Offices of the Parte Guelfa held by members of the Del Nero family OFFICE OF THE PARTE GUELFA

Capitani di Parte Guelfa Francesco di Nero di Filippo Del Nero Bernardo di Nero di Filippo Del Nero Bernardo di Nero di Filippo Del Nero Priori di Pecunia Francesco di Nero di Filippo Del Nero Roberto di Nero di Filippo Del Nero Bernardo di Nero di Filippo Del Nero Bernardo di Nero di Filippo Del Nero Secretari di Credenza Francesco di Nero di Filippo Del Nero Bernardo di Nero di Filippo Del Nero Roberto del Nero di Filippo Del Nero Roberto del Nero di Filippo Del Nero Antonio del Nero di Filippo Del Nero Pietro di Francesco di Filippo Del Nero Roberto del Nero di Filippo Del Nero Bernardo di Nero di Filippo Del Nero Simone di Bernardo di Simone Del Nero

Date

ASF, Capitani di Parte Guelfa, Numeri Rossi, f.

1453.01.02 1454.01.06 1488.01.04

4v 11v 21v

1454.01.02 1462.01.08 1482.01.02 1493.01.02

48v 54r 68r 76r

1455.01.01 1457.01.01 1470.01.05 1472.01.05 1478.01.05 1481.01.05 1486.01.01 1492.01.05 1498.01.06

135r 136v 145v 147r 151v 154r 158r 162r 166v

in all Balìe until 1466. These privileges signalled a good deal of power. One proof that their influence and authority probably became marked was that “their [later] disappearance [from the Balìe] was intentional Medicean policy,” as argued by Alison Brown.51 In May 1444, Nero became a member of another Balìa, to decide the fate of citizens exiled ten years earlier, on Cosimo’s return. In the same year, he was also elected among the Artefici for the Decina Nuova52 for the neighbourhood of Santo Spirito.53 Matteo Palmieri, who had married the daughter of Nero’s brother, Simone di Filippo, also joined the commission.54 The political ascent of this family took a notable step in 1449, when under Nero they managed “di passare  per la Maggiore,” that is, to acquire access to offices generally reserved for members of the major guilds. In this position, they now could participate in the draw to select the highest office of the Florentine Republic, the Gonfalonierato di Giustizia, a position that another member of the family, Bernardo, son of Nero, would eventually achieve in the second half of the century. Table 6.2 shows the offices (veduti and seduti) for which members of the Del Nero family were drawn between 1429 and 1461. The table contains numerous, indisputable indicators of the primary role this family played in the central years of the fifteenth century (see Table 6.2).

Status under age dead elected dead under age elected elected under age under age elected in speculo in speculo under age elected elected under age elected elected in speculo under age in speculo elected dead elected dead dead elected elected

Office

Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Guilds elections Linaiuoli e Rigattieri Buonuomini Priori Guilds elections Linaiuoli e Rigattieri Guilds elections Linaiuoli e Rigattieri Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Buonuomini Guilds elections Mercanzia Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Priori Guilds elections Linaiuoli e Rigattieri Priori Buonuomini Guilds elections Linaiuoli e Rigattieri Guilds elections Mercanzia Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Priori Priori Buonuomini Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Gonfalonieri di Compagnia

Year

1429 1429 1430 1431 1431 1433 1434 1435 1435 1435 1437 1437 1439 1439 1439 1441 1441 1441 1443 1446 1446 1449 1451 1453 1453 1453 1454 1461

Table 6.2 Offices for the Del Nero (1429–1461): veduti and seduti

Bernardo Filippo Simone Filippo Nero Simone Simone Bernardo Roberto Simone Bernardo Nero Bernardo Nero Simone Francesco Nero Simone Nero Francesco Nero Francesco Nero Francesco Nero Simone Francesco Bernardo

Name

Nero Nero

Filippo Nero Filippo Nero Filippo Nero Filippo

Nero Filippo

Nero Filippo Nero Filippo

Simone Nero

Simone Simone

Simone Simone

Patronymic

Filippo Filippo

Filippo

Filippo

Filippo

Filippo

Filippo

Filippo

Filippo

2nd Patronymic

172  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility At Nero’s death, sometime before 1451 (we know of it from the word “dead”—morto—next to his name in the drawings that year for the office of prior), he was succeeded by his son Francesco (1419–1467). Francesco, like his father before him, in turn held important political assignments. His name was drawn five times, between 1441 and 1454, for the Tre Maggiori. Until 1446 he was considered ‘under age,’ but he was elected among the Buonuomini in 1453 and in the following year among the Gonfalonieri di Compagnia. Elected to the important role of Accoppiatore per la Balìa’s polls of 1458, he also held other positions, not only political but also of a political-economic and fiscal nature. In 1427, for example, his father Nero had inserted Francesco’s name in the bags to have him chosen among the men of Santo Spirito who would compose the council for the Catasto. In 1434, he would be chosen again among the officials of the Monte comune. Francesco was also chosen to be one of the Camerlenghi delle prestanze for the Decina nuova of 1444; and finally elected sgravatore del valsente (judge of appeal for tax relief) in 1454 and Ufficiale per il Catasto in 1458.55 To manage the fiscal policy of the Republic would have been a prerogative of the financial oligarchy, of which, by the 1440s, the Del Nero were obviously already a part. In order to hold these offices, people had to be able to lend and spend, but also to make others lend and pay for themselves. Bartolomeo di Filippo Del Nero for example, who lived in Santo Spirito in the gonfalone Scala, owned taxable assets amounting to 13,545 florins.56 His fortunes could be used to extract forced loans, to rally Medici supporters if trouble broke out, or even to bribe for electoral offices should the occasion arise.57 In short, it was necessary to choose people who knew how to float in the sinuous meanders of finance;58 people who had the money to do so, but also knew their neighbourhoods well and were known to their neighbours, as it was widely acknowledged that the commissions charged by the Consiglio del Popolo to allocate shares for the gravezze could not work completely ‘in the dark’: they knew people and had precise data about the families of taxpayers. Under Bernardo, Francesco’s younger brother, the family reached the peak of its power thanks to its support for the Medici House. Much has been written on Bernardo, holder of numerous government posts, especially because he inspired Guicciardini’s Dialogo del Reggimento di Firenze. Bernardo became a sort of “éminence grise” for Santo Spirito, and more generally for Florence, to the point that his character would inspire Benedetto Dei’s pun: “Girolamo Moregli and Bernardo del Nero: one is St John and the other [is] St Peter.”59 In 1458 Bernardo decided to ‘return’ to the lesser guilds: back to the family’s professional origins (to the Arte dei Rigattieri), as in 1449 it had migrated to the Lana and Cambio.60 Such changes of professional status were not uncommon in Florentine political life: they served to increase a family’s chances to have as many elected members as possible.

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 173 Bernardo also played the important role of Accoppiatore dello squittinio in 1465, as well as in 1476, 1491, and 1494.61 It speaks to the family’s high standing with the Medici and an unequivocal clear sign of their impressive social ascent that in 1480, as we learn from Bernardo’s portata catastale, he and his brothers inhabited a house in Santa Maria Sopr’Arno, purchased by Giuliano and Lorenzo de’ Medici themselves.62 A  further mark of Bernardo’s backing the consolidation of Medicean power, and the enormous favour and privileges he enjoyed, was that he helped create the council of the Settanta, a permanent organism with vast powers of control both in internal and foreign politics. The birth of this council helped consolidate Medicean politics. Bernardo, a member of the Balìa of 1480, dedicated to financial matters, served the Settanta ex officio. Finally, another testament to the family’s ascent was Bernardo’s receiving the Gonfalonierato di Giustizia, the Republic’s highest office. He was appointed three times: in 1474, in 1487, and in 1497, just before he died, beheaded by the Savonarolan regime.63 For upward mobility, marriage alliances were crucial. Usually one of the best ways for a family to elevate their chances for a top placement in society was to marry into prominent and affluent lineages. Brunetto di Aldobrandino di Giorgio, who descended from one of the two branches of the Del Nero family, in the 1420s married Laudomina, a daughter of Iacopo di Rinuccino di Francesco Rinuccini and Cassandra di Vieri Guadagni.64 Her half-sister Maddalena (the daughter of Iacopo and a woman of unknown origin, who died relatively soon after bearing Maddalena and her twin brother) was married in 1433 to one of the Mannucci, new, ‘upstart’ rigattieri65 (as the Rinuccini must have seen them, well aware that to marry Maddalena into the Mannucci meant for social regression, but social advancement for them). Unlike Maddalena, Laudomina’s sisters were all married into prominent and affluent families: the Carducci, Sacchetti, Bartoli, Dini, Rucellai, and Popoleschi. Likewise, her two brothers married into well-to-do and ancient lineages like the Alberti and Biliotti.66 To marry Laudomina into the Del Nero reflects how they must have looked to the eyes of the Rinuccini and other prosperous up-scale clans: they sensed the advantages of a family alliance with these prominent Mediceans, well set for major influence on Florentine politics over the next decades. Across two generations only, the del Nero, of the branch descending from Nero di Filippo, came to play the highest role on the political scene. Over the span of a few decades, they had created a wealthy and powerful family—to be ennobled in the Cinquecento—among the supreme arbiters of the city’s political and social life. It was thanks to their undisputed support to the Medici cause, which cost Bernardo his life. They were not part of a consolidated urban elite at the time of Cosimo’s return or of ancient lineage, but their belonging to the ranks of minor guildsmen favoured them in the Medici’s shrewd game that used the minuto people to forge solid alliances and support.

174  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility 4.2. The Clan of the Carradori The gonfalone, a small replica of the city, was not entirely self-contained; its porosity to the outer world opened it to people from outside its boundaries. Like other gonfaloni, the Red Lion, by Santa Maria Novella, was inhabited by poor artisans and middle men, as well as by patricians. Among its residents were the Carradori, rigattieri in trade but haunting the patriciate’s fringe. They were among the prominent families of the Lion Rosso. By roughly 1427, most of the gonfalone’s leading families perched in or around Via della Vigna Nuova, but the Carradori, headed by Giovanni di Salvestro, were some way off, in the predominantly working-class parish of San Paolo. The Carradori were kinsmen to the Temperani (by a marriage, in the fourteenth century, of Lapo, son of the family founder Carluccio, with Sandra di Temperano).67 They were a rather old and distinguished family in the gonfalone. The two families shared patronage rights over the Temperani chapel in the church of San Pancrazio.68 The Carradori may have owed their prominence to their relationship with their cousin Manno Temperani, whose “political career was among the most distinguished in early Medicean Florence.”69 Or, perhaps, they owed their status to their administrative talents; their upward mobility seems not to have been due to wealth, as it was for more prominent, richer lineages.70 We know that the head of household, Giovanni, was burdened enough with family and many bocche to feed, that he was compelled to ‘compose’ a lighter tax with the Catasto officials. In 1427 he asked them to use common sense setting his assessment. He declared that he had twelve mouths, each meriting to a 200 florin reduction, leaving him only 350 florins taxable; he lamented that 350 florins were simply too little to live on.71 Giovanni had many businesses going on with his neighbours, and among these clients there was of course his kinsman Manno Temperani. Furthermore, Giovanni was intimately associated with other men of old lineages in the gonfalone, like the Federighi. Such links granted a certain cohesion to the area around the Ponte alla Carraia. One such enterprise was a company of apothecaries, in which Giovanni also participated, although the fiscal declaration of Iacopo di Francesco Federighi suggests that Giovanni owed him money.72 Such business alliances and marriages established powerful links between the gonfalone’s patrician families. Florentine marriage patterns were thus the visible and tangible sign of a complex strategy of social upward mobility. The calculus suggested taking a suitable partner from outside the neighbourhood, but also demanded at least one parente be located within the neighbourhood, for support from within in case of troubles. Both strategies figure  in the intermarriages of the Carradori. For example, Salvestro Carradori, born in 1412, married Agnoletta di ser Piero Puccetti (professor of law in the Florentine Studium), sister of

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 175 Ferdinando, author of works of theology, natural philosophy, morals, and medicine, destined to become a powerful cardinal under Leo X.73 Leonarda, Salvestro’s sister, married Piero di Mariotto Dell’Amorotta; their brother Carlo in 1446 took as wife Caterina di Lorenzo di Bartolo di Segna Guidi (her father Lorenzo was a rigattiere and had been Captain of the Parte Guelfa in 1438).74 All three marriages were notarized in the quarter of Santa Maria Novella. Later, in 1477, the son of Carlo and Caterina, Giovanni, took as his wife one Lisa di Ser Marchionne di Marchionne Donati. The Donati belonged to the ancient Florentine oligarchy. Firm Guelphs, they resided in the San Giovanni neighbourhood and had their houses in the zone of the ​​ Corso and the surrounding streets, a different neighbourhood.75 The Carradori were residents of the Red Lion but did not hesitate to venture out of their parish in order to build up relationships with families desirous of alliance. In this interplay of marriages between clans, sons and daughters surely had a similar role: a device for forging alliances. As appears in Table  6.3, the Carradori held rather more than their share of local offices. For example, during the early years of the Reggimento the gonfalonierate of Lion Rosso rotated among families resident in the district, among them of course the Carradori, whose favour in the Medicean Balìe (Giovanni was in 1427 among the Dieci di Balìa), lofted their status in the post-1434 regime. The Carradori also attended Table 6.3 Offices for the Carradori (1428–1455): veduti and seduti76 Year

Office

Status

Name

Patronymic

2nd Patronymic

1428 1429

Buonuomini Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Buonuomini Priori Buonuomini Buonuomini Buonuomini Priori Priori Priori Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Buonuomini Buonuomini Buonuomini Buonuomini Priori Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Priori

under age under age

Chiaro Chiaro

Giovanni Giovanni

Salvestro Salvestro

dead dead dead in speculo in speculo in speculo in speculo dead in speculo

Giovanni Carradore Giovanni Carlo Domenico Giraldo Salvestro Chiaro Carlo

Salvestro Giovanni Salvestro Giovanni Giovanni Giovanni Giovanni Giovanni Giovanni

Salvestro Salvestro Tommaso Salvestro

in speculo in speculo in speculo in speculo elected elected

Giraldo Carlo Giraldo Carlo Carlo Carlo

Giovanni Giovanni Giovanni Giovanni Giovanni Giovanni

Salvestro Salvestro Salvestro Salvestro

elected

Carlo

Giovanni

Salvestro

1429 1430 1430 1432 1432 1432 1432 1433 1434 1435 1436 1436 1439 1450 1452 1455

Salvestro

176  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility numerous gonfalone meetings, as Giovanni did between 1423 and 1426. He was twice elected syndic and once made a member of the special committee that could void or vouch for the syndics’ right to grant a grace.77 Along with gonfalone responsibilities, the Carradori also held communal office. In fact, they seem to have been prominent more in communal than local administration, and active more on the wider stage of civic politics than in the microworld of their neighbourhood. Carlo di Giovanni was elected twice as Priore di Libertà in 1450 and 1455. Furthermore, the Carradori had four members of their family elected among the twelve Buonuomini between 1409 and 1479, although on numerous occasions the name of those veduti was nello specchio, that is, they could not serve in a given year. Finally, four clan members held one of the sixteen offices for the Gonfalonieri di Compagnia between 1413 and 1478: Giovanni di Salvestro, elected on September 8, 1413, and again on May 8, 1420; and Carlo di Giovanni, elected on May 8, 1452, and again on January 8, in 1478.78 In 1455 and 1474, Carlo also held the important role of Secretario di Credenza of the Parte Guelfa.79 The Carradori, like the del Nero, belonged to the ranks of the minor guilds; unlike them, they enjoyed important blood relations with a powerful family in the district of Santa Maria Novella, the Temperani: with Manno in particular this family would begin a formidable political ascent in the first Medici phase. Despite their modest wealth, the blood ties with the Temperani, cohorts of the Medici, boosted Salvestro’s affairs and pushed him deeper into politics. Over the course of the century, the Carradori would become loyal supporters of the Medici and be included in numerous Balìe (see Table 6.3).

