Book contents
- In Fortune’s Theater
- In Fortune’s Theater
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Text
- Introduction
- 1 Experts in Futurity
- 2 The Future in Play
- 3 Trust in the Future
- 4 The Mercantile Vocabulary of Futurity in Sixteenth-Century Italy
- 5 The Renaissance Afterlife of Boethius’s Moral Allegory of Fortuna
- 6 The Emerging of a New Allegory in Mercantile Culture
- 7 The Shifting Image of Fortuna
- 8 The Separation of Fortuna and Providence
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - The Emerging of a New Allegory in Mercantile Culture
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 July 2021
- In Fortune’s Theater
- In Fortune’s Theater
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Text
- Introduction
- 1 Experts in Futurity
- 2 The Future in Play
- 3 Trust in the Future
- 4 The Mercantile Vocabulary of Futurity in Sixteenth-Century Italy
- 5 The Renaissance Afterlife of Boethius’s Moral Allegory of Fortuna
- 6 The Emerging of a New Allegory in Mercantile Culture
- 7 The Shifting Image of Fortuna
- 8 The Separation of Fortuna and Providence
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In the fifteenth century, a new moral allegory connected to the figure of fortuna began to develop. In contrast to the Boethian one, discussed in Chapter 5, the moral force of this allegory aimed at not missing the opportunities for profit and success offered by fortuna. This chapter argues that this new allegory, which underlay the development of the new concept of the future as unknown time-yet-to-come, emerged first in mercantile culture. It traces its development in the writings and visual world of three Florentine merchants whose careers spanned the late fourteenth to the late fifteenth centuries. While never breaking with the providential future of Christianity, these merchants began to articulate ideas about the rewards of financial speculation and the promise and potential of taking risks on unknown future outcomes.
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- Information
- In Fortune's TheaterFinancial Risk and the Future in Renaissance Italy, pp. 131 - 151Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021