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The Story of the Alberti Company of Florence, 1302–1348, as Revealed in Its Account Books

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Raymond de Roover
Raymond de Roover
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics at Boston College
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Abstract

This study is an attempt to reconstruct the history of a medieval company on the basis of the extant fragments of its account books, the only surviving records. Despite the incompleteness of the data, it was possible to reach important conclusions and to show that the continued existence of a medieval firm depended on the same factors as today: coordination, efficient management, and effective control. The records also shed interesting light on personnel relations, adjustment to new trends, and the attitude of the merchants toward the Church.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , Spring 1958 , pp. 14 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1958

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References

1 I libri di commercio dei Peruzzi, Armando Sapori, ed. (Milan: Fratelli Treves, 1934), in-4°, pp. lxxxii + 577 and two genealogical charts.

2 I libri della ragione bancaria dei Gianfigliazzi, Armando Sapori, ed. (Milan: Garzanti, 1943), in-4°, pp. lviii + 127 and two genealogical tables.

3 Sapori, Armando, La compagnia dei Frescobaldi in Inghilterra (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1947), pp. 174.Google Scholar

4 I libri degli Alberti del Giudice, Armando Sapori, ed., with an Introduction by the editor and a Preface by Luigi Einaudi (Milan: Garzanti, 1952), in-4°, pp. xcii + 368, with one genealogical table and one map. (Henceforth referred to as Alberti.) The Introduction was republished recently in Sapori, Armando, Studi di storia economica, Secoli XIII-XIV-XV (3rd ed.; Florence, 1955), pp. 975–1,012.Google Scholar (Henceforth referred to as Studi.)

5 This discovery was announced in an article by Roover, Raymond de, “I libri segreti del Banco dei Medici,” Archivio storico italiano, CVII (1949), pp. 236–240.Google Scholar Although the volume is dated 1949, the second number did not appear until the spring of 1950. The date of the discovery given above is therefore correct.

6 Richards, Gertrude R. B., Florentine Merchants in the Age of the Medici (Cambridge, Mass., 1932), pp. x + 342CrossRefGoogle Scholar with one genealogical table.

7 Their arms, therefore, are canting arms or armes parlantes, since catena means “chain” in Italian. Originally the family name was probably da Catenaia.

8 Alberti, p. xxi and Studi, pp. 975–976.

9 However, they are not on the list of 70 families of magnates published by Salvemini, Gaetano, Magnati e popohni in Firenze dal 1280 al 1295 (Florence, 1899), pp. 376–377.Google Scholar Cf. Schevill, Ferdinand, History of Florence from the Founding of the City through the Renaissance (New York, 1936), p. 159.Google Scholar

10 Rodolico, Niccolò, La democrazia fiorentina nel suo tramonto, 1378–1382 (Bologna, 1905), pp. 257–265.Google Scholar

11 In other words, the master-manufacturers, by means of currency depreciation, managed to reduce real wages without touching nominal wages. See the famous passage in Giovanni Villani's Cronica, Bk. xii, Chap. 97. The practice of paying workers in debased coin is condemned as fraudulent by san Antonino (1389–1459), archbishop of Florence, Summa theohgica, Part III, title 8, cap. 4, § 4.

12 Schevill, op. cit., p. 339. The wrath of Maso degli Albizzi did not abate, and he issued harsher and harsher decrees against the Alberti, namely in 1393, in 1396, and in 1401. Finally he put a prize on the heads of several Alberti, one was beheaded for returning secretly to Florence. Alberti, p. xxii. A detailed account of the decrees of banishment will be found in Girolamo Mancini's introduction to Alberti, Leon Battista degli, I libri della Famiglia (Florence, 1908), pp. xvii-xix.Google Scholar

13 The best biography is perhaps that of Mancini, Girolamo, Vita di Leon Battista Alberti (2d ed.; Florence, 1911).Google Scholar For a bibliography on Alberti, consult also: Michel, Paul-Henri, Un idéal humain au XVe siècle; L. pensée de L. B. Alberti (Paris, 1930), pp. 11–46.Google Scholar

14 It was not printed until 1485, after the author's death, while printing was still in its infancy.

15 One of those treaties, that of Benedetto Cotrugli (Della mercatura e del mercante perfetto), written in 1458, but published only in 1573, actually has a chapter entitled “L'uomo economo” (The Economic Man). Of course, this expression does not have the same meaning as that attached to it by economists today: it refers simply to an efficient household and business manager. A copy of Cotrugli's treatise is in the library of Yale University. The Kress Library, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, has copies of two editions on microfilm.

