La pratica della mercatura

500 Pages·1936·26.896 MB·English

by  Balducci Pegolotti, Francesco, Evans, Allan

THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA
PUBLICATION No. 24
FRANCESCO BALDUCCI PEGOLOTTI
LA PRATICA DELLA MERCATURA

FRANCESCO BALDUCCI PEGOLOTTI
LA PRATICA DELLA MERCATURA
edited by
ALLAN EVANS
Instructor in History
Harvard University
THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
1936
The publication of this booh was made possible by
grants of funds to the Academy from the Carnegie
Corporation of New York and the American
Council of Learned Societies.
CoPTBIGHT, 1936
BT
THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA
Printed in U.S.A.
THE INTELLIGENCER PRINTING CO.
LANCASTER, FA.
PREFACE
edition of Pegolotti's manual first took shape as a dissertation
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy at Harvard University. When deposited in the Harvard
College Library in 1931, the dissertation included a text based upon the
Riccardian manuscript, an English translation, with some general com-
mentary, and glossaries of place names, coins, and commodities. Since
that time additional material has presented itself, and the commentary
has grown so extensive that preliminary publication of the text alone
seemed most practical. The English translation will later appear dis-
encumbered of elaborate apparatus.
In this work, which touches upon many fields of interest, the scope of
which is extensive both linguistically and geographically, I do not pre-
tend to have solved all the problems presented; that I dare to venture it
in print at all is due to the generosity of many friends who have con-
tributed their time and knowledge. Professor R. P. Blake first suggested
the enterprise; he has supported it at every stage with encouragement,
advice and assistance. Valuable suggestions have been made by Miss
Eileen Power and Messrs G. La Piana, A. P. Usher, J. I. Coddington,
J. D. M. Ford, N. S. B. Gras, A. Grunzweig, P. Pelliot, G. Salvemini,
W. Thomson, G. B. Weston. Miss Florence Edler has generously
shared her experience in material of this type. Several contributions
by Harvard University from the Clark Bequest have enabled me to
consult foreign collections and to secure photographs and secretarial
assistance. The Mediaeval Academy has undertaken publication, for
the author a novel adventure which has been made easy by the advice of
Mr G. W. Cottrell, Jr. For all these kindnesses I am glad to have the
opportunity of returning thanks.
ALLAN EVANS
Leverett House
Cambridge, Massachusetts
August 8,1935

CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION ix
Text Tradition ix
Author xv
Sources xxvi
PRINCIPLES OF TRANSCRIPTION li
TEXT 3
KEY REFERENCES FOR GLOSSARIES AND INDICES 385
GLOSSARY OF TOLL STATIONS ON THE ROAD FROM AYAS TO TABRIZ. 389
GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH RELIGIOUS HOUSES 392
GLOSSARY AND INDEX OF PLACE NAMES 397
GLOSSARY OF UNUSUAL WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 408
GLOSSARY AND INDEX OF COMMODITIES 411
INDEX OF COINS AND MONIES OF ACCOUNT 436
GENERAL INDEX OF PROPER NAMES, SUBJECTS, AND MISCELLANEOUS
TERMS 438
PLATES
I. Codice Riccardiano 2441 > fol. lr opposite 3
II. Codice Riccardiano 2441 y fol. llr opposite 14
III. Codice Riccardiano 2441, fol. 208r opposite 328
IV. Codice Riccardiano 844.1, fol. 223r opposite 351

