An aristocratic enterprise: the Ginori porcelain manufactory (1735–1896)

Abstract

This study analyses the history of the Ginori porcelain manufactory, from its foundation owing to the entrepreneurial effort of the marquis Carlo Ginori in the 1730s to the merger with the ‘Società Ceramica Richard’ in 1896. The aristocratic entrepreneurship marked the manufactory with some atypical traits in accountancy, administration, succession, and strategic decisions that persisted for all the century and a half during which it remained in the hands of the Ginori family. The history of the Ginori manufactory so highlights a kind of entrepreneurship neglected by historiography.