16 Der Bourgeois: Zur Geistesgeschichte des modernen wirtschaftsmenschen (Munich, 1913), pp. 282–283. Of course, Sombart admits that Alberti was influenced by Xenophon, but does not see that this admission destroys his thesis (ibid., p. 289).

17 Ibid., pp. 279 and 282–283.

18 Alberti, pp. xxxvii-xxxviii and xlvii, and Studi, pp. 996–998 and 1,009.

10 Roscoe, William, The Life of Lorenzo called the Magnificent (9th ed.; London, 1847)Google Scholar, appendix 10, p. 426. Lorenzo prides himself on the fact that his family, to enhance its prestige and that of the Florentine state, spent, between 1434 and 1471, more than 17,500 florins a year in charities, buildings, and taxes. Since the florin contained 3.53 grams of pure gold, it was worth nearly $4.00 at the present valuation of $35 an ounce troy; the figure of 17,500 florins corresponds, therefore, to approximately $70,000, but the purchasing power of money was much greater than today.

20 Rucellai declares in his Zibaldone that he derived more satisfaction from spending wisely, especially in public buildings (muraglie) than from piling up his earnings. Marcotti, Giuseppe, Un mercante fiorentino e L. sua famiglia nel secolo XV (Florence, 1881), p. 46.Google Scholar Cf. Michel, op. cit., p. 323. The Zibaldone of Giovanni Rucellai is still unpublished. Once the property of John Temple-Leader, the manuscript was repurchased by the family and is now in the possession of Count Bernardo Rucellai who still lives in the ancestral palace built according to the plans of Leon Battista Alberti. Giovanni Rucellai advises his sons to remain bottegai, meaning cloth or silk manufacturers and not shopkeepers. In other words, it is better in the father's opinion to invest money in manufacturing than to put it into trade or foreign banking (Marcotti, op. eft., p. 108).

21 Alberti, p. 37.

22 Ibid., pp. 39–40.

23 The word “scarlet” had come to designate a kind of broadcloth and no longer referred to color.

21 Seven pieces of Douai cloth are said to be worth £442 3s. parisis or £352 affiorino.

25 Alberti, p. 61.

26 Ibid., pp. 98–100.

27 Ibid., pp. 37, 50, 56, and 59.

28 There are many other examples in the Alberti account books. Thus, on p. 37, there is an item of £23,490 affiorino charged to More Bonsignori, a simple factor, per Fiandra, that is, for the account of Flanders, and another of £9,164 charged to Fuccio del Maestro, also a factor, per ragione di Puglia (for the account of Apulia). There is no doubt that these items do not represent receivables, but refer to funds or merchandise entrusted to employees for the purpose of trading in Flanders or in Apulia.

29 Alberti, p. 36.

30 Ibid., p. 261.

31 Ibid., p. 285. The fardel contained 12 bolts of cloth (five pieces from Diest, four from Ghent, and three from Brussels).

32 Alberti, p. 67.

33 Ibid., p. 70.

34 Ibid., p. 75.

35 Ibid., p. 80.

36 Ibid., p. 96.

37 Ibid., p. 37.

38 This evolution has been stressed by Gras, N. S. B., Business and Capitalism (New York, 1939), pp. 67–74.Google Scholar He states (p. 68) that it is not always easy to distinguish a traveling from a sedentary merchant during the transition period.

39 Roover, Raymond de, “The Commercial Revolution of the Thirteenth Century,” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, Vol. XVI (1942), pp. 34–39Google Scholar, republished in Enterprise and Secular Change (Homewood, Illinois, 1953), pp. 80–85.

40 In the business language of the Middle Ages, a factor was a clerk or an employee, especially one serving abroad, and not a commission agent, which is the modern meaning.

41 These salaries were the same as those paid by competitors.

42 This was the salary of Francesco di Balduccio Pegolotti, the compiler of a famous manual for merchants. He was a branch manager in the service of the Bardi and was important enough to negotiate commercial treaties with foreign governments. Sapori, Armando, La crisi delle compagnie mercantili dei Bardi e dei Peruzzi (Florence, 1926), p. 263.Google Scholar Cf. idem, “Il personale delle compagnie mercantili del Medio Evo,” Studi, pp. 695–763.

