Banner

Tarot History Forum

Tarot History Forum - 600 years of history in 78 cards

Re: Money and Food in Florence 1440-1463

11
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:So you get a kilo of mutton for 5 soldi (1 kilo for 63 denari; 63/12=5,25 soldi). For a cheap Triumph pack at 10 soldi, you could get two kilos of meat.

For my 10 euro pack of cheap cards, I could buy a little over 1 kilo today (sometimes almost 1 1/2 kilos).
I think, that there is the rough rule, that in the lower class you spend about 50% of you income for your meals. This is nowadays not the case, so that you can't compare the situation. And poor people couldn't have meat at each day, I would assume, if I look at the prizes. Likely meat consume was easier to have in Germany and other countries with more green grass and less populous cities (I saw the remark - true or untrue - that a German building worker could buy three sheep and a pair of shoes for one week's salary; well, maybe the sheep were originally lambs). Hardly imaginable for the meat prices of Florence. Near Florence are mountains, possibly not ideal for meat production.

Generally 1 or 2 weak grano years could cause hunger years. Grano was the essential product, what saved the life.
Italy is famous for Pasta. You need grano for pasta.
But all this I don't know for sure. We should study these economical questions, if we want to evaluate this early Trionfi card price situation.

Re: Money and Food in Florence 1440-1463

12
I found this statement:
http://books.google.de/books?id=zk5KjCw ... ra&f=false



This gives ...

Ferrara:
50 (Ferrarese) Soldi = 2.50 Lira Marchesana = 1 Florentine Ducato in the 1450s
57 (Ferrarese) Soldi = 2.85 Lira Marchesana = 1 Florentine Ducato in 1476
63 (Ferrarese) Soldi = 3.15 Lira Marchesana = 1 Florentine Ducato in 1485

Milan:
37 (Milanese Soldi) = 1.85 Lira Imperiale = 1 Florentine Ducato in 1397
90 (Milanese Soldi) = 3.50 Lira Imperiale = 1 Florentine Ducato in the 1480s

I don't know, if the relation "1 Florentine Ducato = x Florentine Lira" was a fixed value. Actually I would doubt this. From mid 16th century I remember a value of 7 Lira = 1 ducato, so then the relation was worse for the Florentine Lira than for the Lira-values in Milan and Ferrara in the 1480s.

This question needs research.

In this book .. http://books.google.de/books?id=pwAggVf ... navlinks_s
Money in Sixteenth-Century Florence
Carlo M. Cipolla
University of California Press, Aug 7, 1989 - 169 pages
at page 3
... I find this table:



The red part is that, what I think interesting. We have there for 1425 the value 1 Florentine Ducato = 4 Florentine Lira (more or less) and for 1461 we have the value 1 Florentine Ducato = 5 Florentine Lira (roughly).

For the Florentine Trionfi documents I would assume, that the 1:4 relation was still active. I saw, that in 1461 many Florentine coins were made, so I assume, that the money was renewed then (I'm not sure about this).

From this I would assume, that the Florentine Lira had in the critical time less value than the Lira Marchesana, possibly the relations ...

1 Lira Marchesana = 1.6 Florentine Lira
1 Florentine Lira = 0.625 Lira Marchesana

... are relevant, and this is a considerable difference. The Trionfi decks of Florence are cheaper than earlier considered ... at least at my side.

Well, this calculation needs further confirmation.

Re: Money and Food in Florence 1440-1463

13
I found this ...

http://books.google.de/books?id=86DU9iY ... 61&f=false
Dressing Renaissance Florence:
Families, Fortunes, and Fine Clothing
Carole Collier Frick
JHU Press, Jul 20, 2005 - 368 pages





The short red passage shows, that the value of a ducat was 92 Soldi in 1447, which seems to give evidence, that the relation Florentine Lira = Florentine ducato was NOT 1:4 in 1447 (as earlier suspected), but already 1 : 4.6

The green passage shows, the value of the ducato was daily announced in Florence.

The yellow passage shows, that "ducato" hadn't been equal to "ducato" ... so there are further complications. There are higher-value-ducati mentioned, which naturally would have the effect, that Lira Marchesana and Lira Imperiale would lose in comparison to the "ducato".

So it isn't so easy to decipher, what actually was going on, and easily one could drop in error. Especially dangerous looks the fiorini largo, who appeared around 1450 and quickly had 20% more value than the fiorini suggello, which had replaced the very constant fiorini d'oro.

I just am puzzled about the sentence ...


I understand, that the old fiorini d'oro coin was evaluated between 4 and 7 Lira later, but what shall this "or 29 soldi" mean?
Likely, that "old Lira" was evaluated in later time between 20-29 Soldi. Or just a printing error, 29 for 20?

Re: Money and Food in Florence 1440-1463

14
well,

in the days of the Esch report ...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=967
... there's some need to find out, how the Roman currency related to the Florentine system in the time of 1444-1446 (some import notes via ship for playing cards) and for the period 1451-1465 (playing cards and trionfi).

For the moment I've no answer to this question. Is the the Roman ducat similar to one of the Florentine ducats?