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The Editors' Corner
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2012
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- Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1966
References
1 Luzzatto, Gino, Per una storia economica d'Italia (Bari, 1957), 23.Google Scholar
2 In this connection the author I quoted adds, “… but even in more recent years no one can dispute that, despite the wealth of data that can be drawn from industrial censuses, they will never be able to give us a living and ordered picture of the life and conditions of the development of industry if they are not integrated by a historical study of the most typical individual enterprises. This necessity has been recognized precisely by those countries that are at the forefront in the application of statistics to the study of economics and the history of economics. In the United States, for several years, there has been at the famous Harvard University a Business History Society, to which has been added now at the same University, a Center for Entrepreneurial History. While the Society has dealt primarily with the history of enterprises, the Center has concentrated its researches on the personality of the individual businessman, on the spirit of initiative, on the imagination and on the organizational aptitudes of the men who are responsible for the multiplication, the birth, the enlargement, and the prosperity of great enterprises.” Luzzatto, 24. Editors' note: The Business Historical Society, Inc. was incorporated in 1925 and liquidated in 1964, but was inactive from the late 1950's on. The Research Center in Entrepreneurial History functioned from 1948 to 1958.
3 Besides the volume listed above, see: Luzzatto, Gino, “Tendenze nuove negli studi di storia economica,” in Nuova Rivista Storica, III–IV, 1951Google Scholar; Borlandi, Franco, “Affari e storia degli affari,” in Aspetti e problemi della realt à economia (Genova, 1961)Google Scholar; Sapori, Armando, “Il mercante italiano nel Rinascimento,” Rota, E. (ed.), Problemi storici e orientamenti storiografici (Como, 1942).Google Scholar
4 Redlich, Fritz, “Approaches to Business History,” Business History Review, XXXVI, (Spring, 1962), 61–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 In this connection Libero Lenti has justly expressed himself: “As one can see, therefore, microeconomics as well as macroeconomics study the same phenomena, except that they study them from different points of view, and sometimes even with a different methodology. Because of this, one hears of microeconomics and macroeconomics as two separate branches of economics, with aims clearly defined and even unincroachable. I am not of this opinion. I think that the microscopic examination of the same economic unities and quantities, considered as elementary entities, as well as the microscopic examination of the same economic unities and quantities associated in fairly wide classifications and, therefore, considered in toto, are useful for economic research and especially in the sense that the results obtained with microeconomics can be of use to the design of macroeconomics phenomena and vice versa. There are not, therefore, boundaries nor dualisms. Rather two movements going in opposite directions, that is from a particular reality to a general idea – let's say even abstract – and from the general idea to the individual case. Movements performed by the mind in a continuous course and practically inseparable, precisely the way deduction and induction compose themselves in that superior synthesis that is scientific method, without other qualifications.” Lenti, L., “Microeconomia e Macroeconomia,” in Saggi di economia aziendale e sociale in memoria di Gino Zappa, II (Milan, 1961), 1188 ff.Google Scholar
6 I do not deem it advisable in this article to propose to analyze critically the aims and subject of business history. I will limit myself to a personal opinion saying that, any time one examines a certain economic unity and takes its history as a symptom of more general trends, in this case and only in this case does one write the history of business. Business history cannot be, nor must be, solely an end in itself. It must draw its raison d'etre from the possibility of exposing and making us understand events that cannot be expressed correctly and have no meaning if united in large wholes.
7 The principle object of these was the history of firms and business monographs. I list the following: Peruzzi, Simone L., Storia del commercio e dei banchieri di Firenze in tutto il mondo conosciuto dal 1200 al 1345 (Florence, 1868)Google Scholar; Passerini, L., Gli Alberti di Firenze: genealogia, storia e documenti (Florence, 1869)Google Scholar; Arias, G., “La compagnia bancaria dei Buonsignori,” in Studi e documenti per la stona del diritto (Florence, 1913)Google Scholar; F. Biscaro, “Il banco di Filippo Borromei di Londra,” in Archivio Storico Lombardo (1913); Ceccherelli, A., I libri della mercatura della Banca Medici (Florence, 1913).Google Scholar The scholar who wishes to have an exact idea of the Italian production of this period can find a large bibliography in; Sapori, A., Studi di storia economica medioevale (Florence, 1940)Google Scholar, or in Sapori, A., “Il mercante Italiano del Riniscimento,” in Rota, E. (ed.) Problemi storici e orientamenti storiografici (Como, 1942).Google Scholar
8 (Florence, 1922).