43 Alberti, pp. 50–51.

44 Roover, Raymond de, Money, Banking, and Credit in Mediaeval Bruges (Cambridge, Mass., 1948), pp. 39–40.Google Scholar

45 Alberti, p. xli, and Studi, p. 1,001.

46 Alberti, p. 258.

47 Ibid., p. 265.

48 Ibid., p. 131. The son, Lapo, wrote opinions on the morality of paying interest on the public debt.

49 Alberti, p. 281.

50 Ibid., p. 291.

51 Ibid., pp. 294–295.

52 This equation has been checked and found correct to the penny. The checking of medieval computations is not difficult, if one knows how to work with pounds, shillings, and pence and to apply the chain rule (in French: règle conjointe). For example

? sterlings = £534 17s. 6d. off.

£29 aff. = 20 florins

1 florin = 32 sterlings

The result is £49 3s. 8d. sterling or 11,804 sterlings and is obtained by dividing 29 into 640 times 534.875.

53 The cambium maritimum was a sea loan with this difference that it was repayable in another currency.

54 Alberti, p. 288.

55 Ibid., pp. 180, 186–188, 199–201, 203, and 249.

55 Ibid., pp. 213 and 225. The articles of association give February 1, 1346, as the founding date, but operations did not start until July, 1347.

57 Renouard, Yves, Recherches sur les compagnies commerciales et bancaires utilisées par les papes d'Avignon avant le Grand Schisme (Paris, 1942), pp. 29–39Google Scholar and Idem, Les relations des papes d'Avignon et des compagnies com merciales et bancaires de 1316 à 1378, “Bibliothèque des Ecoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome,” Vol. 151 (Paris, 1941), passim.

58 Alberti, p. xxvii, and Studi, p. 983.

59 Renouard, Recherches, p. 38.

60 Ibid., p. 36.

61 Idem, “Le compagnie commerciali fiorentine del Trecento,” Archivio storico italiano, Vol. 96 (1938), p. 53.

62 de Roover, Morwy, Banking, and Credit, p. 30.

63 Alberti, p. lix.

64 Melis, Federigo, Storia detta Ragioneria (Bologna: Dott. Cesare Zuffl, 1950), p. 494.Google Scholar

65 This point is also granted by another specialist: Zerbi, Tommaso, Le origini detta partita doppia (Milan, 1952), p. 50.Google Scholar

66 Alberti, pp. xxix-xxxiii, and Studi, pp. 985–991.

67 The text of this contract is given in the libro segreto (Alberti, pp. 28–29).

68 For instance, Neri di Jacopo who had been remiss in paying up his quota of £4,000 aff. was charged as much as £238 aff. for interest when the books were closed on August 15, 1325 (Alberti, p. 89). Two years later, £236 aff. were written to the debit of his account for the same reason (Alberti, p. 91). In November, 1329, Neri having died in 1328, interest at 8 per cent per annum was charged to his sons, Agnolo and Francesco, who had overdrawn like their father (Alberti, p. 93).

69 See, for example, the account of Caroccio di Lapo who, on November 1, 1327, received interest at the rate of 8 per cent on earnings reinvested in 1325 (Alberti, p. 31).

70 The word mobile probably refers to any funds not yet tied up in real estate and, consequently, available for investment in business.

71 From 1302 to 1304, surplus profits were divided on the following basis: three-elevenths to each of the three Alberti brothers and one-eleventh to each of the two outsiders. When the latter withdrew, surplus profits were for a while divided equally among the three brothers. This system was changed again in 1307 or 1308 when Jacopo, the son of Alberto, joined the partnership, and the above ratios were adopted. They remained in force for several years, at least until 1315. In 1319, the death of Lapo, the first of the three brothers to die, brought about another reshuffling of the shares. A last adjustment was made in 1321 before the complete overhaul of the system of profit distribution in 1323.

72 I have prepared similar tables for the two other brothers: they show the same results.

73 The account and the table do not correspond exactly. Thus the account in the libro segreto gives only £3,165 10s. off. as the amount credited for in terest during two years, 1308 and 1309, without breaking down this total. The table shows how this total is made up and how interest was actually com puted:

Since the two totals are identical, computations must be considered as correct.

