Details

Subjects:

Amadori family.
Amadori, Niccolo.
Accounting -- Italy -- 17th century.
Finance -- Italy -- Early works to 1800.
Speculation -- Early works to 1800.
Speculation.
Finance.
Accounting.
Italy.

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Accounts.
Ledgers (account books)
Manuscripts, Italian.
Manuscripts, European.

Language:

Italian.

Summary:

Ledger of accounts of Niccolo Amadori, for the "fair" of 1608, that was held in Piacenza, northern Italy. It contains short descriptions of the transactions, which were probably made using bills of exchange, their amounts and, in certain cases, the name of the counterpart involved. A bill of exchange is a written order by one person to his bank to pay the bearer a specific sum on a specific date. Prior to the advent of paper currency, bills of exchange were a common means of exchange. Niccolo Amadori appears to be involved in such transactions both as a drawer and as a drawee. A fair, a usually quarterly event in northern Italy, was one of the largest markets for complex bills of exchange. In these fairs there was no physical delivery of the traded asset, but they attracted large volumes of investors nonetheless. In the event of a fair, like the one in Piacenza in 1608 mentioned in the title of the manuscript, businessmen and bankers such as Niccolo Amadori traded different currencies or commodities and these transactions usually happened via bills of exchange. Some merchants purchased considerable amounts of bills of exchange from various counterparts (such as Niccolo Amadori) to hedge the risk of the transactions, and made money betting on the difference of prices of the same asset which occurred on different markets because the same asset (in this case currencies and commodities such as gold and silver) does not trade at the same price in all markets.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title supplied by cataloger.
Pagination: Paper, i (paper) + 72 + i (paper); versos numbered 1-72, contemporary pagination in ink, upper left verso; rectos numbered [i], i-vi, [vii-viii], ix, [x], xi-xii, [xiii-xvii], xviii-xxxviii, [xxxix-xxxxiv], xxxxv, [xxxxvi-xxxxvii], xxxxviii-liii, [liiii], lv-lvi, [lvii], lviii-lix, [lx-lxiiii], lxv-lxxi, contemporary pagination in ink, modern pagination in pencil, upper right recto. Each opening has a matched arabic numeral on the left and a roman numeral on the right.
Layout: Written in 3 columns with vertical bounding lines in lead; the small column on the left with the transaction number, the large central column with the name of the counterpart and a brief description of the transaction, and the small one on the right with the amount of the transaction.
Script: Written in a cursive script, perhaps by multiple hands.
Watermark: Unidentified watermark containing a coat of arms with complex decorative motifs.
Binding: Contemporary vellum, no. 10 on spine; lower cover wraps around upper cover with remnants of leather ties.
Origin: Written in Italy in 1608.
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. 208 (Ms. Lea 318).

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 1388

OCLC:

307502784