9 It would go beyond the limits of this brief article to examine the person and work of Armando Sapori. I refer the reader therefore to: Studi in onore di Armando Sapori (Milan, 1956), especially to the articles by L. Fevre, “Armando Sapori l'homme,” G. Luzzatto, “Armando Sapori storico,” and G. Saporì, “Scritti di Armando Sapori.”
10 In this connection Armando Sapori writes, “In this period … around 1000 A.D., the protagonist of history was the merchant who gave a clear and sure stamp not only to the course of economic life but also to the course of political and social life in a wide sense. In the field of economics the merchant opened the doors to internal trade, closed already in the feudal order with large, small, and otherwise unsurmountable barriers, and let in international commerce, barred by the powerful obstacles of sea and the alpine chain. Afterward, he marked the renewal of manufacturing, thus giving it an increasingly important part of the capitals gathered through trade … Then he determined the trend of banking actions, beginning with manual change and reading the transfer of money by mail, moving from private loans to the financing of Princes and States, at first dedicating to commercial enterprises family patrimonies, with which the “Social Bodies” were first constituted, and gradually availing himself of the deposits of clients, always more numerous and belonging to the most different social classes: until a profitable and also dangerous instrument of credit was created …” A. Sapori, Il mercante italiano del Rinascimento, see above.
11 On the other hand, these imbalances can also be seen among the studies of our economy by foreign scholars.
12 The word “merchant” must be understood here in its wider meaning. That is as a commercial operator dealing with numerous markets, a banker, an industrialist, also occupied with armaments activities, as a man of business.
13 Some of the famous works on this period are: M. Chiaudano, “I Rothschild del dugento: la Gran Tavola di Orlando Buonsignori,” in Bullettino senese di storia patria 1935; Le compagnie bancarie senesi del duecento; “Note e documenti sulla compagnia bancaria dei Buonsignori,” in Studi e documenti per la storia del diritto commerciale nel XIII secolo (Turin, 1930); Fanfani, A., “Costi e profitti di Lazzaro Bracci, mercante aretino del trecento,” in Saggi di storia economica italiana (Milan, 1936)Google Scholar; Unmercante del trecento: Giubileo Carsidoni di Sansepolcro (Milan, 1935); Zerbi, T., La banca nell-ordinamento finanziario Visconteo (Como, 1935)Google Scholar; Lopez, R. S., Genova marinara nel duecento: Benedetto Zaccaria, ammiraglio e mercante (Milan, 1933)Google Scholar; Luzzatto, G., “Piccoli e grandi imprenditori nelle citta italiane del Rinascimento,” in Saggi di storia e teoria economica in onore e memoria del Prof. Giuseppe Prato (Turin, 1931)Google Scholar; Studi di storia economica veneziana (Padua, 1954). More bibliographical information can be drawn from Sapori's Studi di storia economica medievale and II mercante italiano del Rinascimento listed above.
14 On the technique of international commerce see especially the unsurpassed, Sapori, A., Una compagnia di Cali-mala ai primi del trecento (Florence, 1932).Google Scholar Also noteworthy are the publications of Melis, F., Aspetti della vita economica medievale (Florence, 1962)Google Scholar; “La formazione dei costi nell'industria laniera alla fine del trecento,” Economica e storia (1954).
