Franklin

[Notebook of Medici accounts].

Publication:
[Italy], 1538-1541.
Format/Description:
Manuscript
192 leaves : paper ; 167 x 113 mm bound to 170 x 115 mm
Status/Location:
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Details

Subjects:
Medici, House of -- Archives.
De' Medici, Luigi, principe di Ottaviano, 1759-1830.
Medici, Bivigliano de'.
Medici, House of.
Accounting -- Italy -- 16th century.
Farm life -- Italy -- History.
Farm management -- Italy.
Farm management.
Farm life.
History.
Accounting.
Italy -- Rural conditions.
Italy.
Rural conditions.
Form/Genre:
Codices.
Accounts.
Credit records.
Ledgers (account books)
Manuscripts, Italian.
Manuscripts, Renaissance.
Archives.
Language:
Italian.
Summary:
Notebook of accounts of Luigi de' Medici, son of Bivigliano de' Medici, who takes over his father's estate after his death in 1538. The manuscript contains a wide range of records of transactions both in cash and in kind, some of them with short commentaries. Transactions concern farm management (of many of the farms of the estate of Bivigliano de' Medici), including the purchase of cattle, swine, sheep, feed, trees, and sowing tools; household management, including the pay of servants, farmers and employees, the purchase of food and drink for private consumption, and of furniture and house accessories; settlement of debts and credits with either business counterparts or family members; and sale of produce and farm products (including oil and wine). There is also a small number of records of the yearly production of oil, wine and, sometimes, wheat. Scattered throughout the manuscript there are more narrative passages where the work of an employee is praised (or criticized), the state of a farm is described, or a situation that led to a debt or a credit is recorded. Sometimes these passages are written in the first person, but the use of the third person is not uncommon. Alphabetical index, with 18 lettered tabs, containing names of individuals that appear in the ledger, is sewn inside the upper cover of the manuscript.
Notes:
Ms. codex.
Title supplied by cataloger.
Foliation: Paper, 192; rectos numbered [1], 2-192, contemporary numeration in ink, modern numeration in pencil, upper right verso; versos numbered 1-27, [28-192], contemporary numeration in ink, modern numeration in pencil, upper left recto. The versos of f. 1-27 have the same number as on the recto, upper left verso.
Script: Written in a cursive script, perhaps by multiple hands.
Watermark: Similar to Briquet, Ancre 489 (Florence, 1519).
Decoration: Manicule (f. 4v).
Binding: Contemporary vellum, no. 9 on spine; the heading Giornale and letter B on upper cover; lower cover wraps around upper cover with remnants of leather ties; decorative leatherwork on spine.
Origin: Written in Italy between 1538 (f. 1v) and 1541 (f. 111r).
Forms part of: Gondi-Medici Business Records.
Penn Provenance:
Sold by Bernard M. Rosenthal, 1961.
Cited in:
Described in Zacour, Norman P. and Hirsch, Rudolf. Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Libraries of the University of Pennsylvania to 1800 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965), p. 206 (Ms. Lea 301).
Cited as:
UPenn Ms. Codex 1366.
OCLC:
301948478
Access Restriction:
Access to this item is subject to staff review.