5. The ‘Minor’ Families of Rigattieri 5.1. The Orlandini and the Mannucci The Orlandini, another family of political rigattieri, resided in the district of San Giovanni, in the gonfalone of the Lion D’Oro. They lived in the parish of San Lorenzo,80 in the very heart of Medici territory, near another family central to the Medici entourage, the Pucci. Even before the establishment of the Reggimento and Cosimo’s return, as unfailing backers they had enjoyed Medicean favour. Indeed, one family member, Bartolomeo, was among the minor citizens who had their lives spared but were nonetheless confined outside Florence, after a premature attempt to bring back the Medici (before their plan would eventually succeed). Once Cosimo returned to the city, he paid back this support with financial aid: the Medici rented houses at favourable prices to their supporters and settled their tax arrears. It was a mutual advantage, of course. The Medici wanted their followers and kinsmen off the specchio and eligible for office holding, as they hoped to foreclose positions that the anti-Medici party

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 177 might take. One such protégé was Bartolomeo Orlandini, as we know because he wrote to Averardo de’ Medici, beseeching him to pay his debts as he would, once in office, act in accordance with Medici’s wishes.81 Bartolomeo was right in expecting the Medici to show him favour? Indeed, the Medici remembered well how he had helped them in 1434. Not only did they pay off his debts, they also promoted his career. In 1441, as a sign of favour, he was appointed ambassador, to escort Eugenius IV from Florence to Rome.82 The family continued to enjoy Medici favour and benevolence with Bartolomeo’s son Lorenzo, twice elected Priore di Libertà, in May 1462 and September 1467. The ultimate proof of Orlandini social ascent came in June 1438, when the Consiglio Maggiore replaced Niccolò di Cocco Donati with Bartolomeo who was then elected Gonfaloniere di Giustizia.83 Moreover, not only did Bartolomeo join the meetings of the Consulte, from the last months of 1434,84 de facto replacing citizens sent into exile, but also in his business he enjoyed the favour that he could expect. In fact, many creditors at his traffico di regatteria were from the Medicean faction. Furthermore, his brother married the daughter of a Davanzati, a distinguished family supportive of the Medicean regime, while his son Lorenzo took as wife Altobene di Michele di Francesco Pasquini, from another numerous and notable consorteria, also Medici supporters. The sponsalia were celebrated on October  12, 1427, and Altobene brought Lorenzo 350 gold florins as dowry, plus an alliance with her family.85 Thanks to this alliance, Lorenzo was elected to the highest positions of the Parte Guelfa: Captain in 1454, Priore di Pecunia in 1457 and 1476, and finally Secretario di Credenza in 1462, like his son Giovanni in the following year.86 Finally, Lorenzo was later elected Priore in 1458 and 1462, Capitano di San Marcello in 1447,87 and Camerlengo alle prestanze in 1472.88 The ascent of the Orlandini and their entrance into the inner Medicean Reggimento owed to a combination of Medici support and personal talent and abilities. Not as successful as the Del Nero, the Orlandini still managed to gain affluence and importance under the Medici. Our data do not tell us whether and how close they were to the latter, but certainly the numerous offices held by some members of the clan places them as one of the cohorts having access to the family in power. The Mannucci of Santo Spirito, not to be confused with the other Mannucci, residents in the Carro banner in Santa Croce, settled in the district of Santo Spirito, in the Nicchio banner.89 They were originally from the Valdelsa, from Tignano. The history of the Valdelsa is associated above all with the town of Semifonte, its development linked to its setting on the ancient Roman road that linked Florence with Rome. At the height of its history Semifonte had been a town, with churches, shops, palaces, warehouses, and about three hundred resident families within its walls. The Valdelsa was rich in villages, links in an imperial defence line, also including other castles, like that of San Gimignano, Certaldo, and

178  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility Castelfiorentino, by which the empire controlled the territories of Central Italy. Florence, unwilling to let one of her subject cities become rich and powerful, at first bribed Semifonte’s neighbours to neutralize it, but then decided to destroy the place. There came a long siege, after which the city was razed in 1202.90 Tignano was also one of these small fortified villages which then, as now, stood in front of Barberino di Colle Valdelsa, with a wide view of the Valdelsa and the narrow valley of the Drove. We must imagine the family’s ancestors moving into Florence not long after these events. Benincasa Mannucci in 1433 married Maddalena Rinuccini, daughter of the first marriage of Jacopo di Rinuccino di Francesco.91 Although she was a minor pawn in the marriage alliances planned by her father, Maddalena was still related to members of the Florentine elite. After this marriage the fortunes of the Mannucci began to rise. On July 1, 1436, Manno di Iacopo di Benincasa di Mannuccio, rigattiere and legnaiolo, who in 1400 had married a Finiguerra (Niccolosa di Maffio) and who was elected in 1423 among the sixteen Gonfalonieri di Compagnia, gained access to the Priory, as in 1452 did one of his relatives, Benincasa di Manno di Benincasa di Mannuccio, who in 1442 had also been elected among the Buonuomini. However, it is with Lorenzo di Iacopo Benincasa, within whose veins flowed the blood of the Guadagni, that the clan began to heap up major and minor offices. He was among the Buonuomini in 1445, 1455, 1462, and 1475; among the Priori di Libertà in 1460; consul of the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli in 1466; and again assigned to the Priorate in 1470, 1479, and 1495, while he also obtained the position of Gonfaloniere di Compagnia in 1485.92 The Mannucci family was another non-native clan of Florence, who moved to the city from the Chianti following the gens nova that flowed towards Florence in the Dugento. This family, more than some others, seems to have served in local governance. Although there seems to be no apparent and obvious Medici trace in its story, it is likely that the employment of characters such as Lorenzo di Iacopo in the administration of justice in the Dominio reflected Medicean politics. Furthermore, their family ties with the Rinuccini, Medicean supporters, but above all, with the Del Nero (in view of the marriage between Benincasa Mannucci and Maddalena Rinuccini, whose sister Laudomina was given to a Del Nero, Brunetto di Aldobrandino di Giorgio),93 made them ‘pawns’ in the hands of the latter, who indeed sided with the Medici. 5.2. The Dello Strinato and the Panuzzi Among the gens nova who moved to Florence and entered the Medicean circle of amici e parenti were other families of rigattieri, like the Dello Strinato. They entered the Signoria for the first time between 1437 and 1440 under Cosimo94 and came to be respected and influential in public

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 179 life, even though they could claim neither material affluence, old lineages, cultural high standing, nor Florentine traditions. Among the Signori of Florence elected on November 1, 1438, to serve until the end of December, was Francesco di Tommaso Dello Strinato, rigattiere, for the district of Santa Maria Novella.95 Francesco was once again among the Signori when they decided in 1450 to send messer Agnolo Acciaioli at the head of an embassy in tribute to Francesco Sforza, who had been made Duke of Milan in that year.96 Francesco joined the Signori for a third time in 1456, also for the district of Santa Maria Novella.97 In 1472, one of Francesco’s three sons, Attaviano, gained access to the Priory. His other three sons, Filippo, Tommaso, and Strinato, were still considered too young to hold office in the Tre Maggiori, but Francesco nevertheless inserted their names several times into the bags: Filippo’s in 1454 and in 1456; Tommaso’s name was drawn in 1461 for the Buonuomini and for the Priori, even if he was not chosen because he turned out to be in speculo; and finally Strinato’s in 1468 (see Table 6.4). About the Dello Strinato, we can say virtually nothing concerning their social traditions and ancestry. However, we do know that in the distant Dugento, at the time of Dante, some prominent Degli Strinati, moneylenders and merchants of the guilds of Cambio and Calimala, who owned numerous palaces, houses, and shops near the old market, and precisely in the popolo of Santa Maria in Campidoglio (where they also held their residence), were magnates of strong Ghibelline tradition (as evidenced by the Cronichetta compiled in the Dugento by Neri Degli Table 6.4 Offices for the Dello Strinato (1438–1472): veduti and seduti98 Year

Office

Status

Name

Patronymic

2nd Patronymic

1438 1443 1447 1450 1454 1454 1455 1456

Priori Buonuomini Buonuomini Priori Buonuomini Priori Priori Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Priori Gonfalonieri di Compagnia Buonuomini Priori Buonuomini Priori Priori Priori

elected elected elected elected under age under age under age under age

Francesco Francesco Francesco Francesco Filippo Tommaso Attaviano Attaviano

Tommaso Tommaso Tommaso Tommaso Francesco Francesco Francesco Francesco

Tommaso Tommaso Tommaso Tommaso

under age

Filippo

Francesco

Tommaso

elected under age

Francesco Tommaso

Tommaso Francesco

Tommaso

in speculo in speculo under age under age under age elected

Tommaso Tommaso Filippo Strinato Piero Attaviano

Francesco Francesco Francesco Francesco Francesco Francesco

1456 1456 1456 1461 1461 1464 1468 1470 1472

Tommaso Tommaso

180  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility Strinati). As Ghibellines, they were driven from the city in 1311, when the Guelphs took power.99 In the late Quattrocento, Belfradello Degli Strinati continued the chronicle of his ancestor with a description of the Pazzi conspiracy, which he experienced as a Medicean man and as Gonfaloniere di Compagnia for the gonfalone Drago in the neighbourhood of residence of San Giovanni. The very similar surname of the two houses, Dello Strinato and degli Strinati, probably points to a distant common ancestor, even if the two families seem to have had no apparent ties: the former Guelphs residing in Santa Maria Novella; the latter Ghibelline magnates in San Giovanni. Our Dello Strinato may have descended from the same family or traced his name to ancestors who were only part of the familia; as far as we know they could have even descended from solid professional (artisanal) or even merchant families, yet we cannot provide documentary proof for this. We cannot attribute a distinguished social position to our Dello Strinato family until at least Francesco ascended the steps of the Signoria. What is certain, however, is that increasingly in the second half of the fifteenth century they gained respect, consideration, and reliability, as demonstrated by the numerous offices they held in the Parte Guelfa, by this time turned into an almost-Medicean institution (see Table 6.5). While it appears from the Libro delle Matricole of 1376 that a Panuzio di Franco di Cello had settled in the popolo of San Lorenzo, in the banner of the Lion D’Oro, in the district of San Giovanni, the ancestor of Table 6.5 Offices of the Parte Guelfa held by the Dello Strinato OFFICE OF THE PARTE GUELFA

Capitani di Parte Guelfa Bartolomeo di Francesco di Tommaso Dello Strinato Priori di Pecunia Francesco di Tommaso Dello Strinato Attaviano di Francesco di Filippo Dello Strinato Priore di Francesco di Tommaso Dello Strinato Secretari di Credenza Filippo di Francesco di Tommaso Dello Strinato Priore di Francisco Strinati (Dello Strinato?) Piero di Francesco di Tommaso Strinati (Dello Strinato?) Tommaso di Francesco Strinati (Dello Strinato?)

Date

ASF, Capitani di Parte Guelfa, Numeri Rossi, f.

1493.01.12

22v

1454.01.02 1482.01.11

48v 67v

1492.01.02

75r

1474.01.05

148v

1495.01.11

164v

1499.01.03

167r

1499.01.11

167v

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 181 the Panuzzi family, from whom descended all future members of the clan, was Panuzio di Francesco. He resided in the popolo of Santa Maria in Campidoglio in the gonfalone of Leon Bianco. The Panuzzi’s acknowledgements of their ties with their fellow rigattieri and social equal may have reflected their desire to extend their circle of clients as widely as possible. In all probability their circle of amici, vicini e parenti in fact constituted the small visible top of a vast, submerged iceberg of their local society.100 After Cosimo’s return, the internal changes to the Reggimento became moderate and gradual, strictly controlled by the Medici and their allies. These changes were relatively modest, and were more visible for the lesser than the greater guilds. The name of the Panuzzi, in fact, was absent from the scrutinii of 1434 but was in those of 1440.101 Furthermore, in the gonfalone of the Lion D’Oro, where the Medici lived, all the most heavily represented families of the offices of 1440 remained the same in the list of those represented in 1449, although their order of precedence did change. Scattered evidence indeed suggests that the family had achieved significant financial status during this period, which generally went hand in hand with a social climb in the rolls of public affairs administration. In fact, in the Catasto of 1458, Niccolò di Iacopo declared possession of assets of 2,552 florins after deductions, considerable wealth for a rigattiere.102 From the second half of the century onward, the names of five family members were extracted to be part of the Priory (although Iacopo di Franco had been chosen as early as 1408 and Niccolò di Iacopo di Franco was chosen in 1437, and again in 1450). In 1470 Salvi di Niccolò di Iacopo Panuzzi was selected; in 1476 and in 1481 Panuzio di Niccolò di Iacopo; and finally in 1485 Salvi di Niccolò di Iacopo. The family also held offices among the Buonuomini. Between 1427 and 1491, members of the clan were drawn for San Giovanni: Panuzio di Franco in 1427; Niccolò di Iacopo in 1458 and 1464; Iacopo di Niccolò in 1462; Salvi di Niccolò in 1466 and 1491; Panuzio di Niccolò in 1478 and again in 1483; and Franco di Niccolò in 1486. Members of the Panuzzi clan were also drawn for the offices of Gonfalonieri di Compagnia: Panuzio di Franco in 1417; Niccolò di Iacopo in 1459; Panuzio di Niccolò in 1475 and again in 1484; Piero di Niccolò in 1480; and Salvi di Niccolò in 1489. Besides these offices, the Panuzzi were also appointed to hold offices in the Parte Guelfa: Iacopo di Niccolò was made Captain in 1455103 and elected Secretario di Credenza in 1460, 1464, and 1470,104 while his brother Salvi held the same role in 1471105 (see Table 6.6).

