Tracta di mercantie et usanze di paesi (Book of Trade and Customs of Countries)

Tracta di mercantie et usanze di paesi (Book of Trade and Customs of Countries)

Those who traded in the interconnected Mediterranean world of the fifteenth century needed to be well informed about the types of goods available in a large number of cities, the units of measure and coinage used, their denominations, and their exchange rates with principal domestic currencies. This commercial manual in Italian responded perfectly to the needs of the Renaissance merchant, containing information for converting weights, measures, and money across Western Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Caucasus, with major sections devoted to the trading capitals of Florence, Venice, and Genoa. The text is attributed to the Florentine merchant Giorgio di Lorenzo Chiarini and called the Libro di mercantieet usanze de’ paesi, or Book of Trade and Customs of Countries. A coat of arms of the Bertini family is present on a terracotta monument by the della Robbia workshop in the church of San Jacopo in Gallicano, north of Lucca

Author: Giorgio di Lorenzo Chiarini; Scribe: Ludovico Bertini

1481

Manuscript on parchment, 100 fols.

Temple University Libraries, Special Collections Research Center (SPC) MSS BH 007 COCH

Florence, Italy