15 Sapori, A., The Culture of the Italian Merchant (London, 1953)Google Scholar; Fanfani, A., Preparazione all'attività economica nei secoli XIV e XVI in Italia (Varese, 1952)Google Scholar; Spaggiari, P. L., Ideali cristiani e politica del credito agli inizi dell'età moderna: L'attività del Monte di Pietà di Parma dal 1488 al 1573 (Parma, 1964).Google Scholar
16 I list in particular the following editions edited by Sapori, A.: I libri di commercio dei Peruzzi (Milan, 1934)Google Scholar; I libri della ragione bancaria dei Gianfigliazzi (Milan, 1946); I libro degli Alberti del Giudice (Milan, 1952); Dorini, U. and Bertele, T. (eds.), Il libro dei conti di Giacomo Badoer (Rome, 1956)Google Scholar; Lazzareschi, E. (ed.), Il libro delle comunità dei mercanti lucchesi in Bruges (Milan, 1956).Google Scholar
17 “We have … in Italy a unique fortune in the Datini Archives, a merchant of Prato who lived between 1350 and 1410, creator and inspirator of a business that imposed itself in all of Western Europe up to North Africa. An enterprise that extended from Prato, Pisa, Florence to Avignon, Genoa, Barcelona, Valencia Majorca, with branches in Milan and Venice, among other places. His complete archives owe their survival and intactness to their having been walled for centuries in a type of closet in a 15th century palace, destined by the said merchant to charitable institutions founded and endowed by him. Discovered ninety years ago during restoration works, the archive has revealed absolutely exceptional unity and composition made up, as it is, of 150,000 commercial letters, 550 accounting books, 300 company contracts, 400 insurance contracts, 6,000 letters of exchange, 5,000 orders for goods, 280 checks and cash orders; and the list could continue …,” From Affari e storia degli affari by F. Boriandi, see above. Federigo Melis is an expert on the Datini Archives, and has illustrated the life of Francesco di Marco with numerous articles among which Aspetti della vita economia medievale (Florence, 1962) stands out.
18 Zerbi, T., Studi e problemi di storia economica (Milan, 1955)Google Scholar; Lopez, R. S., La prima crisi della Banca di Genova 1250–1259 (Milan, 1956)Google Scholar; Melis, F., Note di storia sella Banca Pisana del trecento (Pisa, 1955)Google Scholar; Garrani, G., Il carattere bancario e l'evoluzione strutturaledei primigenii Monti di Pietà (Milan, 1957)Google Scholar; Chiaudano, M.-Lombardo, M., Leonardo Marcello, notaio in Candía 1278–1281 (Venice, 1960)Google Scholar; Trasselli, C., Note per la storia dei Banchi in Sicilia nel XIV secolo (Palermo, 1958)Google Scholar; various authors, Città, mercanti e dottrine nell'economia europea dall IV al XVIII secolo (Milan, 1964); and many others.
19 Caracciolo, A., Ricerche sul mercante italiano Francesco Trionfi, capitalista e magnate di Ancona (Urbino, 1962)Google Scholar; Ricerche sul mercante del settecento Fortunato Cervelli, ferrarese neofita e la politica commerciale del'impero (Urbino, 1962).
20 Frumento, A., Imprese lombarde nella storia della siderugia italiana: Il contributi dei Falck (Milan, 1952)Google Scholar; Imprese lombarde nella storia della siderugia italiana: Il ferro milanese tra il 1450 e il 1776 (Milan, 1963).
21 Caizzi, B., Camillo e Adriano Olivetti (Turin, 1962)Google Scholar; Storia del setificio Comasco (Como, 1957). Pozzani, S., Giovanni Agnelli, storia di una industria (Milan, 1962).Google Scholar
22 DeMarco, Domenico, Banca e congiuntura nel mezzogiorno d'Italia (Naples, 1963).Google Scholar
23 Barbieri, G., Origini del capitalismo lombardo (Milan, 1961).Google Scholar
24 Archivio economico della unificazione italiana (Rome, 1956).
25 See in particular: De Maddalena, A., “Formazione, impiego e rendimento della ricchezza nella Milano spagnola: Il caso di Gottardo Frisiani (1575–1608),” in Studi in onore di Epicarmo Corbino (Milan, 1961)Google Scholar; “I bilanci dal 1600 al 1647 di una azienda fondiaria lombarda: Testimonianza di una crisi economica,” in Cipolla, C. M. (ed.), Storia dell'economia italiana (Turin, 1959).Google Scholar
26 Professor Borlandi has sharply criticized the unpleasant practice, adopted by many Italian enterprises to “glorify” their respective histories, in the following way: “…On the other hand in many American enterprises there exists a history for internal use of the firm, compiled by specialists. It is a history of the firm that has nothing in common with those often flashy volumes that we publish on 100th, 50th, or other more-or-less solemn anniversaries. We put together color pages with photographs of the presidents of the companies” with shrewd pictures of the company seat, the factories, the plants and the warehouses, and then an orgy of diagrams of all kinds – naturally in color – and in the end, of course, a few pages of text; very few: normally not more than those absolutely necessary to contain the enterprise's registered data; so few and superficial that they serve no one a purpose, as after all neither does the costly volume itself. Beautifully bound, it will decorate the shelves of the president or the council room, where it will be skimmed over only by the vacuum cleaner.” F. Borlandi, Affari e storia degli affari, see above.