6. Conclusions This chapter traces the intersection of the rigattieri and politics. We have seen how our rigattieri, coming from the ranks of minor guildsmen, were able to avail themselves of the opportunities that an improved financial position offered them in the society of fifteenth-century Florence. Once

182  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility Table 6.6 Offices for the Panuzzi (1440–1476): veduti and seduti106 Year

Office

1440 Guilds elections Linaiuoli e Rigattieri 1446 Priori 1448 Gonfalonieri di Compagnia 1448 Gonfalonieri di Compagnia 1452 Buonuomini 1453 Priori 1454 Priori 1458 Priori 1458 Buonuomini 1459 Gonfalonieri di Compagnia 1460 Buonuomini 1460 Buonuomini 1464 Buonuomini 1464 Priori 1476 Priori

Status

Name

Patronymic 2nd Patronymic

elected

Niccolò

Iacopo

Francesco

under age under age

Iacopo Iacopo

Niccolò Niccolò

Iacopo Iacopo

under age

Panuzio

Niccolò

Iacopo

under age under age under age under age elected elected

Panuzio Giovanni Francesco Giovanni Niccolò Niccolò

Niccolò Iacopo Niccolò Niccolò Iacopo Iacopo

Iacopo Iacopo Iacopo

under age absent from city elected under age elected

Panuzio Salvi

Niccolò Niccolò

Iacopo Iacopo

Niccolò Panuzio Panuzio

Iacopo Niccolò Niccolò

Iacopo

they bettered their social standing, they tried to marry the daughters of prominent families of the gonfalone in which they lived, allowing their grandchildren (it was a three-generation ascent) to be accepted by society as the sons of ancient and prestigious lineages, worthy of key roles in Florentine administration and politics. In fact, the social standing conferred by Florentine tradition could not only be achieved through wealth or access to public offices. Although a tradition always implied stability and antiquity and always signified loyalty to the Republican cause (which also asked for reliability and respectability); yet, when a man of a good family came to contract marriage, he was expected to ally with a woman of his own class. However, there existed complexities, as one shuffled offspring: one might marry one girl down to afford to marry another up; antiquity of lineage or political connections might make good lack of cash; every marriage up, for one partner, was a marriage down for the spouse; a boy could marry down for the big dowry of a father wanting to boost his daughter; one might marry beyond one’s means. And so on. For these reasons, intermarriages are fine clues to the social standing and mobility of individuals. Marriages of course were but one means by which the rigattieri improved their status and built up their standing. The relationships that these new men built, rebuilt, sustained, and transformed over time (some crucial with the lineages in power, and in particular the Medici), helped

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 183 them to construct their networks and to make good on their objectives. What one could not do in trade one could do in politics. Now was this ascent expensive? Did a political rise tax the economic resources of the aspirant, or were the payoffs so substantial that the costs were low? The rigattieri’s agency in the networks they were a part of was ever adapting to a social structure that changed dramatically and continually during the momentous years of the formation of Medicean power. To recognise the rigattieri’s agency and penetration of these networks, and creation of their own, takes us to a deeper understanding of how they managed to grasp the changing times and secure for themselves key positions in the city’s administration and society. The rigattieri penetrated the class-bound order of society at a momentous time, that of the first Reggimento. They likely sensed that the times were changing, and that to force the system from within, by availing themselves of Medicean favour, could help them do what normally would have been denied them. They were well aware that the importance of their families was not based on the usual things that made a family great and strong, thanks to its traditions. Instead, it rested on their ability to help establish and bolster the Medicean regime in the first years after Cosimo’s return from exile. This is particularly true of the Orlandini and the Del Nero: the latter in particular, would, as we have shown, bask in exceptional Medici favour. It was on that they capitalised, although not all managed to succeed and to ally with the Medicean faction. However, not all the careers of our rigattieri followed the same path. Apart from the exceptional ascent of the Del Nero, others, like the Mannucci, Dello Strinato, and Panuzzi, although eventually making it into the inner Medicean circle, initially were simply ‘Medici men,’ pawns in the power game. But for some of them, like Giovanni Carradori and some of the Orlandini, for instance, this condition left them free to focus on their business. In their careers, the friendship or protection of the Medici, or of families supportive of the Medicean politics, allowed them to better their trade thanks to the lustre of higher status and the acquaintances that their improved visibility guaranteed them. In essence, for some rigattieri, proximity to the Medici cause was not just a new political vocation but also a sort of ‘adult internship,’ to hone skills and make contacts in a new field. And like any good internship, this led to a real career. For others instead, like the Orlandini, but above all the Del Nero, politics was the perfect complement to their former trade in cast-offs, and this created other kinds of benefits too: wealth, influence, reconnaissance, and ultimately, status. What then makes one rigattiere’s career in the Reggimento different from another’s? What lessons can we draw about the rigattieri’s condition? We can see an exceptional leap forward for the Del Nero: over the space of two generations only, men of no ancient lineage, who belonged to the ranks of the lesser guilds, decided to invest their all in the shrewd

184  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility game of a Medicean policy, that used the petite people to create a solid system of alliances and support; they were handsomely repaid. The Carradori, instead, despite belonging like the Del Nero to the ranks of the lesser guilds, enjoyed important blood relations with a powerful family in the district of Santa Maria Novella, the Temperani, who were Medicean men; in their case more than active and personal support to the Medici cause, it was their blood ties with the Temperani, cohorts of the Medici, that boosted Salvestro’s affairs, and, ultimately, pushed him deeper into political life. The ascent of the Orlandini, and their entrance into the inner Medicean Reggimento, passed through a combination of Medici support and personal talent and abilities. Though not as successful as the Del Nero, the Orlandini managed to gain affluence and importance under the Medici. As for the Mannucci, although there seems to be no apparent and obvious Medici trace in their story, it is clear that the employment of characters such as Lorenzo di Iacopo in the administration of justice in the Dominio was Medicean politics de facto. Furthermore, their family ties with the Rinuccini, Medicean supporters, made them ‘pawns’ in the hands of the latter. Ultimately, did some of our men, like the Del Nero, rise because they were rigattieri, or despite their being rigattieri? Or did their being rigattieri have no bearing on their utility to the Reggimento? This is worth asking. If some of these rigattieri (in particular we think of Bartolomeo Orlandini, who de facto blocked off all the entrances to Piazza Signoria, letting Cosimo re-enter the city in 1434, or Bernardo Del Nero, who preferred to have his head chopped off rather than reveal a plan to re-install the Medici in Florence in 1497) managed to put the Medici ‘in their debt,’ this really just made the latter closer to them. Had the Del Nero denied their help to the Medici, not only did they run the risk of disgrace, had the Medici gained control and power (as it eventually happened), but they would have passed up a free opportunity to build a strong relationship with the men in command and jeopardized all their changes of future success. Being rigattieri and experts in the art of selling and bargaining in the market and in one’s own shop often placed these men at the centre of a system of exchanges and relationships and allowed them to sniff out people and situations, seize the day, and support the rising Medici family as if it were an investment. Having been men of relatively modest social status favoured them in the game of Medici alliances, since the Medici used precisely such men to build a system of loyal relationships and install themselves firmly: thus, “not only a pawn in their game,” but forgers of their own destiny.

Notes 1. “io ho avuto lunghissima amicizia co’ Medici, e ho infinite obligazioni a quella casa, per mezzo della quale, non essendo io di stirpe nobile, né cinto di parenti come siate tutti a tre voi, sono stato beneficato e esaltato e fatto pari

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 185 a tutti quegli che ordinariamente mi sarebbono andati innanzi negli onori della città,” Francesco Guicciardini, Opere, I, Dialogo del Reggimento di Firenze, ed. Emanuella Lugnani Scarano (Turin: UTET, 1970), 307. 2. “[Lorenzo si mosse] dando favore a quegli uomini de’ quali non gli pareva potere temere, per essere spogliati di parenti e credito, come fu in quel tempo uno [. . .] Bernardo Del Nero,” Ibid., 84. 3. Najemy, A History of Florence 1200–1575, 271. 4. Lauro Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968), 388. 5. Nicolai Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434– 1494) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 133. 6. On new men in Quattrocento Florence and the way their life and cultural models also changed, see Brown, “Lorenzo de’ Medici’s New Men and Their Mores”. 7. “li artefici . . . di vile condizione,” opposed to the “uomini degni e da bene”: Gino Capponi, Ricordi storico-biografici, ed. Cesare Causa (Florence: Ortolani Raffaello Editore, 1876), 26. 8. “gente veniticcia, artefici e di piccolo affare”: Giovanni di Pagolo Morelli, Ricordi, ed. Vittore Branca (Florence: Le Monnier, 1956), XXX, 196. 9. “genti crudeli e bestiali”; “non intendono quello che si fanno”: Guido Cavalcanti, Istorie fiorentine (Florence: Tipografia all’Insegna di Dante, 1838– 1839), 51. 10. On the so-called inner circle of the first Medici Reggimento see Margery A. Ganz, “The Medici Inner Circle: Working Together for Florence, 1420s– 1450s,” in Florence and Beyond. Culture, Society and Politics in Renaissance Italy. Essays in Honour of John M. Najemy, ed. David S. Peterson and Daniel E. Bornstein (Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2008). 11. On number and duration of terms see chap. 2, Table 2.1, 48–49. 12. Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434–1494), passim. 13. Najemy, A History of Florence 1200–1575, 124–132. 14. Although for a much earlier period (ninth–tenth centuries), an article recently published by Igor Santos Salazar shows the inclusion of minor officers, often coming from distant cities, into the system of power relations within local communities in Eastern Emilia: “Ufficiali minori e società locali nell’Emilia Orientale da Ludovico il Pio a Berengario,” ASI 656, 2 (2018). 15. For the general features and for an in-depth illustration of the Florentine cases, see the contributions by Andrea Zorzi, “I rettori di Firenze. Reclutamento, flussi, scambi (1193–1313)”; and Sergio Raveggi, “I rettori fiorentini,” both in I podestà dell’Italia comunale: I, reclutamento e circolazione degli ufficiali forestieri (fine XII sec-metà XIV sec), ed. Jean Claude Maire Vigueur (Rome: École Française de Rome, 2000). 16. ASF, Raccolta genealogica Sebregondi, Mannucci, 3275. 17. ASF, Ibid., Panuzzi, 4027. 18. Paul D. McLean, The Art of the Network. Strategic Interaction and Patronage in Renaissance Florence (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2007). 19. On networks as social structures, and for a survey on the literature on the subject see Mike Burkhardt, “Networks as Social Structures in Late Medieval and Early Modern Towns: A  Theoretical Approach to Historical Network Analysis,” in Commercial Networks and European Cities, 1400–1800, ed. Andrea Caracausi and Christof Jeggle (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2014). 20. Gene A. Brucker, Giovanni and Lusanna. Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986), 36–37.

186  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility 21. It must be noted that in spite of the fact that they will became faithful ‘watchdogs’ of the Medici, the Del Nero had been men of some power and influence already by the late twenties/early thirties of the Quattrocento: Aldobrandino di Giorgio Aldobrandini Del Nero, for example, had been Gonfaloniere in May and June 1434, shortly before the return of Cosimo, while another Del Nero, Aldobrandino di Aldobrandino, was among those accorded the honour of welcoming the pope on June 23 for a long stopover in Florence in his escape from a turbulent revolt in Rome led by the powerful anti-pope faction of the Colonna, and before moving to Bologna, the year following, Dale V. Kent, The Rise of the Medici. Faction in Florence 1426–1434 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 326–327. 22. Kent, The Rise of the Medici, 337–338. 23. While the Carradori and the Panuzzi, low status, had only one household, from which originated the members that went on to hold considerable power during the central years of the Quattrocento, the Del Nero conversely had two households and were typically middle men, gens nova, see Anthony Molho, Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1994), Appendix III, 365–375. 24. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, the Del Nero had business companies in the Catalan-Aragonese and Castilian towns: David Igual Luis, “Los Del Nero, mercadores florentinos: familia, negocios y poder en los reinos hispánicos (1470–1520),” in El poder entre la ciutat i la regió, ed. Flocel Sabaté (Lérida: Pagès Editors, 2018); for the role of the Del Nero in Valencia and Valladolid, see also Sergio Tognetti, “Gli uomini d’affari Toscani nella Penisola Iberica (metà XIV secolo–inizio XVI secolo),” eHumanista 38 (2018). Their case was paradigmatic of an exceptional ascent: from sellers of old clothes to “mercanti di stoffa di lusso e di materie prime, finanzieri internazionali, banchieri di re Cattolici e occasionalmente anche diplomatici,” 89. 25. In the Cinquecento, Francesco Del Nero would become henchman and associate of the banker Filippo Strozzi. He was the real man who masterminded Filippo’s financial success. Appointed treasurer general in Rome by Clement VII, he was also the brother-in-law of Niccolò Machiavelli: Melissa M. Bullard, Filippo Strozzi and the Medici. Favor and finance in sixteenth-century Florence and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). 26. ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli, Secondo Libro delle Matricole, fs. 7r, 15v. 27. Ibid., f. 7r. 28. Ibid., f. 15v. 29. “fuit matriculatus propter beneficium dicti Nero eius patris,” Ibid., fs. 3v, 7r. 30. Florentine Renaissance Resources, Online Tratte of Office Holders, 1282– 1532. Machine readable data file. Edited by David Herlihy, R. Burr Litchfield, Anthony Molho, and Roberto Barducci. (Florentine Renaissance Resources/ STG: Brown University, Providence, RI, 2002), accessed on July 8, 2018. 31. ASF, Catasto, 64, fs. 192r-v. 32. The Del Nero showed a similar attitude to that of the Cambini, who at the beginning of the Quattrocento were enrolled in the guild of linen retailers, but by the next generation had moved to Cambio, not without having sent their children to apprentice (“a garzonare”) in the Medici bank. Goldthwaite, in his book on the Florentine economy, at one point reasons precisely on the artisan origin of many merchant families of the Quattro and Cinquecento, The Economy of Renaissance Florence, 546–560. I wish to thank Sergio Tognetti for this information. 33. Kent, The Rise of the Medici, 107.

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 187 34. Pagolo di Matteo Petriboni and Matteo di Borgo Rinaldi, Priorista (1407– 1459), with two appendices (1282–1406), ed. Jacqueline A. Gutwirth (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2001), 118. 35. Charles Calvert Bayley, War and Society in Renaissance Florence: The De Militia of Leonardo Bruni (Toronto, ON: Toronto University Press, 1961), 82–110. 36. Najemy, A History of Florence 1200–1575, 254–262. 37. Petriboni and Rinaldi, Priorista (1407–1459), 183. 38. Najemy, A History of Florence 1200–1575, 277. 39. The Balìe, whose authority had to be periodically renewed by the statutory councils, were “plenipotentiary assemblies appointed for short periods with far-reaching powers to enact reforms,” in essence, extraordinary organs created in particularly difficult or troubled situations for the Republic and always for very limited periods; they soon became one of the principal instruments of Medicean policy to force the powers of the old Republican organisms from within, Najemy, A History of Florence 1200–1575, 284. 40. The accoppiatori were a crucial element of the electoral system. Already in the 1340s, accoppiatori helped in the process of pre-selection of men for office faithful to the faction in power. However, in the Quattrocento, especially after the return of Cosimo to Florence (although it was not always the case), their main function was to manoeuvre the election by pulling out names of those faithful to the Medicean faction from the so-called borsellino (which seems to have been in use since the late Trecento or early Quattrocento). It is not a coincidence, for example, that in 1433 and in 1434 the name of those veduti and seduti were missing from the list of those drawn by lot: in fact, the lists were filled a mano by the accoppiatori, that is, by appointment, meaning that the accoppiatori had availed themselves of the faculty to put a minimum number of names in the purses of the Signoria, Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434–1494), 34–59. 41. “Et a dì sei detto per la Balìa feciono di popolo tutti gli Alberti e tutti i Medici come prima erano,” Petriboni and Rinaldi, Priorista (1407–1459), 256–257. 42. The accoppiatori must choose among citizens who were eligible for office and whose scrutiny was active at the time of the election (sometimes old reviews could not be considered for elections). On the other hand, along with the two legal stages determining the election of the Signoria, that is scrutiny and extraction, there was now a third one, that is the imborsazioni by the accoppiatori. Thus, their power consisted not in choosing whomever they wished for the Signoria, but those they wished to put among those to be chosen and whose names would be inserted in the lot. In saying this, it is clear they held great power, as it was in their capacity to decide how many names of eligible people would be put in the purses, “over and above the minimum laid down by the law,” Najemy, A History of Florence 1200–1575, 40, 278, 282. 43. Ibid., 284–285. 44. On the role played by the Mercanzia in the framework of the subjugation of the Florentine society to the central power see Najemy, Corporativism and Consensus, 174–175 and passim. 45. The Mercanzia had competences also in commercial policies (and therefore also in diplomacy), at least for the whole of the fourteenth century. This is apparent from the work of Cedric Quertier, “La stigmatisation des migrants à l’épreuve des faits. Le règlement de la faillite Aiutamicristo da Pisa devant la Mercanzia florentine (1390),” in «Arriver» en ville. Les migrants en milieux urbain au Moyen-Age, ed. Cedric Quertier et al. (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2013); “Entre nation, diplomatie économique et corsaires: les conflits merchands

