Merchants and their cultural horizons in late medieval northern Italy

Thesis

The primary aim of this inquiry will be to explore the cultural horizons of merchants in late medieval northern Italy (c.1348 to c.1460). This exploration will dismantle the mythical figure of the merchant in late medieval northern Italy as herald of capitalist modernity. The secondary aim of this thesis is to propose a new methodology of cultural history that explores ‘cultural horizons’. These were the constantly shifting frames through which knowledge was categorised. I will investigate how a specific medium, quaderni, gave structure to those categories, and I will reunite material which has been artificially divided by the boundaries between disciplines. Merchants in late medieval Italy reasoned through the ethical and tensions that their profession generated, read tales, heard sermons and responded to art in particular ways through their cultural horizons. Yet, to explore these cultural horizons is not in any sense to posit a fixed or coherent mercantile world view. Both aims will offer new avenues of research, into merchants at different times and places, as well as in cultural history more widely.

The first chapter of this thesis, ‘Keeping Books’, will focus on the impact of quaderni on merchant culture. These paper books, sold as blank bound codices, were a versatile new medium that created a space not just for accounting but for many kinds of writing. The second chapter, ‘The Perfect Merchant’, will examine merchant education and the ideal models that merchants aspired to. The third chapter, ‘Measure’, will study the role of measure and measuring in merchant commerce, ethics, and eschatology. The fourth chapter, ‘Time’, will focus on the ways in which merchants perceived and ordered time. The fifth chapter, ‘Charting Horizons’, will explore the ways in which merchants navigated and contemplated trade routes and spiritual landscapes. The final chapter, ‘Fama’, will examine how merchants were perceived, how they established and lost their reputations, the circulation of information, and how they were remembered. For merchants, fama was distinctive; their businesses and their afterlives depended on it.

Authors: Tann, HN

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-g70yezaae
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: medieval merchants; merchants; account books; Dante; Fama; late medieval Italy
• Subjects: Cultural History; Medieval Northern Italy; Medieval Italian Art; Medieval Italian Literature