27 Filangieri, R., Storia dei banchi di Napoli (Naples, 1940).Google Scholar
28 Demarco, D., Il banco delle due Sicilie, 1808–1863 (Naples, 1958).Google Scholar
29 Ristori, R., La Camera di Commercio e la Borsa di Firenze (Florence, 1963).Google Scholar
30 Stefani, G., L'assicurazione a Venezia dalle origini fino alla fine dalla Serenissima (Bologna, 1956).Google Scholar
31 Various authors: Novara e il suo territorio, edited by the Banca Popolare di Novara.
32 Edison, Societa, Nel cinquantenario della Società Edison, 1884–1934 (Milan, 1934)Google Scholar; Il gruppo Edison nei primi cento anni dell'unità d'Italia (Milan, 1960).
33 Cassi di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde, L'Economia dalla regione Lombarda (Milan, 1954).Google Scholar
34 See footnote 17 for a few remarks concerning the Datini Archives. I refer the reader who wishes to know more about this famous Italian merchant and the events that caused his archives to be found, by chance, intact in the second half of the 19th century, to the excellent Aspetti della vita economica medioevale, listed in footnote 17, or Bensa, E., Francesco di Marco da Prato, notizie e documenti sulla mercatura italiana nel secolo XIV ( Milan, 1928)Google Scholar; Origo, I., Il mercante di Prato: Francesco di Marco Datini (Milan, 1958).Google Scholar
35 Ministero dell'Interno (Direzione Generale dell'amministrazione civile-Ufficio centrale Archivi di Stato), Gli Archivi di Stato al 1952 (Rome, 1954).Google Scholar
36 Among the richest is certainly the archive of the Institute for Economic History at the L. Bocconi University: “The patrimony is made up of 1,000 books and registers concerning both the administration of the real estate of the great Tuscan families – the Saminiatis and the Pazzis – and the economic activity exercised by the members of two families associated with other merchants, the most active of which were the Guasconis and the Strozzis. To this series must be added the abundant correspondence (unfortunately not yet classified), devoted almost solely to commercial and banking operations, of the “companies” established by the Saminiati between 1624 and 1719. To this valuable crop of mercantile letters must be added the magnificent and almost complete collection of copying-book registers, where the Saminiati missives, sent for different reasons are reproduced in extenso.” De Maddalena, A., “Les Archives Saminiati: de l'economie a l'histoire de l'art,” Annales (Paris, 1959), 738–44.Google Scholar
37 If one keeps in mind that the origin of several of our credit institutions can be dated the 15th and 16th centuries, one can easily understand the importance that the documents conserved in these institutions' archives can have on economic history. For more information on archival patrimonies of credit firms see Associazone Bancaria d'Italiana (ed.), Archivi storici delle aziende di credito (Rome, 1956)Google Scholar, or Sapori, A., “Saggio di una biblio grafia per la storia della banca d'Italia,” in Van Dillen, J. G. (comp.), History of the Principal Public Banks (L/Aja, 1934).Google Scholar
38 Gli archivi di Stato al 1952 (see above), specifies that there are 724 private archives. This number must be far from correct, inasmuch as several owners of archives have never informed the competent authorities of their existence. Summary information on these archives can be drawn from the book listed above on page 425 and following. For the archives in Rome see, “Archivi extra muros dell'archivio di Stato e Vaticano in Roma,” Archivi, II (1960), 224–35. For the private archives existing in Tuscany, see the excellent S. and G. Camerani (eds. ), “Bibliografia degli archivi fiorentini” and “Notizie degli archivi toscani,” Archivio Storico Italiano, 2–3 (Florence, 1956).
39 Economia e Storia, A. Guiffre Publishing House, Maüan. See Caroselli, M. R., Indice della rivista Economia e Storia per il decennio 1954–1963 (Milan, 1964).Google Scholar
40 Nuova Rivista Storica, Dante Alighieri Publishing House, Milan-Rome; Rivista Storica Italiana, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane Publishing House, Naples. These programs of study deal, of course, only with examination of activities of medieval economic unities.