188  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility au sein de la communauté florentine de Pisa dans la second moitié du XIVe siècle,” in Tribunali di mercanti e giustizia mercantile nel tardo Medioevo, ed. Sergio Tognetti and Elena Maccioni (Florence: Olschki, 2016). See also Antonella Astorri, La Mercanzia a Firenze nella prima metà del Trecento. Il potere dei grandi mercanti (Florence: Olschki, 1998); Antonella Astorri, “Note sulla Mercanzia fiorentina sotto Lorenzo dei Medici. Aspetti istituzionali e politici,” ASI, CL (1992); on the evolution of the magistracy and its offices see Luca Boschetto, L’ufficio del ricorso presso la Mercanzia fiorentina tra Quattro e Cinquecento (Florence: Olschki, 2016). 46. Antonella Astorri and David Friedman, “The Florentine Mercanzia and its Palace,” I Tatti Studies 10 (2005), 14–18. 47. For the political background surrounding the Parte Guelfa see Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434–1494), 88–135; Vieri Mazzoni, Accusare e proscrivere il nemico politico. Legislazione antighibellina e persecuzione giudiziaria a Firenze (1347–1378) (Pisa: Pacini, 2010). 48. Najemy, A History of Florence 1200–1575, 344; see also Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434–1494), Appendices, 293. 49. ASF, Capitani di Parte Guelfa, Numeri Rossi (hereafter NR), fs. 4v, 11v, 21v. On a particular aspect related to the representation of power and identity by the Parte Guelfa see Meneghin, “The Livery of a Florentine Employee in the Fifteenth Century”. 50. ASF, Capitani di Parte Guelfa, NR, fs. 4r, 5r, 14v. 51. Alison Brown, “The Guelph Party in 15th-Century Florence: The Transition from Communal to Medicean State,” Rinascimento XX (1980), 54. 52. The new gravezza, deliberated by the Balìa elected on May  23, 1444, was to raise 15,000 florins, collected from the various taxpayers by a commission of ten citizens of at least thirty-five years, elected by the new Consiglio Maggiore. In assigning the different degrees of gravezza, the artefici chose to impose different coefficients according to their own judgment and conscience, see Conti, L’imposta diretta a Firenze nel Quattrocento, 207–208. 53. In addition to the 320 elected citizens in the number of twenty for each banner, those who were clearly or secretly reported to the notary of the extractions were elected by each member of the Consigli Maggiori. The two by district, of different gonfaloni belonging to the major guilds, and the two artefici of different district and gonfalone, who had obtained the highest number of votes, were elected. There could not be more than one member of the same family among the elected. Furthermore, the inscription in the speculo did not constitute a reason for exclusion from the draw or even ground for ineligibility. Under pain of 1,000 florins, none of the elected could renounce the appointment, Najemy, A History of Florence 1200–1575, 282; see also Palmieri, Ricordi fiscali (1427–1474), 113. 54. Ugolino di Niccolò Martelli, Ricordanze dal 1433 al 1483, ed. Fulvio Pezzarossa (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1989), 237. 55. When the magistracy of the Ufficiali del Catasto was set up in 1427, the eligibility to this new position depended on eligibility to the Priorate, Dale V. Kent, “The Florentine Reggimento in the Fifteenth Century,” Renaissance Quarterly 27, 4 (1975), 585. 56. Molho, Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence, Appendix III, 389. 57. Najemy, A History of Florence 1200–1575, 450–451; see also Palmieri, Ricordi fiscali (1427–1474), 111, 165, 173. 58. Ciappelli, Fisco e società a Firenze nel Rinascimento, 226–227. 59. “Girolamo Moregli e Bernardo del Nero l’uno è Giovanni e ll’altro San Piero,” Pisani, Un avventuriero del Quattrocento, 105. 60. ASF, Raccolta genealogica Ceramelli-Papiani, ad vocem Del Nero.

From Sellers of Old Rags to the Urban Elite 189 61. ASF, Raccolta genealogica Sebregondi, ad vocem Del Nero, 3806. 62. ASF, Catasto (1480), 992, fs. 158r-v. 63. Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434–1494), 50, 55, 221, 261, 266, 268, 350, 362; Guicciardini, Opere, I, Storie fiorentine, 159; see also Najemy, A History of Florence, 282, 362, 365, 376, 397–398, 436–437; Alison Brown, The Medici in Florence. The Exercise and Language of Power (Florence: Olschki, 1992), 100, 156, 176, 181, 185–186, 239, 299; Palmieri, Ricordi fiscali (1427–1474), 208, 255; and Vanna Arrighi, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (hereafter DBI), vol. 38 (1990), ad vocem Bernardo Del Nero. 64. Molho, Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence, Appendix 5, 418. 65. Lorenzo di Iacopo Benincasa, elected among the Buonuomini in 1445 as we shall see shortly, was the nephew of Benincasa, to whom Maddalena had been given as wife: Florentine Renaissance Resources, Online Tratte of Office Holders, 1282–1532, accessed on July 12, 2018. 66. Molho, Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence, 246–247, 254–255. 67. ASF, Raccolta genealogica Sebregondi, Orlandini 1342, Albero Genealogico. 68. Manno Temperani was a faithful Medici man, and between the 1440s and the 1450s he acted several times in the key role of accoppiatore, Dale V. Kent and Francis W. Kent, Neighbours and Neighbourhood in Renaissance Florence. The District of the Red Lion in the Fifteenth Century (Locust Valley, NY: J. J. Augustin, 1982), 85. On the issue of the chapel’s patronage see Manno Temperani’s tax report in 1427, ASF, Catasto, 44, fs. 224r-225v; and that of Giovanni Carradori in ASF, Catasto, 43, fs. 1109r–1130r. 69. Kent and Kent, “Two Vignettes of Florentine Society in the Fifteenth Century,” 237. 70. Manno Temperani descended from the most successful branch of the family, but the Carradori themselves went on to achieve very high offices as minor guildsmen after the mid-fifteenth century, always remaining in good harmony among them, Ibid., 237–238. 71. Kent & Kent, Neighbours and Neighbourhood in Renaissance Florence, 29. 72. ASF, Catasto (1427), 42, fs. 79r–89v. 73. Isabella Iannuzzi, ad vocem Ponzetti Ferdinando, DBI, vol. 84 (2015). 74. See 169. 75. ASF, Raccolta genealogica Sebregondi, Carradori 1342. 76. Florentine Renaissance Resources, Online Tratte of Office Holders, 1282– 1532, accessed on July 15, 2018. 77. Kent & Kent, Neighbours and Neighbourhood in Renaissance Florence, 99. 78. ASF, Raccolta genealogica Sebregondi, Carradori 1342; Florentine Renaissance Resources, Online Tratte of Office Holders, 1282–1532, accessed on July 15, 2018. 79. ASF, Capitani di Parte Guelfa, NR, fs. 134v, 149r. 80. In 1486, when Lorenzo, the son of Bartolomeo, dictated his will, he declared to belong to the parish of San Lorenzo, ASF, Raccolta genalogica Sebregondi, Orlandini 3913. 81. Kent, The Rise of the Medici, 78–79. 82. Ibid., 123–124. 83. Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434–1494), 35. 84. Ibid., 345. 85. ASF, Catasto (1427), 78, fs. 96r-v. 86. ASF, Capitani di Parte Guelfa, NR, fs. 5r, 50r, 63v, 140r-v. 87. On the Capitanato della Montagna see William J. Connell, “Il commissario e lo stato territoriale fiorentino,” Ricerche storiche XVIII, 3 (1988); see also the Glossary.

190  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility 88. Martelli, Ricordanze dal 1433 al 1483, 296; Palmieri, Ricordi fiscali (1427–1474), 206; Giovanni Cambi, “Istorie fiorentine,” in Delizie degli eruditi toscani, ed. Ildefonso di San Luigi, XX (Florence: Cambiagi, 1786), 384, 398. 89. ASF, Manoscritti, Carte Pucci, 598/II ins. 53, Mannucci di Santa Croce, Carro. 90. See the essays in Semifonte in Val d’Elsa e i centri di nuova fondazione dell’Italia medievale, Atti del convegno (Barberino Val d’Elsa, 12–13 ottobre 2002) ed. Paolo Pirillo (Florence: Olschki, 2004), in part. Enrico Faini, “Firenze al tempo di Semifonte”; Lorenzo Fabbri, “Un principe dell’impero alla guida della Lega Toscana: il vescovo Ildebrando di Volterra e la guerra di Semifonte”; and Maria Elena Cortese, “Assetti insediativi ed equilibri di potere: Semifonte nel contesto delle fondazioni signorili in Toscana.” 91. See above, 173. 92. ASF, Raccolta genealogica Sebregondi, Mannucci, 3275; see also XXX. 93. See above, 173. 94. Martines, The Social World of the Florentine Humanists, 75. 95. Petriboni, Rinaldi, Priorista (1407–1459), 286. 96. Ibid., 339. 97. Ibid., 435. 1456 was a momentous year for the whole of Europe. In that year an extension of the army that had conquered Constantinople marched towards Belgrade. After putting it under siege, it was defeated in a memorable battle by the noble Transylvanian János Hunyadi, father of the future king Matthias Corvinus, who had already led for the past two decades the Hungarian army in the fight against the Turks. The battle stopped Ottoman expansionism in Europe for at least seventy years. Pope Callistus III himself wanted the victory to be remembered in the liturgical calendar on the occasion of the Feast of the Transfiguration on August 6. Florence celebrated the escaped danger with parties, parades, and processions and with the issuance of an edict that those who attended with reverence the festivities would obtain a plenary indulgence. On the siege and battle of Belgrade and the implications, in Western Christianity see Pál Fodor, “The Ottoman Empire, Byzantium and Western Christianity. The Implications of the Siege of Belgrade, 1456,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarium Hung 61 (1–2) (2008). 98. Florentine Renaissance Resources, Online Tratte of Office Holders, 1282– 1532, accessed on July 17, 2018. 99. Silvia Diacciati, “Memorie di un magnate impenitente: Neri degli Strinati e la sua Cronichetta,” ASI 168 (2010). 100. On the role of friends in one’s social life and integration in the community see Dale V. Kent, Friendship, Love, and Trust in Renaissance Florence (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 2009), 15–86. 101. Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434–1494), 74–75. 102. Molho, Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence, Appendix 3, 398. 103. ASF, Capitani di Parte Guelfa, NR, f. 14v. 104. Ibid., fs. 138r, 141r, 145v. 105. Ibid., f. 146v. 106. Florentine Renaissance Resources, Online Tratte of Office Holders, 1282– 1532, accessed on July 17, 2018.

Conclusions

The boundaries of the interests, questions, and objectives of this volume are limited quite clearly in the title: it surveys the rigattieri. The stimulus to write this book stemmed from my interest in this professional group of traders. I treat here their world, its forms of social and corporate organisation, its actors and the conflicts which arose among them, and the ways these actors found, through their work, a social affirmation that would improve their collective lives, in the years of the early Reggimento after the return of Cosimo to Florence in 1434. This book arose from my attempt to apply precise historiographical analysis to the current debates on the social mobility in Italian cities in the aftermath of the severe economic readjustment that followed the Black Death. It also emerged from a desire to reconnect the history of structures to that of men by reconstructing the economic environments, corporate and social hierarchies, systems of relationships, behaviours, and individual and collective ways of feeling and acting. This book thus attempts to bring into focus some of the modus vivendi et operandi of a group of ‘minor’ actors in fifteenth-century Florence. Though ‘minor,’ these individuals are absolutely central to any attempt to understand the situation of Florence during the transformation of its administrative and political apparatus, its corporate structures, and its market in the momentous last phase of its Republican life, before the formation of the Grand Duchy. What makes such these cases interesting are the many devices for social mobility of independent artisans and traders (persons of modest standing) enrolled in Florence’s lesser guilds. I observed these rigattieri before, during, and immediately after the return of Cosimo the Elder from exile, in the years of the first Medici Reggimento. This was a particular phase of the diversification of their commercial activities, as well as a period of great mobility within Florentine society. Therefore, the analysis concentrated on the phase of the most intense economic development of the Arte and on the evolution of its identity. The period was a time of pronounced political-institutional creativity, marked by the struggles for power and by the ascent and rooting of the Medici family. The time frame of my investigation runs from

192  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility the 1420s (although some references to previous years are present) up to the 1480s (albeit with some looking forward). As for the main axes of the discourse—the triad of work, social and political mobility—they offer a vast arena containing varied but complementary themes. The first part of this work discussed the problematic union with the linaioli; the relationship between the work regulated by the statutes and work taking place outside the system; women’s work; and the hierarchy within the corporation. There I noted that in the thirteenth century, there had been an important change in the relations of production within the workshops. At first, workshop training had allowed a young craftsman or trader to acquire the knowledge necessary for self-employment and social ascent. Later, however, changes in training no longer assured him autonomy; his formation rather aimed at creating a subordinate worker.1 This change, which modified relationships within the guilds, certainly figured in the Arte dei Rigattieri, as we find in the progressive tightening of the corporate ranks in the fifteenth century, as well as in the difficulty its new members, who sometimes came from extra-urban contexts, encountered when trying to exercise any retail activity even vaguely profitable.2 This phenomenon did not entail, at least not from its onset, a worsening in the fortunes of those rigattieri who were less well off, but, as we have seen, it determined their gradual and irreversible physical removal from the places of commerce located in the city centre. Conversely, it allowed some rich owners of shops to constitute real ‘dynasties’ of rigattieri, in which not only the skills and secrets of the profession were handed down to future generations, but also an economic and social position from which others were excluded. Additionally, in the first part of this book, we saw the correspondence and the occasional discrepancy between the real economy and the economic policy of the Arte. The discussion then took up the material conditions of the rigattieri, the organisational make-up of the various companies of regatteria, their impact on working and corporate relations, and their ability to adapt to the urban fabric and social changes. This section assayed the ability to train the human capital of the Arte and of the individual inside the corporate frameworks. In order to deepen the research, it was also essential to analyse the modification of the demand structure for second-hand clothes in the Florentine economy. The strengthening of the sector of ‘minor’ items and the demand for these disposable goods, between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were closely linked to the changing urban economy. This period saw an increase in wages even for unskilled labourers. Coupled with a wider distribution of cheaper goods, these changes stimulated increased consumption by all social strata. Even disadvantaged social groups had small funds for purchasing used hose, shirts, and doublets. This market also served Florentines who desired to purchase fancy clothes, cheaper than things made bespoke, yet worthy of the role that

