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The Economy of Renaissance Florence. By RICHARD A. GOLDTHWAITE. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. 672 pp. $55.00 (cloth).
In the historiography of Renaissance Florence, Richard A. Goldthwaite continues to assert a commanding presence. Over his distinguished career, his exhaustively researched books have taught us much about the economic life of the Tuscan city, from its leadership in banking and finance to its textile industries, building, private wealth, and demand for art. For those familiar with his explanation of Florence's extraordinary prosperity from the late fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries, The Economy of Renaissance Florence will sound some familiar notes. After adding considerably over the years to our understanding of distinct sectors of Florentine economic activity, however, the author now sets out to examine the economy comprehensively, as an organic unit of analysis. Therefore his book provides an ambitious synthesis but also a sweeping perspective that will become indispensable for any future study of the topic.
According to Goldthwaite, Florence emerged as one of late medieval and Renaissance Europe's most thriving cities by developing the largest and most integrated trade and banking networks in the West. Part 1 of his impressive book focuses outward, examining the ingenuity of the city's merchant entrepreneurs in securing Florence's international leadership in industry, commerce, and banking from the fourteenth through the sixteenth century. Part 2 turns inward, looking at the various sectors of the city's economy, from textile production, banking, and credit to labor and the workforce. Finally, the author considers the urban context of all of this economic activity, including the role of the Florentine government, the ties between the urban and regional economies, and the effect of the city's accumulation and distribution of wealth by patricians and the middling classes alike.
A latecomer to the commercial revolution, Florence quickly emerged at the forefront of the Tuscan (and Italian) economy in the thirteenth century, surpassing the medieval leaders in textile production (Lucca) and banking (Siena), to become one of Europe's...