INTRODUCTION
TEXT TRADITION
"DEGOLOTTI'S 'Book of Descriptions of Countries and of Measures
of Merchandise' was first published as testimony to the former
prosperity of its author's native city. In the middle of the eighteenth
century a Florentine Chancellor of the Tithe, Gian-Francesco Pagnini
della Ventura of Volterra, puzzled by sundry anomalies that survived, an
inheritance from the past, in the fiscal administration over which he
presided, undertook to write a book summarizing the historical devel-
opment of Florentine finance;1 he proposed to explain first 'the ways in
which the citizens subvened to the needs of the city/ second 'the value
of the coinage with which they paid,' and third 'the sources from which
they obtained the funds.'2 He did not investigate far into the last topic
before he was led to appreciate how much more splendid than in his own
time had been the part formerly played by Florence in the economic life
of Europe, how much broader had been the foundation upon which the
government could construct its financial edifice; it was evident that
between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries the citizens of Florence
had carried their trade into every accessible province and had drawn
profits from the four quarters of the known world. To prove this fact,
no better witness could be found than Pegolotti's book, then lying in
manuscript on the shelves of the Riccardian Library. Pagnini rebaptized
the book and printed it entire as the third volume of his series under the
now familiar title, which it has seemed wise to retain, La Pratica della
Mercatura. He added as a fourth and final volume the similar but less
ample manual written by Giovanni da Uzzano in the fifteenth century.
Although the book was thus made available to a comparatively wide
public in 1766, the first notices of it in other works do not occur until a
couple of decades later. Towards the end of the century, the historians
of geographical discovery seized upon Pegolotti's first two chapters for
1 Delia Decima e di tarie allre gravezze imposte dal comune di Firenze, Della moneta e della mercatura
de' Fiorentini fino al secolo XVI (4 vols., Lisbon and Lucca, 1765-1766). The book was published
anonymously, but its author was soon known; see G. A. Zanetti, Nuova Raccolta delle itonete e
Zecche d'Italia (5 vols., Bologna, 1775-1789), I, 356. In spite of the statement on the title page, the
real place of publication was Florence; see Domenico Moreni, Bibliografia Storico-Ragionala della
Toscana (2 vols., Florence, 1805), n, 144-145.
1 Pagnini, I, 5.
IX
X LA PRATICA DELLA MERCATURA
their description of the route to Cathay,1 and ever since that time the
manual has been used as much for the purposes of geographic as of
economic history. From 1766 to the present, however, in spite of the
increasing interest that the work has attracted, the only available text,
with the exception of a few published excerpts,2 has been the now rare
edition by Pagnini. Pegolotti's work has been known only through the
medium of this eighteenth-century transcript.3
Pagnini was not without qualifications for his work of erudition. He
was the author of letters on agriculture, of an Essay on the True Price of
Things, Money, and the Commerce of the Romans, and of a translation of
Locke's Considerations of the Consequences of Lowering the Interest and
Raising the Value of Money,* to say nothing of the two scholarly tomes
which form the first volumes of the series Delia Decima. The editing of
Pegolotti's manual bears evidence of his care and ingenuity. Out of the
tangled spelling and sentence structure of the manuscript the editor
produced order by separating words, by eliminating superfluous letters,
and by introducing punctuation and accents. He made ingenious emen-
dations, many of which have been incorporated in the text below, for
instance the readings per una for prima, tanlaulaggio for tutta ulaggio,
Caffa for chasta, peso for preso, Altoluogo for alchu luogo.6 On the other
hand, there are a number of egregious and surprising inaccuracies in
Pagnini's text. Besides the omission of entire lines or phrases,' and some
confusions among the figures, such as 26 for 16, 4 for 1/4, 285 for 825,7
there are distortions of words, Pro for Orci, Melona for Celona, bianca for
1 The first authors to revive interest in the book were apparently J. R. Forster, Histoire des DS-
couvertes et des Voyages fails dans le Nord (2 vols., Paris, 1788), I, 241 ff.; and M. C. Sprengel, Ge-
schichte der wichtigslen geographischen Entdeckungen (2nd ed., Halle, 1792). See H. Yule, Cathay
and the Way Thither (2nd ed., 4 vols., London, 1913-1916), ni, 141.
1 Translation of Preface, Chs. i-rv, vi, parts of vm and Lxra in Yule, Cathay, ni, 143 ff.; Chs.
I-III in F. £. de La Primaudaie, Histoire du Commerce de la Her Noire et des Colonies GSnoises de la
Krimie (Paris, 1848), pp. 318-326; Ch. vm in L. Sauli, Delia Colonia dei Genovesi in Galata (2 vols.,
Turin, 1831), n, 230-258; Ch. xl in V. Langlois, Le Trlsor des Chartes d'ArmSnie (Venice, 1863),
pp. 199-203. S. L. Peruzzi prints a chapter 'on the shipment of monies' and attributes it to Pegolotti,
Storia del Commercio e dei Banchieri di Firenze (Florence, 1868), pp. 272 ff; it is in fact a part tran-
scription of Chs. xi,vn and XLvm in Uzzano (Pagnini, Delia Decima, rv, 152 ff.).
• There have been published a few transcriptions based upon the manuscript: Chs. I, n in Yule,
Cathay, m, 172 ff; Ch. LXHI in W. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce (4th
ed., Cambridge, 1905), I, 629-641; a brief collation with the MS of certain passages from Pagnini
in Mas Latrie, 'Le Manuscrit de la Prattica della Mercatura de B. Pegolotti' in Notices el Docu-
ments publiis pour la SociiU de VIHsioire de France a I'occasion du einquantiime anniversaire de sa
fondation (Paris, 1884), pp. 181-186.
4 Zanetti, Nuova Raccolta, I, 356; Yule, Cathay, in, 137, n. 2. The first is published in Scrittori
classici italiani di economia, Parte moderna, n (Milan, 1803), 155-326.
• See text, pp. 18, 28, 54, 150, 369.
• Ibid., pp. 28, 51, 107, 157, 201, etc.
7 Ibid., pp. 69, 101, 113; see also 114, 117, 167, etc.