Conclusions 193 they were sometimes called upon to play within the administrative and political apparatuses (thanks to a rotation system that saw hundreds of minor officers each year serve in the public administration). This availability of funds and needs led to an evolution, and, indeed, we could say, a bifurcation of demand. On the one hand, rigattieri supplied clothes and accessories of paltry importance, made of very cheap fabric, destined to be purchased by a client base of small or middling economic capacity (although it must be said that the lively second-hand market was not within everyone’s reach, especially not of the very poor). On the other hand, clothes and accessories made with very expensive fabrics and with bright and fashionable colours were simultaneously offered to a mediumhigh and even wealthy clientele. The second part of this book explored the alternative professions taken on by many rigattieri. We analysed the various types of alternative jobs carried out by rigattieri, with an eye to supplementing their income from the sale of second-hand goods. We also looked at rigattieri with sufficient financial capacity, who used an alternative profession as an investment for their capital, rather than as a form of supplementary income. This was true of the rigattieri brothers Battista and Sandro di Bartolo dal Gallo. Meanwhile, I demonstrated that the rigattieri lodged at the bottom of the Arte pyramid were generally condemned to work, with little continuity and with very low profits, performing jobs that provided them with just a small amount of additional money. This condition placed many of them on the margins of the Arte, reducing them to a non-skilled labour force for shops, workshops, or fields, sometimes working as poor sharecroppers. To explore the rigattieri’s investments and the proceeds of their commercial activities, it was crucial to study the modifications of ownership of houses inside and outside the city walls, but above all to see how rigattieri earned from land ownership and agricultural activities (such as animal contracts like soccide). My investigation of the assets of rigattieri let me clarify their accumulation of wealth, where it occurred, and the composition and movements of their income, the trend and structure of their investments in the Monte comune and Monte delle Doti, and their use of these investments to move upward. I  laid out the growth of a rather varied group of rigattieri, not at all excluded from chance to rise. To this end, my last chapter explored the entrance of some rigattieri into the arena of city politics and their insertion into key institutions of the Republican system (Mercanzia and Parte Guelfa), with canny objectives and timely family strategies (helped by advantageous marriages). What was it that allowed rigattieri to select and appropriate strategies conducive to their social and professional rise? First, although the rigattieri were a mixed lot, they had clear traits in common. Every rigattiere wanted to be rich, but a few were just keener than the others. They were willing to take the next step and put that ambition to work, taking the

194  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility risks involved. Good things like wealth, success, and political clout were viewed something like a finite pie: if the commercial elite took too big a slice of the great wealth produced in the wool and silk trade, the minor guildsmen struggled to get a much smaller piece. However, a few understood that if they really wanted to get ahead, the way to do so was not as much by looking out only for their own interests as to eye the interests of others, powerful or needful of their help, like the Medici. Some rigattieri displayed a more proactive control of their life and reacted to the shifting times, regarding ever-changing events as not obstacles but opportunities. That said, some rigattieri had a positive, others a downcast, mindset; this latter was no ordinary weakness, it was a critical flaw that hamstrung their effectiveness. But for some other rigattieri, the secret to ascent was perseverance, indispensable, even more important than formal education, which many in fact lacked. In this regard, the line by Bernardo del Nero in the Dialogo sul Reggimento is emblematic: “I possess no learning and you all know it.”3 Although he was referring to his lack of education, this certainly was not perceived as a handicap that had blocked his rise. Rather, it had instead brought him luck, because it was coupled with strong determination, strength, and intelligence. So it might seem that perseverance would have allowed anyone with intuition, guile, and a bit of luck to improve his business and life standards. But was it really so? In fifteenth-century Florentine society, were perseverance, determination, and resolution really enough to move a man up? Is it really possible to say so of the rigattieri as a corporate group, in that time and that economy? It seems quite clear that, although some of our rigattieri did well indeed, not all of them experienced soaring good fortune within only two or three generations. Many of them were incapable of a leap from small businessman to great merchant who carried off big ventures, even if they were well rooted to start with. Some remained small retailers who had made a good fortune, but who, staying tied to their comrades in the Arte, had failed to slip into that swarm of transactions, rounds of capital and money, knowledge of important men, intense neighbourhood and social relations, loans, and land investments, which had always churned the commercial hub in Florence. However, the individualism of some rigattieri and their often unscrupulous modus operandi, in business as well as in social relations, laid foundations for subsequent generations, for their enrichment and in general for their success and prosperity in life and politics, at least for some of them. This is the case of Nero di Filippo Del Nero, Bartolomeo Orlandini, Francesco di Tommaso Dello Strinato, and Benincasa Mannucci, who all provided well for their descendants. But how did it transpire that, despite having been formerly considered ambiguous and dishonest, many of them climbed the social steps, earning the respect and consideration of the elite in power? Let us not forget that those were the years of the political transition from the Albizzi’s Signoria to the Medici’s. Many of our rigattieri must have played the punter,

Conclusions 195 pinning their few resources and their future on, they hoped, a winning horse. The Medici, the winning horses, as we all know, paid them back, although a few rigattieri must have also thought themselves pawns in the hands of the Medici or their supporters, in a game that brought both mutual benefits. The rigattieri who ‘bet’ on the Medici simply sensed that the times were changing and that to force the system from within, by availing themselves of Medicean favour, could aid them in doing what normally would have been denied to them. In fact, they were but too aware that the importance of their families was, of course, not based on the ideal set of traits that made a family great and strong, in virtue of its traditions. Rather their rise owed to their role in founding and buttressing of the Medicean regime in its first years. This is particularly true of the Del Nero and the Orlandini: the former in particular won exceptional favour. Wealth was, of course, another factor in the rise of some rigattieri. They knew how to make the second-hand trade a good place to invest one’s money. For example, some of the great entrepreneurs of the city economy (see Galeazzo Borromei, for example, who rented many of his shops in the old market to rigattieri),4 made ample investments in used clothes. Also, some among the rigattieri, who came from the world of urban workers or craftsmen (sometimes from very modest backgrounds), had developed a set of investment strategies at all levels (entrepreneurial, mercantile, land, and, not least, family and relational, thanks to which they scaled the peak of the social hierarchy), that allowed them to channel their resources and those of people they knew, helping them secure the support of the ruling elites.5 Exceptionally shrewd or exceptionally lucky? In the same years, a comparable case of social and professional ascent, though different for scope and volume of transactions, was that of the Gondi family, exceptionally fast to rise. They started with running a small manufacture of battilori in the 1440s, became the largest producers of drappi auroserici, and moved, eventually, at the beginning of 1500, to Lyon where they gained prominent positions at the court of the King of France.6 The story of the Gondi echoes that of all families (such as the Antinori, Corsi, Martelli, Banchi, etc.) that emerged in the fifteenth century with the silk boom. A  century earlier, they were only skilled craftsmen. There are parallels, of course, between the tale of the Gondi cited above and that of our rigattieri. Ironically, for example, Florence, the city that more than any other was obsessed with politics and wealth and made labour-organisation and the market one of its major objectives, celebrated the families of rigattieri that often came ‘from below,’ only when they increased their status (often abandoning the trade which had been used as a springboard to enter politics and to climb within society) and became mercantile lineages in power, part of the inner circle of the

196  Work, Investments, and Social Mobility Medicean family. The clear-headed way in which some rigattieri brought into ever clearer focus their identity and above all, the need to change the image of the Arte from a group of untrustworthy people into a guild of esteemed retailers, as well as the lucidity with which they formulated their goals of social ascent and managed to put them into action, would probably find a reflection in the stories of other professional groups in Florence and elsewhere in Italy, but these stories are still to be written.

Notes 1. Roberto Greci, “Il contratto di apprendistato nelle corporazioni bolognesi (XIII–XIV),” in Corporazioni e mondo del lavoro nell’Italia padana medievale, ed. Roberto Greci; Greci presented also some cases in which apprentices were paid: “L’apprendistato nella Piacenza tardo-comunale,” 234, 238. For a peculiar type of apprenticeship contract see Denise Bezzina, Artigiani a Genova nei secoli XII–XIII (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2015); Franceschi argued on “the mixed nature of certain apprenticeship contracts,” in Oltre il «Tumulto», 163–164. For a recent summary of the studies that have been devoted to this aspect, see Zanoboni, Salariati nel Medioevo, 34–39. 2. Meneghin, “The Trade of Second Hand Clothing in Fifteenth-Century Florence,” 334–335. 3. “Lettere non ho io e voi lo sapete tutti,” Guicciardini, Opere, I, Dialogo del Reggimento di Firenze, 431. 4. See 83. 5. For the economic rise, in Milan, of a particular group of entrepreneurs, the Venzago, goldbeaters (battilori) that subsequently became merchants in clothes of gold, see Zanoboni, “Battiloro e imprenditori auroserici: mobilità sociale”; on a second battiloro, Nicolò da Gerenzano, see Maria Paola Zanoboni, “I Da Gerenzano ‘ricamatori ducali’ alla corte sforzesca,” Storia economica VII, 2–3 (2004), now also in Maria Paola Zanoboni, Rinascimento sforzesco. Innovazioni tecniche, arte e società nella Milano del secondo Quattrocento (Milan: CUEM, 2005). 6. Tognetti, I Gondi di Lione, 17–19.

Appendix A Florentine Quarters, Gonfaloni, and Parrocchie

Florence was divided into four quarters in place of the previous administrative division of six districts (sestieri). Each quarter was in turn subdivided into four gonfaloni punctuated by various parish churches (popoli) which served as administrative sections.

San Giovanni Chiavi (San Pier Maggiore, San Procolo, Sant’Ambrogio, San Bartolomeo al Corso) Drago San Giovanni (Santa Maria Maggiore, San Salvatore, Santa Maria del Fiore, San Leo, Santa Maria Nipotecosa, San Cristofano, San Marco, San Ruffillo, San Michele Berteldi) Leon d’Oro (San Lorenzo, San Marco, San Jacopo in Campo Corbolini, Santa Maria del Fiore) Vaio (San Michele Visdomini, San Piero Celoro, Santa Maria Alberighi, Santa Maria Nipotecosa, San Benedetto, San Michele in Palchetto, Santa Margherita de’ Ricci, Santa Maria in Campo, San Procolo, San Bartolomeo al Corso)

Santa Croce Bue (San Simone, Sant’Apollinare, San Firenze, Santa Croce) Carro (San Pier Scheraggio, San Romolo, Santo Stefano al Ponte, Santa Cecilia, Orsanmichele) Leon Nero (San Romeo, San Jacopo tra i Fossi, Santa Croce) Ruote (San Procolo, Santo Stefano alla Badia, San Martino)

Santa Maria Novella Leon Rosso (San Pancrazio, San Paolo, San Miniato tra le Torri, Santa Maria degli Ughi, Sant’Andrea) Leon Bianco (Santa Maria Novella, San Michele Berteldi, San Donato dei Vecchietti, San Piero Buonconsiglio)

198  Appendix A Unicorno (Santa Lucia Ognissanti, Santa Trinita) Vipera (SS. Apostoli, Santa Maria Sopraporta)

Santo Spirito Drago Verde (San Frediano, Santa Maria in Verzaia) Ferza (San Felice in Piazza, San Piero Gattolino) Nicchio (Santa Felicita, San Jacopo Sopr’Arno, Santo Spirito) Scala (San Niccolò, San Giorgio, San Gregorio, Santa Lucia de’ Bardi, Santa Maria Sopr’Arno, Santa Felicita)

Appendix B Glossary

Accoppiatori agli Uffici  The accoppiatori were a crucial part of the electoral system. As early as the 1340s, the accoppiatori were helping in the pre-selection for office of men who were faithful to the faction in power. In the Quattrocento, especially after the return of Cosimo to Florence, their main function became to manipulate the elections by extracting names of those faithful to the Medicean faction from the so-called borsellino. Alessandrino  a vivid violet blue colour. Arbitri or Arbitratores  reviewers. The arbitri’s essential task was the proper functioning of the Arte dei Rigattieri, as it was up to them to make any additions to the pre-existing statutes. The consuls would summon the arbitri to work on reviewing and revising the statutes. Artefice or artifice or artiere  master workman, or member of a handicraft guild. Artefice per la gravezza  official in charge of the imposition of forced loans. Arti  The trades, lit. Arti, were professional guild associations, originally born as lay associations for the defence and pursuit of the common goals of those exercising the same profession, and must be credited for much of the extraordinary economic development that allowed Florence to become one of the richest and most powerful cities of medieval Europe. In Florence, they were rigidly divided between Arti Maggiori, Arti Mediane, and Arti Minori. Between the first two (the first one especially) and the last there were marked differences in social status and wealth. Arti maggiori  the major trades: Bankers (Cambio); Cloth Merchants (Calimala); Furriers (Pellicciai e Vaiai); Judges, Lawyers, and Notaries (Giudici e Notai); Physicians and Apothecaries (Medici e Speziali); Silk Merchants (Seta or Por Santa Maria); Wool Merchants (Lana). Arti mediane  the middle trades: Blacksmiths (Fabbri); Graziers (Beccai); Linen Merchants and Second-hand Dealers (degraded to Arte minore in 1293) (Linaioli e Rigattieri); Shoemakers (Calzolai); Workers in Stone and Wood (Maestri di Pietra e Legname).

200  Appendix B Arti minori  the lesser trades: Armourers (Corazzai e Spadai); Bakers (Fornai); Innkeepers (Albergatori); Keymakers (Chiavaioli); Leather Workers (Cuoiai e Galigai); (from 1293) Linaioli e Rigattieri; Olive Oil Merchants and Provision Dealers (Oliandoli e Pizzicagnoli); Saddlers (Correggiai); Wine Merchants (Vinattieri); Wood Workers (Legnaioli). Balìa  the Balìe, whose authority had to be periodically renewed by the statutory councils, were extraordinary governmental bodies created in particularly difficult or troubled situations for the Republic, and always for very limited periods. Baliatico  wet-nursing activity. Banco (di presto)  the stall or shop of a money-changer or banker, or a bank; or a counter or bench for displaying and selling goods, and by extension a shop. Bargello  commander of a police force. Basto  saddle. Battilori  gold-beaters. Bianco or bianchetto  natural-coloured, undyed. Bigello  grey homespun or russet cloth; or coarse camlet (woven fabric). Boccaccino  The boccaccino or boccasino was a robust cotton fabric similar to calico, also used for stuffing. Bocche  literally mouths, or tax-deductible dependents living under the same roof as the taxpayer. Borsa  bag, purse, which contained the slips on which the names of those who had passed the scrutiny were written, that is those veduti and seduti for government and leadership roles. Bottega  shop, where stock and raw materials were also kept. Brache  codpieces. Broccato  brocade cloth. Bruschino  brushed or dressed cloth. Bucherame  buckram, or ‘bokeram,’ was a fine cotton cloth. Buonuomini  together with the sixteen Gonfalonieri, the twelve Buonuomini formed the twenty-eight members of the colleges, government bodies. Calze  hose. Calze a staffetta  men’s hose consisting of the sole covering of the leg, without the part covering the foot, to which they were tied by a strip of fabric similar to a stirrup. Camerlengo alle Prestanze  treasurer and secretary of the forced loans. Campo (coltivato)  field (cultivated). Capecchio  coarse lint, usually made from linen or hemp, which produced a stuffing of bristly hairs, generally employed for padding mattresses. Capitano del Popolo  Captain of the people. He exercised control over the podestà, sometimes flanked by two autonomous councils with

Appendix B 201 representatives from local guilds of artisans and craftsmen and the gonfalonieri, leaders of military units connected with the city’s parishes. Capitano di San Marcello  the Capitanato della Montagna (comprising San Marcello and Cutignano, in the territories of Pistoia) was born as an extraordinary magistracy in 1330 in order to maintain military control of the area and to repress possible riots. The Captains remained in office for three months; the family included a judge, a notary, and a police officer (bargello) with servants and horses. The prerogatives of the captains, overlapping with and similar to those of the vicars, consisted of administering criminal justice and in supervising civil justice, which had remained the responsibility of the local rectors until 1366, when the Captain became the sole political, military, and judicial authority of the territory. Anticipating the political line of the Medici, in 1373 the Florentine Republic removed from the cities of its Dominio their direct control over the countryside, including taking away legislative, jurisdictional, administrative, and fiscal perquisites. To better protect itself from the Visconti threat, the Republic wanted the Captain’s office to be assigned to an employee directly dependent on Florence. Capitoli (dell’Arte)  sections (rubricae) of the statutes. Cappelli  hats and headgear of different styles. Casa  house. Casetta or casolina  small house. Castellanie  territories of Florence, subject to its jurisdiction. Castellano  Captain of the territory of Florence. Catasto  Household-based fiscal survey of the city of Florence and its contado. This rigorous inventory included information on all real property, movable and immovable possessions, business interests, debts, and family backgrounds. The most famous of these surveys is of course the Catasto of 1427. Celestino or celestrino  light blue colour. Centinaio or Centinario  quintal, hundredweight, usually more than 100 lbs. Also, hundred by number. Chiasso or chiassolino  (little) alleyway. Cintola or cintura  girdle or belt. Cioppa or cioppetta  gown or a little gown, possibly for a child. Clamide  the use of this courtly term, which means mantle, would refer to the richest cloaks. Usually the chlamydis are described as expensive clothes with rich seals. Clamidi, like cloaks, were often provided with hoods. Short clamidi were also used, but this was generally unusual. Collegi  colleges. Coltriciaio  bed linen maker. Compagnia del Bigallo  confraternity for charitable purposes founded in Florence in 1244 by Pietro da Verona with the former aim to eradicate the heresy of the Cathars.

