The Local Merchants of Prato: Small Entrepreneurs in the Late Medieval Economy

Abstract

Located just 10 miles from Florence and integrated into that city's economy, the small 14th-century Italian town of Prato lived mostly in the shadow of its larger neighbour. Its merchants and small businessmen and women would be forgotten today but for the survival of an unusual number of documents from Prato - detailed account books that preserve line-by-line records of long-ago business transactions. Based on these sources, Richard K. Marshall seeks to throw light on the everyday business life of Renaissance Italy. Marshall begins with a look at the local marketplace in Prato, examining the way of life in this small town, explaining how business was conducted, and offering an in-depth look at the particular cases of an independent broker and a family of innkeepers. He then turns to common business practices, paying special attention to methods of book-keeping, credit, loans and banking in the local economy. Appendices provide a list of the account books that are the source of this material; a table showing the value of the florin from 1337 to 1410; and tradesmen's references to the well-known Prato merchant Francesco di Marco Datini. Although focused on Prato, the story told here represents that of many other small towns that thrived in the regions surrounding the great Italian cities.