La mercatura fiorentina prima e dopo l’età dei grandi fallimenti

The essay analyzes the evolution of Florentine business societies during the 14th century. The decisive watershed separating one era from another is represented by the great failures of the 1340s: a traumatic event, capable of negatively involving an entire city economy and many foreign savers, which was almost immediately followed by the Black Death. Faced with the challenges imposed by a demographically reduced but not for this reason poorer world, the Florentine mercantile-banking companies made choices that would have impressed a structural and long-term change to the productive structures of their city.