202  Appendix B Comune  commune, municipality. Consiglio del Popolo  council of the People. Consiliarii  councillors. Consilium  committee. Consules or rectores  consuls. Constitutum  mandate. Consulte e Pratiche  advisory meetings of the Florentine Republic. Contado  The rural area surrounding a city. City and contado were economically, politically, administratively, and territorially linked. The Dominio, farther out, began where the Contado ended. Corpo di compagnia  share capital. Cotta  an amply cut long gown for both men and women. The garment could often be trimmed with fur to be more luxurious. Cottardite  overgowns. Decima scalata  progressive tax rate on real estate established in 1480. Decina graziosa  progressive tax rate on income and persons established in 1442. Dieci di Balìa  the most important magistracy of the Medici regime, appointed in times of war, or danger of war, to conduct military operations and diplomatic business. Dominio or Stato territoriale  Florence’s Dominion or territorial state. Donora  the donora were made up of feminine items such as ornate gowns, a belt furnished with decorations, hats and hoods, some shirts, handkerchiefs, and even some small devotional books. Donzello  servant. Drappi auroserici  clothes of gold. Economia-mondo Fiorentina  Florentine world-economy. Entratura  commercial license. Estimatori or stimatori  appraisers of goods. Estimo  Financial survey, different from the Catasto, in that the Estimo only provided information on immovable assets and not on other items or properties as seen in the full scope of the Catasto. Explorates  spies. Facezie  puns or jokes. Famiglio  a member of a household, specifically, the servant and/or attendant living within a domestic unit. Familia  within the elite, familia could mean different things: all those bearing the same surname, including lateral branches of the family, but also the household, the domestic unit of all those who lived under the same roof, servants and attendants included. In less wealthy environments, the familia was traditionally associated with the nuclear family of parents with their children, the patriarchal family of grandparents and grown children (already married and with their own offspring), and an extended group of brothers.

Appendix B 203 Farsettaio  doublet maker, a small independent master, probably with a shop. Farsetti  doublets. Fibbie per mantelli  buckles for cloaks. Fideiussori or mallevadori  guarantors or surety (of debtors, apprentices, officials). Finimenti (del basto)  harnesses. Fiorino  florin. Fiorino di suggello  Sealed (gold) florin, that had been weighed, tested, and sealed. Fiorino largo  large gold florin, which appeared in Florence about 1450 and rapidly rose to become 20% more valuable than the fiorino di suggello, which had been reduced to a money of account for silver. Foderato  lined. Fondaco  storage place or private warehouse where goods of one or more merchants were stored and sold. Foro novo  the new market. Foro vetero  the old market. Frappature or frappe  The so-called frappature were edges of cloth which had been decoratively cut into leafy shapes or other patterns. A feature of both masculine and feminine ensembles, they were often criticized by moralists and preachers alike, as they were a secure sign of an indulgent way of living and spending. Frenello  the frenello, as it was called in Tuscany, was a binding for a woman’s hair. It could be a triple strand of pearls mounted on a golden gallon. A light veil covered the ears and helped to keep the hair curled. At the back of the head, the hair was rolled tightly and tied by a narrow golden gallon, while free and curly locks complicated the line of the hairstyle, making it extremely sophisticated. Gallone  trimming, decoration, often made of cloth. Gamurra  a woman’s basic gown. In Quattrocento Florence, the gamurra corresponded to what we would today call a dress. It was worn by women of all classes, was usually unlined and worn over the camicia, or undershirt. The sleeves of a gamurra were often detachable. Garzone  young apprentice in a trade or business. Ghiozzi (a)  When translated into English a ghiozzi describes ‘bag’ sleeves. The sleeves were baggy from the shoulders to the elbow, and tight in the lower arm with narrow cuffs around the wrists. Gowns a ghiozzi often appear in contemporary inventories and trousseaux. Giacca  short coat. Giornea  a long sleeveless overdress worn outside in public. In the wealthiest wardrobes, it was elaborately embroidered. It was often lined and trimmed with fur for winter and with silk for the summer. The giornea assumed the same role as the cioppa, except that it was

204  Appendix B sleeveless and open at the sides and down the front to allow freer movement. Gonfalone  banner, but also ward, one of the sixteen administrative partitions and political sub-divisions into which Florence was divided in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Gonfaloniere di compagnia  Standard-bearer of a company. Gonfaloniere di Giustizia  Standard bearer of justice. He was in charge of internal security forces and the maintenance of the public order. Gonnella, or gonnellino  a simple shift garment for women, but it could also be worn by men as a housedress. Guarnello  fustian, a textile woven with a linen warp and cotton weft. It was fairly robust and not very expensive and was usually used for linings. Homines novi or gens nova  new men. I Cento  a governmental council group of 100 individuals. By creating small, controllable legislative councils, the Medici vastly improved the efficiency of the Republic. Two of these councils were the Cento or the 100, and the Sessanta or the sixty. Imborsati  citizens whose names were put in the bags (borse) for extraction for the three highest offices. Incisoria  engraving tools and part of the salary given to some of the officers of the Arte dei Rigattieri. Inglese  cloth made from English wool. Intagli  cloth in short pieces, possibly remnants, as it sold for less than regular lots. I Sessanta  see I Cento above. Lattizi  literally sucklings, similar to ermines, but less expensive. Laudesi  chanting confraternities. Lavorato  embroidered cloth. Libro delle Matricole dell’Arte  the enrolment book for the guild. Libro di Dare e Avere  book of debit(s) and credit(s). Lira  pound (weight). Lira di piccioli  petty lira: a money of account which was composed of twenty petty soldi, likewise a money of account, or 240 petty denari, which were real coins. Its ratio to the gold florin varied from four to seven lire per florin. Lucco  the traditionally Florentine long sleeveless gown, with pleats, fastened at the neck, open down the front and tied with a belt or buckled with a clasp. Originally worn by officers of the commune and academics as ceremonial dress, gradually widespread among men and boys. Luchesino  cloth from Lucca, or a fine grade of scarlet cloth. Manica  sleeve, often detachable and tied to garments by laces. Mantello  overcloak or mantle.

Appendix B 205 Marezzato (cloth)  variegated by tones and reflections of colours different from the background; marbled, striated. Marmorino or mormorino  mixed or ‘marbled’ colour; together with the morello, pagonazzo, and lucchesino, appear to have been among the woollen cloths considered average. Massaro, or camerlengo, or camerario  bursar, or treasurer of a community or of an institution. Materassa  mattress. Mazzocchio  The mazzocchio, which could be either a woman’s or a man’s hat, was a stuffed roll covered with fabric which was worn on the head. In men’s cappucci, it formed their basis, being the part of the hood that fitted around the crown. For women’s, the mazzocchio was pinned to the hair, giving shape to the veil worn on top. Membrum  any group member of any guild. Memoriale  recollections. Mensuratores  measurers. Mercanzia or Universitas Mercatorum or Sei di Mercanzia  guild of merchants. Mercato vecchio  old market, the central hub of commercial activities in Florence. Messo  herald. Mezzadria  sharecropping. The mezzadria contract was a concession of land plots roughly sized to a family-run land enterprise and equipped with a farmhouse and assorted agricultural infrastructure (stables, granaries, barns, cellars, ovens, wells, etc.). Militie  an army of non-professional soldiers. Miserabile  men without taxable property were called miserabili. They were exempted from paying any tax and were charged a mere head tax of a single soldo. Monachino  the monachino was a shade of brown with a reddish tint. Being a modest colour, it was generally employed for functional garments not of great value. Monte comune  the public debt in Florence, which was divided into transferable shares upon which interest was paid. Monte delle Doti  founded to attract money into the coffers of the Treasury, but unlike the Monte comune, with the additional intent to remove consolidated debt securities from circulation and meanwhile also to favour the collection of alms for girls and young people of Florence and its countryside and district. Moscavoliere  presumed to be a grey colour, term of unclear origin. Mundualdo or mondualdo  the mundualdo is to be understood as the defence and protection exercised by the husband, father or brother, or even son, once he came to an age, and in general the necessary legal authority and assistance in any official act by a woman. The

206  Appendix B mundualdo, to which a woman was subject in perpetuity, also gained a patrimonial value, since those women who wanted to get rid of this bond would have to pay a sum of money to acquire full legal authority, and for instance, to exercise a commercial activity. Notaio  notary. Notaries were employed for all legal businesses, and also for embassies and special missions. Notarius artis  guild notary. Notarius forestierus  foreign notary. Nuntii  nuncios, or papal ambassadors to foreign courts and governments. Ordinamenti di Giustizia  laws that favoured the emerging mercantile class at the expense of the old lineages. To escape the Ordinamenti di Giustizia (the justice systems) promulgated in 1293 by Giano della Bella, which deprived elite families of the possibility of entering any Florentine Balìa, noble lineages enrolled in the Arti, seeking the title of popolani for themselves and their families. They were differentiated from the popolo grasso in that they did not necessarily belong to a well-defined social class, while the latter were literally i grandi mercatanti (the big merchants). Ottimati  the elite in power. Paga (di Monte)  interest on transferable shares of the Monte comune in Florence. Pagonazzo or pavonazzo  purple cloth used for state occasions. Palagio di Parte Guelfa  the palace of the Captains of the Parte Guelfa, or simply the Palace of the Parte Guelfa. This was a rather vast complex of buildings, the first of which dates back to the Trecento, which is nowadays located in the Piazza Guelfa. In the Quattrocento it was home to the headquarters of the Parte Guelfa. Palazzo della Signoria  palace of the Signoria. Palco  mezzanine. Panno  cloth, measured in braccia or canne, and paid by the braccio. Panno bambagino  cotton cloth, usually used for padding men’s doublets. Panno fiorito or floradato  the term floradato probably refers to a decoration inspired by plants, or flowers and leaves, whose contours become wavy and interlaced, with its designs playfully scattered on the fabric without easily perceived order. Already common in the fourteenth century under the inspiration of Chinese textiles, these cloths appear very different from the more geometric thirteenthcentury naturalism that follows Byzantine models. Panno sodo  the panno sodo was generally understood as a rustic cloth suitable for the needs of those forced to live many hours in the open air, like the children of the hospital. Papaficho or pappafico  a hooded garment. Parasside  glass-shaped chalice. Perpignano  Perpignan cloth was so called for it was originally imported from Perpignan, France.

Appendix B 207 Pertinenze  annexes (of a building). Pettinaio  comb maker. Pezzo di terra  strip of land. Pianelle  shoes with no heel, or slippers. Pigionata  rented. Pigione  rent. Pignolato  a rough hard cloth. Piviere  Administrative partition centred on baptismal churches. Podere or poderuccio  farm or estate; small farm. Podestà  the chief magistrate of a city. The podestà was the executive officer that held full and complete administrative powers on a temporary basis. Typically, the office was held by an educated citizen or noble brought in from another city as a temporary substitute for the civic councils during times of crisis. Many were highly effective civic administrators who moved from town to town, as and when their services were required. Poltruccio  donkey foal. Popolo  parish, or the smallest territorial circumscription in Florence (notaries in legal documents and people in their memoirs refer to the popolo). Also, the non-elite working classes, further divided in Florence into the popolo grasso and the popolo minuto. Popolo minuto  Made up of the craftsmen and labourers who were forbidden to organize into guilds. Since, in Florence as in many other communes, guild membership was a prerequisite for political office, the popolo minuto working outside the guild system were effectively excluded from involvement in civic government. Porta  one of the entrances (doors) in the system of the city walls. Also, one of the partitions of the urban territory of a city. Portata, portata catastale  each tax payer’s fiscal declaration to the officers of the Catasto. Poste catastali  land registry individual declarations. Prestanza or prestanzone  forced public loan. Prete  priest. Priori delle Arti  priors of the guilds. Priori di Libertà  in 1459 the Priori delle Arti changed their name in Priori di Libertà. Priori di Pecunia  a group of fifteen, chosen to be responsible for supervising the great complex of finances of the Parte Guelfa’s. Ragazzo  boy or apprentice. Reformagioni  the deliberations of legislative councils, which did not have the power of actual statutes but that were added to the body of existing laws. Reggimento  the government of the Republic by the principal patrician families, starting from 1434, the year of Cosimo de’ Medici’s return from exile.

208  Appendix B Ricordanze  memoirs. Roba  general, for clothing. Romagnolo  Coarse woollen cloth, originally produced in Romagna. Saiettone  a type of woollen cloth. Sarto  tailor. Sbiavato or Isbiavato or isbiadato  a colour fairly costly and rather frequently used, possibly a shade of bluish grey; or the cloth of that colour. It may be used in combination with blue (azzurro) or grey (bigio). Scarlatto  scarlet cloth for which Florence was famous. Scheggiale  an elegant belt embellished with a buckle, made to hang bags and other objects. Sciamito  samite, heavy silk cloth. Sciugatoi or asciugatoi  head veils. Secretari di Credenza  the twenty members of the privy council of the Parte Guelfa. Seduto  lit. “who had been seated,” citizens who had been accepted for the three highest offices. Signoria  the Signoria was the government of Florence. Its nine members, the Priori, were chosen from the ranks of the guilds: six of them from the major guilds, and two from the minor guilds. The ninth became the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia. Sindaco  syndicator, who reviewed the past conduct of officials. Soccida  the soccida was a contract which established an agricultural enterprise of an associative nature, in which an economic collaboration was set up between the one who provided the livestock (the soccidante or who provided the animal) and the individual who had to raise it (soccidario or the breeder). Sodare (sodo)  to compress and firm up a cloth by soaping and treading upon it in a fuller’s vat or by using a fulling mill, in Florence: conciare, gualcare, follare. Soldo  shilling, made up of twelve denarii, one twentieth of a lira. A money of account, and not a coin. Soppanno or panno soppannato  a cloth used for lining; or the reverse side of a cloth. Soprapanno  superfine cloth, or cloth that exceeded the specifications. Speculo or specchio  those citizens (veduti) who, owing to tax debts, were disqualified from seating in office but who had their names placed in speculo or specchio. Spigionata  not rented. Sponsalia  formal promise or contract for a future marriage between persons competent to make such a contract. Squittinii  scrutiny or review of names, generally to make up an electoral list. Stracciaruolo or stracciaiolo  rag-seller. Tabarro  cloak.

