We have been discussing a lot in class about the use of florins and the Italian currency. For example in Brucker's primary source book, we covered the marriages of Gregorio Dati that talked about the dowries of his wives. His first wife gave him a dowry of 900 florins, his second wife's dowry was 1000 florins, and his third wife's dowry was around 600 florins. Also, the handout we recieved in class had salaries and wages of different occupations in Italy. Some of these salaries ran up to 440 florins per year. This got me thinking more about a florin and the other types of money used at this time.
The Italian florin was used from 1252-1523. As we know, Italy was pretty much the international banking capital of the world with the Monte de' Paschi di Siena. In Florence they began to use a gold coin for their currency and this began to replace the use of silver bars as the currency for trade throughout Western Europe. The florin was pure gold and was said to weigh roughly 3.5g. A florin is approximately equal to 200 US dollars.
Florence's banks had various silver coins (e.g., denari & soldo) and one single gold coin, the florin. Soldo and lira did not exists as coins and the soldo was used to express 12 denari. As we can see in the handout from class denari are the smallest form of currency and 12 denari would be equal to 1 soldo. The next highest form of currency was the soldo, which 20 of these would equal one lire. This currency system stayed all the way into the 18th century.
Interesting post Trevor. Although I would have enjoyed this post more if you had directly related it to the sources more thoroughly. You mention the dowries and salaries, but only in the first sentence. It would be more interesting had you compared various wages and salaries now with your further understanding of the breakdown of Florentine currency.
ReplyDeleteHow cool would it be to find money from this time to show in class! :-)
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