74 Alberti, pp. 29–30.

75 Alberti, pp. 89, 91, and 93.

76 Castellani, Arrigo, ed., Nuoci testi fiorentini del Dugento (Florence, 1952), pp. 296, 306, and 325.Google Scholar

77 Newberry Library (Chicago, Illinois), MS + 27 (52–2267), fol. 34. This is the private account book of Pepo d'Antonio di Lando degli Albizzi, one of the partners of the company. These partners were a father and his four sons. Three of them, including the father, died from the plague in 1348: only Pepo and Jacopo d'Antonio survived. This partnership was quite successful: in 1345, it secured a return of nearly 33 per cent on investment.

78 Alberti, pp. xxix-xxxiii.

79 This amount of £25,000 af. corresponds to about $69,000 in gold at the rate of $2.76 per pound affiorino. Let us not forget, however, that purchasing power was much greater in 1323 than in 1957.

80 Alberti, pp. 23, 24, and 25.

81 Ibid., p. 165.

82 This system was probably introduced in order to favor Messer Agnolo, the head of the firm, who, being Neri's son, had a very small equity in the business. Alberti, pp. 169,173, and 182.

83 Alberti, p. 173. However, in 1345, Caroccio was entitled to five shares out of a total of eighteen.

84 Alberti, pp. xxxii-xxxiii, and Studi, pp. 990–991.

85 Alberti, p. xxxiv, and Studi, pp. 992–993.

86 Alberti, p. 4.

87 Ibid., p. 37.

88 There were alternative routes which the Alberti seem to have used.

89 Alberti, pp. xxxvii-xxxviii, and Studi, pp. 996–997.

90 Alberti, p. 12.

91 Ibid., pp. 12–13.

92 Ibid., pp. 14–16.

93 Ibid., p. 14. £40, 415 aff. corresponds to $111, 545 at $2.76 per pound affiorino. This figure should be increased several times because of the difference in purchasing power.

94 Ibid., p. 120. See the account of Cione and More Bonsignori.

95 Ibid., p. 167.

96 Ibid., p. xxxviii, and Studi, p. 997.

97 Alberti, p. xxv, and Studi, p. 981.

98 Alberti, p. 254. This is a loss of about $4,400 at the present price of gold, but purchasing power was much greater. Perhaps, one should multiply this amount by ten, if not more.

99 Alberti, p. 12. The complete formula reads as follows: “In the name of God and of profit which God will give for the benefit of soul and body.”

100 Alberti, p. 3.

101 See the recent and excellent book by Origo, Iris, The Merchant of Prato (New York, 1957), pp. vii-viii.Google Scholar This is intended to be a popular biography, but it is so well done that it has real scholarly value.

102 Roover, Raymond de, “A Florentine Firm of Cloth Manufacturers,” Speculum, Vol. XVI (1941), p. 5.Google Scholar

103 See, for example, the comments of Kurt S. Gutldnd on the slightly different formula “In the name of God and of good fortune” used by the historic Medici: Cosimo dei Medici, Pater Patriae (Oxford, 1938), p. 202.

101 Castellani, ed., Nuovi testi, p. 207 (1253), p. 210 (1263), p. 213 (1262), p. 291 (1277), p. 303 (1280).

105 Corpus Juris Canonici, Decretum Gratiani, canon Qualitas Lucri, Dist. V De poenitentia, c. 2. The subject of adultery is specifically mentioned by Saint Bernardine of Siena (1380–1444), Quadragesimale De Evangelio Aetemo, sermon 33, art. 2, cap. 9. The saint uses strong language and refers to merchants who, being separated from their wives in foreign lands, “defile themselves in filth with believers as well as with infidels.”

106 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologilca, II, ii, qu. 77, art. 4, corpus.

107 Alberti, pp. xxxvi, 78, 84 and 101. Cf. Studi, pp. 994–995.

108 This manual was very recently republished: Patrick McGrath, ed., The Marchants Avizo, I. B. Marchant, 1589, “Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, The Kress Library of Business and Economics,” Publication No. 11 (Cambridge, Mass., 1957).

109 Leon Battista Alberti, Della Famiglia, G. Mancini, ed., Bk. Ili (Della Economia), p. 192. By “economics” L. B. Alberti means, of course, household and business management, not political economy. The text is quoted by Sapori, Alberti, p. xlvii, and Studi, p. 1,009.

110 This point is emphasized by Datini's biographer, Iris Origo, op. cit., pp. 113, 116–117, and 148. Yet, Datini complained that he was sometimes betrayed and that his junior partners or branch managers did not always heed his advice (pp. 117, 125–126).