Appendix B 209 Traffico  traffic, trade. Tratte  elections by lot. Tunica  the tunic remained a fundamental part of men’s clothing. It did not vary much in form; it could be longer or shorter, but varied in shape. The fabrics became very embellished and thickened. There would not necessarily be a belt worn around the waist, but when there was one it was generally a thick leather belt, worn a little down on one side, or it could also be a worked cord or a silk scarf. Turchino  a kind of blue cotton cloth. Valescio or gualescio  a plain fabric of smooth polished cotton, or even silk, used for both linings and bed coverings, coming in both red and white colours. Valsente  taxable capital or tax on capital. Veduto  lit. ‘who had been seen,’ that is, the citizens whose names had been drawn at the elections to the three highest offices but who had been temporarily disqualified from accepting the office, and thus from being seduti. Verde  green. Vermiglio  vermilion cloth. Villa  administrative partition of a certain territory also having fiscal connotations, or, more simply, a lordly house. Zaferanus  crocus, saffron. Zendadi  The zendali, or zendadi, were light, inexpensive silk fabrics similar to taffetà, commonly used to line clothing.

References

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Index

Note: The Index does not include the Appendix nor the Glossary. Modern authors’ names have also been omitted. Many of the individuals listed below were people of low status, who did not have surnames, nor were known by the patronymic, or the place they lived or originated. These people have been listed under their first name. When a person is listed only by the first name, a brief identification is given (e.g. Alvaro rigattiere). Acciaioli, Angelo (also Agnolo) Bishop 39, 157, 179 Accoppiatori: agli uffici 168, 187n41, 187n43, 189n69; dello squittinio 173; per la Balìa 172; per Santo Spirito 168 Adimari, Corso degli 79 Alberti, Leon Battista 20, 144 Albizzi (family) 157, 167 – 168, 194; Rinaldo degli 168 Albizzo di Pietro stonecarver 64n14 Alighieri, Dante 4, 54, 85 Alvaro rigattiere 88 Andrea di Giovanni 57 Andrea di Lorenzo d’Andrea rigattiere 134 Andrea di Neri 144 Angelo di Michele 123 Antonio d’Ambrogio 39 Antonio di Bandino 80, 84 Antonio di Domenico 81 Antonio di Giovanni 108 Antonio di Iacopo 81, 84 Antonio di Maso mezzadro 147 Antonio di Matteo 137 Antonio di Niccolò rigattiere 134 Antonio di Tommaso rigattiere and tailor (Leon Bianco) 108, 145 Antonio di Tommaso sewer for the rigattieri (Unicorno) 108 – 109 apprentices (discipuli, garzoni) 31n52, 43, 46, 54 – 55, 58, 69n90, 109, 114, 127n33, 186n33

Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli passim; matricole 9, 25; officers (arbitri 47, 49, 50; bursars (also massari, camerlenghi, camerarii) 47, 49, 57, 82, 89, 115, 127n35; consuls (also consules, rectores) 23, 25, 40 – 41, 44 – 45, 46 – 47, 48 – 49, 51 – 52, 54, 56, 60, 66n42, 72, 83, 114 – 115, 118, 121, 159, 165, 168, 178; councillors or consiliarii 45, 47 – 48, 168 – 169; estimators (also stimatori) 25, 27, 72, 111 – 124; exploratores 46, 49; syndics, sindaci 46 – 47, 49) Arti: Beccai 42, 77, 154n60; Calimala 51, 179; Cambio 45, 51, 168, 172, 179, 186n33; Lana 45, 60, 71n123, 77, 83, 167 – 168, 172; Maggiori 12, 22, 160; Mediane 4, 5, 12; Medici e Speziali 168; Minori 4, 5, 12, 157, 160 – 161; Oliandoli e Pizzicagnoli e Beccai 42, 108; Por Santa Maria (della Seta) 45, 59 – 60, 168; Rigattieri e Linaioli see (Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli); Vaiai e Pellicciai 168 Athens, Duke of 39, 71n124, 160 Baldassarre di Falco 56, 59, 84, 150 Baldini, Giuliano 121; Salvatore di Filippo 123 Baldino di Michele di Iacopo rigattiere 154n60

232 Index Balìe 159, 169, 170, 175 – 176, 187n40; Dieci di Balìa 168, 175 Bandini (family): Bandino di Romolo 108, 137; Bartolomeo di Romolo 107 – 108, 137; Francesco di Antonio stimatore 116, 118 – 119; Francesco di Romolo 107 – 108, 137; Romolo 108, 137 Barone del Coso rigattiere 153n42 barter 41, 72 Bartoli, Bartolo di Paolo 136 – 137 Bartolo di Neri da Ruffiano 66n49 Bartolomeo di Francesco di Neri da Grignano 97, 106, 122, 144 Bartolomeo di Iacopo 58, 116 – 119, 123, 142 – 143 Bartolomeo di Lotto scalpellatore 154n60 Bartolomeo di Piero di ser Bartolomeo de Silvestri 57 Bartolomeo di ser Michele d’Antonio rigattiere 131, 144 Bartolomeo di Simone 84, 116 – 119, 131 Battara, Pietro 22 Beato Angelico Fra 40, 64n15 Belandini, Francesco di Marchionne 88; Marchionne di Landino 88 – 89 Belforte 162 Bellandini or Belandini, Marchionne di Stefano 121 Bene di Zanobi stimatore 123 Benincasa, Lorenzo di Iacopo 161, 178, 184, 189n66 Benini, Lorenzo di Guccio rigattiere 122 Bentivegna del Mazzo 86 Benvenuti, Benedetto linaiolo 142 Bernabò di Bartolomeo 110 Berto di Marchionne 82, 144 Bettini, Leonardo di Michele 36n94, 135, 141, 145; Michele 141 Bisticci, Vespasiano da 144 Blasio di Bartolomeo 121 Boccaccio, Giovanni 125n3 Boni, Tommaso di Bartolo 137, 141, 146 Bonifazio di Leonardo 22 Bonsi, Domenico rigattiere 122 Borgo San Lorenzo 162 Borgo San Sepolcro 162 Borromeo (also Borromei), Alessandro 83; Galeazzo 77, 83, 90, 98, 131, 195 Braccio di Filippo di Biagio rigattiere 143 bridges of Florence: Carraia 80, 174; Rubaconte 59, 80; Santa Trinita 67n70, 80, 91; Vecchio 56, 80, 90 Buono di Bartolomeo 77, 145

Burci, Filippo di Domenico 77; Giovanni di Domenico 77 Burgundy, Duke of 92 burial 43, 85 Callistus III Pope 190n98 Capitano del Popolo 19, 64n16, 161 Capitano di San Marcello 177 Capponi (family): Gino 158; Piero 156 Cardinali, Ghirigoro di Iacopo 130, 152n1 Carradori (family): Carlo di Giovanni 175 – 176; Carluccio 174; Carradore di Giovanni 175; Chiaro di Giovanni di Salvestro 175; Chiaro di Giovanni di Tommaso 175; Domenico di Giovanni 175; Giovanni di Salvestro 82, 88, 136, 174 – 176, 183; Giraldo di Giovanni di Salvestro 175; Lapo di Carluccio 174; Salvestro 174 – 175 Castelfiorentino 178 Castellani, Francesco di Matteo 87 Castracani, Castruccio 64n17 Catasto 15, 21 – 24, 39, 76, 78, 94, 107 – 109, 130 – 131, 134 – 135, 137, 143, 167, 172, 181; portate 23, 173; Ufficiali 18, 73, 81, 97 – 98n32, 106, 110, 124, 140, 144, 146, 150, 165, 174, 188n56 Cavalcanti, Guido 158 Cavimbri, Giovanni 82 Cenni, Paolo di Francesco 124 Certaldo 177 Ceschi, Barone di Nicola 123 Charles V Emperor 23 Chianti 178 Chiaro di Piero stimatore 116, 118 – 119 churches or popoli of Florence: Ognissanti 79; Orsanmichele 40, 78 – 79; San Felice in Piazza 79, 132; San Giovanni (Baptistery) 42, 79, 89; San Lorenzo 79 – 80, 107, 133 – 134, 142, 176, 180; San Marco 64n15, 79, 163; San Miniato tra le Torri 39, 67n70, 78 – 79; San Pancrazio 79, 174; San Paolo 79, 84, 109, 174; San Pier Maggiore 84, 134; San Piero Buonconsiglio 44, 67n70, 78 – 79; San Piero Scheraggio (Priory) 77; Sant’Ambrogio 79; Sant’Andrea 39, 50, 78, 87; Santa Croce 160;

Index  233 Santa Maria degli Ughi 39, 42 – 43, 47, 67n70, 79; Santa Maria del Carmine 42, 79; Santa Maria del Fiore (Cathedral, Duomo) 79; Santa Maria Maggiore 57; Santa Maria Novella 79, 167; Santa Maria Sopraporta 39, 79; Santa Trinita 79; Santissima Annunziata 79; San Tommaso 78, 80, 82, 131; Santo Spirito 79 ciompi 16, 60 – 61, 71n123 Clement VII Pope 186n25 Clemente di Piero stimatore 116 – 121, 123 cloth, cotton: valescio or gualescio 93, 120 cloth, silk: auroserico 195; bucherame 40, 64n17; sciamito 19, 64n16; valescio or gualescio 93, 120; zendado 85 cloth, woollen 88; alessandrino 124; bigello 86; bigio 95; boccaccino 89; marezzato 41; monachino 86, 89, 93, 95; mormorino 93; pagonazzo 123; perpignano 93; romagnolo 86, 95; saiettone 93 clothes: calze 86, 101n113, 154n60; cappelli 86; cintole or cinture 129n58; cioppe 86, 88, 92 – 93, 99n66, 100n103, 101n104, 121; clamidi 123; cottardite or cotte 86, 123; farsetti 40, 60, 86, 93, 110, 145n60; fibbie (per mantelli) 85; frappature 85; frenelli 124; gamurre 86, 90, 100n99, 121; giornee 93, 101n109, 122 – 123, 123n58; gonnelle 90 – 91, 93, 100n93, 101n109; lucchi 88, 99n75; mantelli 85 – 86, 99n66, 100n87; mazzocchi 122; perpignano hoses 91, 93; scheggiali 86, 99; tabarri 86 coltriciai 5, 10 Commandatore, Domenico rigattiere 14 Compagnia del Bigallo e della Misercordia in Duomo 77, 133 Conbolano, Giovanni 81, 136 Consigli: dei Cento 169; dei Dugento 167; dei Sessanta 169, 173; del Popolo or del Comune 159, 168, 172; Maggiore 177, 188n53 Contadini, Michele di Salvestro 66n49 contado 18, 20, 43, 52, 59, 61, 70n114 Corsi, Berto di Angelo 119 Cosini, Cosino and Giovanni linaioli 122

counterfeit items 114 – 115 Cristofano di Angelo di Cristofano stimatore 116 – 119, 123 – 124 Cristofano di Michele 90 Dal Gallo (family): Battista di Bartalo 110, 124, 193; Sandro di Bartalo 110, 124, 193 Damiani (family): Andrea di Giovanni 81, 83; Dono di Giovanni 81, 83 Damiano di Giovanni di Dono 140 D’Arrighi, Giano d’Agnolo 82 Davanzati, Giuliano 168 Davanzo di ser Francesco 142 Decameron 86, 107, 125n3 Degli Strinati, Belfradello 180; Neri 179 – 180 Dei, Benedetto 144, 172 Del Bene, Bene di Giovanni stimatore 117, 119 – 120, 123 Del Benino, Francesco di Nero 57 Del Biondo, Antonio di Iacopo stimatore 116, 118 – 119 Della Bella, Giano 50 Dell’Amorotta, Piero di Mariotto 175 Dell’Aveduto, Bartolomeo 77 Dello Strinato (family): Attaviano di Francesco di Tommaso 179; Bartolomeo di Francesco 180; Filippo di Francesco di Tommaso 179 – 180; Francesco di Tommaso 179 – 180, 194; Piero di Francesco di Tommaso 179 – 180; Priore di Francesco di Tommaso 180; Strinato di Francesco di Tommaso 179; Tommaso di Francesco di Tommaso 179 – 180 Del Mangano, Antonio di Piero 81; stimatore 117, 119, 132 Del Nero (family): Aldobrandino di Aldobrandino 186n21; Aldobrandino di Giorgio 186n21; Antonio di Nero di Filippo 166, 170; Bartolomeo di Filippo 165 – 166, 172; Bernardo di Nero di Filippo 4, 110, 156 – 157, 165 – 166, 170 – 172, 184, 194; Bernardo di Simone di Filippo 166, 171; Brunetto di Aldobrandino di Giorgio 173, 178; Filippo 166; Filippo di Simone di Filippo 165, 166, 171; Francesco 91; Francesco di Nero di Filippo 165 – 166, 170 – 172; Francesco di Raffaello 57; Nero

234 Index di Filippo 110, 124, 137, 139, 165 – 167, 171, 173, 194; Nero di Simone 171; Pietro di Francesco di Filippo 170; Roberto di Nero di Filippo 166, 170 – 171; Simone di Bernardo di Simone 170; Simone di Filippo 137, 141, 147, 150, 165 – 166, 170 – 171 Del Vescovo, Mechero 58 Dini, Dino di Lapo rigattiere 135 districts (also quartieri) of Florence: San Giovanni 21 – 22, 39, 78, 84, 106, 108 – 109, 134, 137, 160, 164, 175 – 176, 180 – 181; Santa Croce 39, 108, 131, 177; Santa Maria Novella 21 – 22, 39, 84, 108, 131 – 132, 136, 140, 142, 174 – 176, 179 – 180, 184; Santo Spirito 21 – 22, 39, 80, 134, 137, 163 – 165, 167 – 168, 170, 172, 177 Domenico di Antonio Domenico 88 Domenico di Baldovino 84; villaro 109 Domenico di Burci 36n94 dominio, stato territoriale 15, 20, 161 – 162, 178, 184 Donatello (sculptor) 40 Donati, Niccolò di Cocco 177 Donno Gianni di Barolo (Barletta) 107 donzelli 25, 87 doublet makers (also farsettai) 10, 16, 21 – 22, 60, 77, 84 – 85, 89, 97n27, 98n53 dovecotes 145 elections: borse, imborsati 24, 159, 160, 168, 171, 175, 179, 182, 187n41, 187n43; speculo or specchio 159, 169, 171, 175 – 176, 179, 188n54 embezzlement 91 – 92 engraving tools (also incisoria) 45, 48 – 49 Eugenius IV Pope 177 famigli 86, 90, 92 Federighi, Iacopo di Francesco 174 Feo di ser Giovanni 89, 91 Filippo di Braccio di Filippo di Biagio rigattiere 143, 145, 154n60 Filippo di Iacopo called Sanpicio rigattiere 134 Filippo di Piero stimatore 116, 118 – 119 fondaci 73 – 74, 82, 86

forced loans (prestanze) 17 – 18, 138 – 140, 167, 172, 177 Francesco di Bernardo 136 Francesco di Domenico di Cante stimatore 117, 119 Francesco di Fruosino di Domenico 108 Francesco di Giovanni di Gualberto 134, 143, 142 Francesco di Iacopo 137, 140 Francesco di Martino linaiolo 122 Francesco di Nerone or Francesco di Nerone di Nigi 88, 91 Francesco di Romanello 137 Francesco di Simone stimatore 117, 119 Galluzzo, Cherubino del rigattiere 123 gambling 53 – 54; zara 68n82 Genoa 165, 167 Geri di Michele rigattiere 134 Gherardo di Domenico Stazza stimatore 116, 118 – 119, 122 ghibellini 179 – 180 Ghiberti, Lorenzo 64n15 Giovanfrancesco di Nofri d’Agnolo 88 Giovanlorenzo di Pagolo di Giovanni 142 Giovanni d’Agnolo armaiolo 131 Giovanni d’Ambrogio rigattiere 121 Giovanni di Bartolomeo or Cino 90 Giovanni di Bonamati 136 Giovanni di Dino mezzadro 145, 147 Giovanni di Filippo 36n94 Giovanni di Francesco (famiglio dei Signori) 92 Giovanni di Frezzi 77 Giovanni di Gianino rigattiere 133 Giovanni di Gualberto 142 Giovanni di Iacopo di Francesco 141 Giovanni di Lapo 135 Giovanni di Maso d’Agostino mezzadro 150 Giovanni di Tinello 90 Giovanni di Tuccio 39, 141 Giuliano di Guglielmo pettinaio 136 Giuntino, rag-seller 81 Giusto di Dolfo 82 gold-beaters (also battilori) 12, 74, 195 gonfalone (administrative partition) of Florence160, 162, 167, 174, 176, 182, 188n54; Bue 39; Carro 39, 177; Chiavi 84; Drago San Giovanni 137, 180; Leon Bianco 84, 108, 140, 181; Leon d’Oro 134; Leon Rosso 136; Nicchio 177; Scala 165, 172; Unicorno 108; Vaio 84, 109

Index  235 gonfalone (banner) 50 Goro di Pagolo 89 gravezza 138, 167, 172, 188n53 Guando di Nicola 122 Guarducci, Piero 12, 74 Guelph Party (also Parte Guelfa) 25, 27, 45, 77, 87, 91, 169, 175, 177, 180 – 181, 193; captains (capitani di Parte) 169 – 170, 177, 180 – 181; Priori di Pecunia 169 – 171, 177, 180; Secretari di Credenza 169 – 171, 176 – 177, 180 – 181 Guicciardini (family): Francesco 3, 4, 156, 172; Piero 156, 168 Guidi, Lorenzo di Bartolo di Segna capitano di Parte Guelfa 169 heralds (also messi) 45 hospitals of Florence: Innocenti 14, 25 – 26, 79, 89, 91; San Giovanni Battista 77, 101; Santa Maria Nuova 77, 79, 82, 136 Iacopo di Baldino 90 Iacopo di Gabriele 57 Iacopo di Michele mezzadro 151 Jacopo di Giovanni di Gualberto 142 Landoccio di Cecco d’Orso 12, 74 Lapi, Niccolò di Giovanni rigattiere 83, 131 Lapo di Neri di Niccolò 82 Latino di Nanni di Latino mezzadro 147 Lazzero di Bastiano 42 Leo the Great or Leone Magno Pope 42 Leonardo di Braccio di Filippo di Biagio rigattiere 143, 145, 154n60 Leo X Pope 175 Libro delle Matricole 52, 55, 57, 70n114, 165, 180 license (also entratura) 21, 58, 80 – 83, 86, 94, 98n38, 131, 154n60 Lippi, Filippo di Francesco 120 Lore del fu Manetto 14, 85 Lorenzo di Andrea 88 Lorenzo di Banco mezzadro 147 Lorenzo di Bartolomeo d’Orlandino 77, 82, 88, 135, 141, 145, 177, 189n81 Lorenzo di Niccolò di Monte 82, 147, 151, 155n72 Lorenzo di Piero mezzadro 150 Lorenzo di Zanobi rigattiere 132

Lottini, Leonardo di Guido rigattiere 131; Michele di Guido rigattiere 131 Lotto rigattiere 86 Lucca 15, 20, 167 Lyon 195 Machiavelli (family): Bernardo 92; Niccolò 186n25 Mainardi, Arlotto or Piovano Arlotto 87, 92 Manno di Iacopo di Benincasa di Mannuccio 178 Mannucci, Benincasa 178, 194 Marco di Domenico di Vieri stimatore 117, 119 Marco di Filippo stimatore 116, 118 – 119, 122 Marco di Zanobi di Cenni rigattiere 133 Mariotto di Cristofano rigattiere 132 Mariotto di Marco consul 121 Mariotto di Niccolò di Mariotto mezzadro 147 Marmiglioni, Berto 137 Martin V Pope 167 Martini, Piero di Iacopo 83 Masi (family): Antonio di Paolo stimatore 116, 118 – 119; Matteo di Cristofano rigattiere 122 Maso d’Agostino mezzadro 150 Maso d’Andrea 80 Maso di Pagolo 90 Maso di Piero Puro di Francesco da Vicchio 88 Matteo di Biliotto 85 Matteo di Piero 108 Matteo di Piero di Giovanni rigattiere 109, 132 – 133, 140, 147 Matteo di Pietro di Mino 144 Matteo di Piguccio linaiolo 122 Matteo di ser Guccio 123 Matteo rigattiere 93 mattresses or materassa 40, 90, 120, 128n44 Mazza, Mazza di Iacopo del 163 Mazzei, Lapo 144 Medici (family): Alexander I Duke 23; Averardo de’ 177; Cambio de’ 82; Cosimo de’ il Vecchio 16, 26, 82, 135, 157, 176; Cosimo I Duke 16; Giovanni de’ 83; Giuliano de’ 173; Lorenzo de’, the Magnificent 16, 157, 169, 173; Lorenzo di Giovanni de’ 110, 135; Niccolò de’ 82 – 83; Papi de’ 164, 168; Piero de’ 16

236 Index Mei, Marco di Domenico 120 Mercanzia 16, 27, 58, 60, 115, 168 – 169, 171, 187n45 – 46, 193 mercato nuovo 46, 51, 79 mercato vecchio 39, 46, 50 – 51, 75, 79, 87, 110, 148 Michele di Niccolò 81 Michele di Simone stimatore 122, 136 Michelozzi, Goro di Giovanni 121 Minerbetti, Andrea 122 miserabile 39, 126n13 Modigliana 162 moneylenders, Jewish: Isacco di Borghese 91; Vitale 91 Monte comune 17, 137, 140 – 142, 151, 153n46, 172, 193; accatti 138; paghe 138 – 140 Monte delle Doti 18, 137 – 138, 141 – 143, 151, 193 Monti, Blasio di Lorenzo di Nicola stimatore 116, 118 – 119, 122 Morelli (family): Giovanni di Pagolo 158; Girolamo 172; Pagolo 144 Morello di Giovanni 88 mundualdo or mondualdo 47, 57 – 58, 66n57 Nanni di Latino 109 Nardo di Lorenzo di Piero mezzadro 150 Nencia da Barberino 99 Neri di Fioravanti armaiolo 131 Neri di Nuto rigattiere 131 new men (also gens nova, gente nuova, homines novi) 3, 12, 26, 29n34, 61, 71n124, 143, 156 – 157, 161, 178, 185n6, 186n23 Niccolò da Gerenzano 196n5 Niccolò di Donato 137 Niccolò di Iacopo 81, 135, 137, 141 Niccolò di Marco di Filippo 144 Niccolò di Pietro di Lamberti 40 Nofri di Zanobi di Giunta rigattiere 131 Orlandini (family): Bartolomeo 164, 176 – 177, 184, 194; Giovanni di Bartolomeo 177 Pace di Giovanni di Pace stimatore 117, 119, 122 Pacini, Lapo di Piero 26, 89 Pagolo di Giovanni rigattiere 58, 90, 132, 142

Pagolo di Luca rigattiere 133, 136 – 137 Pagolo di Maso 81 palaces of Florence: Medici 79; Mercanzia 79; Parte Guelfa 77, 79 Palmieri, Matteo 153n46, 170 Panuzio, rigattiere 82 Panuzzi (family): Francesco di Niccolò 181 – 182; Giovanni di Iacopo 182; Iacopo di Franco 181; Iacopo di Niccolò di Iacopo 162, 181 – 182; Niccolò di Iacopo di Franco 181 – 182; Panuzio di Francesco or Panuzio di Franco di Cello 180 – 181; Panuzio di Niccolò di Iacopo 162, 181 – 182; Piero di Niccolò 181; Salvi di Niccolò di Iacopo 162, 181, 182 Papi di Paolo 87 Papino, famiglio 90 – 91 parasside 45, 47, 48 – 49 Parrini, Guasparo di Nicola stimatore 116 – 119, 121 – 122 pawnbrokers 91 peddlers or peripateric vendors 56 Pellis, Giovanni di Latino de 121 Perfetto di Giovanni 64n14 Piero di Giovanni called Gallassie mezzadro 150 Piero di Giovanni di Gualberto 142 Piero di Salvatore linaiolo 123 Piero Puro di Francesco da Vicchio 72, 87, 89, 92, 95, 144 Pietro da Tresanti 107 Pietro di Mino mezzadro 144 Pitti, Luca 168 podere 109, 143, 147, 154n64 podestà 60, 161 – 162, 169 popolo minuto 11, 173 Puccetti, Ferdinando di ser Piero 175 punishments 17, 42 Reggimento 3, 24, 156 – 159, 164, 168, 172, 176 – 177, 181, 183 – 184, 191, 194 rent (also pigione) 40, 154n60 Ricordanze (also Memoriale) 25 – 26, 73, 89 rigattieri passim; regatteria 5, 21, 106 – 108, 110, 131, 165, 167, 177, 192 Rinuccini, Iacopo di Rinuccino di Francesco 178

Index  237 Rinuccio di Nello 63n11 Rodolico, Niccolò 11 Rome 3, 14, 20, 113, 161, 177, 186n21 Romolo di Iacopo 83, 90, 108 Rosso, Jacopo di Stefano 110 Rucellai, Giovanni 144 Sacchetti, Franco 20, 63n11, 129n49 Sacra Cintola 59, 70 saffron 44 – 45, 48 – 49 Salviati, Giovanni di Messer Forese 82 San Bernardino da Siena 149 San Giovanni in Val di Sieve (piviere) 144 Sant’Agnese di Pisa 162 Sant’Agnese (Laudesi company) 42 Santo di Filippo 90 Sartini, Ferdinando 14, 25 scrutinies (also scrutinii or squittinii) 4, 24, 159 – 160, 181, 187n43 Sforza, Francesco Duke of Milan 179 sharecropping (mezzadria) 124, 144, 146 – 147, 149 – 151, 193 Silvano di Giovanni, ser 91 Simone di Matteo stimatore 124 soccide 148 – 150, 155n79, 193 Soderini, Paolantonio 156 Sogliani, Iacopo 137 Spadini, Marchionne di Gino 122 Spinellini, Spinellino di Marco de’ 124 St John the Baptist 42, 45 St Mark the Evangelist 40 streets and squares of Florence: Borgo Ognissanti 79; Piazza della Signoria 80, 84; Piazza San Giovanni 89; Piazza Santa Maria Novella 58, 84; Via Calimala 80; Via Calzaioli 80; Via delle Terme 42, 44, 51, 80; Via del Proconsolo 80; Via della Vigna Nuova 80; Via Larga 80; Via Por Santa Maria 80; Via San Gallo 80; Via Tornabuoni 80 Strozzi (family): Carlo di Ser Palla 123; Filippo 186n25; Matteo di Simone 168 Taddeo di Chello 74, 86, 95, 136, 153n19 Taddeo di Cristofano di Piero 140 tailors (also sarti) 5, 10, 14, 19, 21 – 22, 56, 59 – 61, 70n114, 84 – 85,

89 – 90, 95, 97n27, 98n53, 105, 108, 159 Tanucci, Bernardo stimatore 122 taxes: decima scalata 24; decina graziosa 24, 108; decina nuova 170, 172; dei Traffichi 18, 22; gabelle 17; valsente 22, 172 Temperani (family): Lapo di Carluccio 174; Manno 174, 189n69 Tignano 177 – 178 Tommaso di Niccolò rigattiere 134 Tommaso di Pagolo 135 Tre Maggiori 159, 169, 172, 179; Buonuomini 10, 159, 171 – 172, 175 – 176, 178 – 179, 181 – 182, 189n66; di Giustizia 10, 159 – 160, 164, 169 – 170, 173, 177, 186n21; Gonfalonieri: di Compagnia 10, 159, 171 – 172, 175 – 176, 178 – 182; Priori di Libertà 176 – 178; Priors (Priori delle Arti, also called Signoria) 10, 92, 157, 159, 164, 168 – 169, 171, 175, 177 – 179, 181 – 182, 187n43, 188n56 Urbino, Duke of 92 usurers 46, 86, 115, 149 Valdelsa 177 Val d’Orcia 155 Valencia 185n24 Valladolid 185n24 Venzago (family) battilori 196n5 Vernaccia, Agnolo di Bindo del 83 Vespino, Giovanni del rigattiere 121 Vetri, Paolo di Blasio del rigattiere 124 Villani (family): Giovanni 64n17; Matteo 19 Volta, Guasparo di Simone della 121 weapons or armour 12, 108, 122, 131 wet-nurses (also balie) 57, 90 – 96 women: Agnola di Braccio di Filippo di Biagio rigattiere 143; Agnola (mother of Bartolomeo di Francesco di Neri) 106; Andrea 91; Antonia (wife of Pagolo di Giovanni rigattiere) 58, 132, 142; Bartola di Bartolo 90; Bartolomea 57; Belcolore 86, 99; Buona (wife of Antonio di Tommaso) 109; Caterina (wife of Nero di Filippo Del Nero) 110; Caterina di

238 Index Antonio di Chello 137; Caterina di Giuseppe di Pietro 57; Checca (wife of Bartolomeo di Francesco di Neri) 106; Dionora di Nerone di Raniero di ser Bonaccorso 57; Donati, Lisa di Ser Marchionne di Marchionne 175; Finiguerra, Niccolosia di Maffio 178; Francesca di Giovanni di Gualberto 142; Giuliana 137, 140; Granacci, Diamante di Marco d’Andrea de 57; Guadagni, Cassandra di Vieri 173; Guidi, Caterina di Lorenzo di Bartolo di Segna 175; Leonarda di Pagolo di Giovanni 142; Maffia (mother of Baldassarre di Falco) 56, 59; Manetta di Bartolomeo di Ser Michele d’Antonio 143; Margherita di Damiano di Giovanni di Dono 140; Mattea di Braccio di Filippo di Biagio rigattiere 143; Niccolosa (widow of Giano d’Agnolo d’Arrighi) 82; Papera (wife of Marchionne di Gino Spadini) 122; Pasquini,

Altobene di Michele di Francesco 177; Piera 137; Puccetti, Agnoletta di ser Piero (wife of Salvestro Carradori) 174; Rinuccini, Laudomina di Iacopo di Rinuccino di Francesco 173, 178; Rinuccini, Maddalena di Iacopo di Rinuccino di Francesco 173, 178; Sandra di Francesco di Giovanni rigattiere 143; Sandra (also Sandrina) di Maso di Piero Puro di Francesco da Vicchio 88, 95; Sandra di Temperano 174; Santa di Betto da San Benedetto (wife of Piero Puro) 88, 95; Tessa 137; Tommasa (wife of Baldassarre di Falco) 56, 59; Valenza 82 workers (also lavoranti, salariati) passim workshop (also bottega) passim Zane, Bantacchino di Giovanni 131 Zanobi di Giunta rigattiere 131 Zanobi di Lorenzo di Tommaso rigattiere 124, 134