Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A New Edition of Benedetto Cotrugli’s The Book of the Art of Trade

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Benedetto Cotrugli – The Book of the Art of Trade

Abstract

Benedetto Cotrugli’s The Book of the Art of Trade (as we may loosely translate the title of the manuscript, libro del’arte dela mercatura) is a particularly clear case of relevant changes in the historical interpretation of a text following new archival discoveries.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    According to Muliačić (1995a), Patrizi abridged chapter 13 of Cotrugli’s book because at the time better instructions on double-entry bookkeeping were available. The interest aroused by publishing the book in the late sixteenth century would not be in its priority in describing this accounting technique, but in its more general value as an humanistic treaty on the virtues of commerce.

  2. 2.

    Cotrugli is cited as auditor of the Royal tribunal in the dedication by Giovanni Giuseppi to the Ragusan merchant Francesco Radagli (Frano Radaljevic) that appears in a limited number of copies of the 1573 Venetian edition (see below the essay by Mario Infelise on the printed tradition).

  3. 3.

    Privitera (2010) argues that no plagues are recorded in Naples in that period. However, Corradi (1972, I, 296) records an epidemic lasting six months in 1458 (Tucci 1990, 37).

  4. 4.

    The interpretation of this appointment as ‘prime minister’ of the Kingdom by Appendini (1803, II, 98–100) is due to the equivocation of the term used by the Ragusan Senate granting Cotrugli a safe-conduct as “plenipotentiary minister”, actually meaning ambassador.

  5. 5.

    The first manuscript of Cotrugli’s book on navigation was found by an antique dealer in Naples and offered in vain to the Marciana library in 1913–14, to be then purchased by the American collector Henry C. Taylor, who finally donated it to the Yale University Library, where it is now catalogued as Ms. 557 (Trovato 2009). Another manuscript is kept in the private collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg as Ms. 473: it was described as anonymous by de Polo Saibanti (1985) but is clearly a copy of Cotrugli’s De navigatione. Falchetta (2012, 54) cites also a third manuscript Ma. 334 at the “Angelo Mai” Library in Bergamo.

References

  • Appendini, Francesco Maria. 1803. Notizie istorico-critiche sulle antichità, storia e letteratura de’ Ragusei divise in due tomi e dedicate all’eccelso Senato della Repubblica di Ragusa, vol. 2, 98–100. Ragusa: A. Martecchini.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boschetto, Luca. 2005. “Tra Firenze e Napoli. Nuove testimonianze sul mercante-umanista Benedetto Cotrugli e sul suo Libro dell'arte di Mercatura.” Archivio storico italiano 163(4): 688–715.

    Google Scholar 

  • Corradi, Alfonso. 1972. Annali delle epidemie occorse in Italia dalle prime memorie fino al 1850: aggiunte e correzioni fino all’anno 1700, 4 vols, Bologna: Forni.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cotrugli, Benedetto. 1573. Della mercatura et del mercante perfetto. Libri quattro di M. Benedetto Cotrugli raugeo. Scritti già più di anni CX. & hora dati in luce. Venice: all’Elefanta.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Polo Saibanti, Claudio. 1985. “‘Arte del navigare’. Manoscritto inedito datato 1464–65.” In Imago et mensura mundi. Atti del IX Congresso Internazionale di Storia della Cartografia, 3, 71–79. Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana.

    Google Scholar 

  • Del Treppo, Mario. 1973. “The Crown of Aragon and the Mediterranean.” Journal of European Economic History 2(1):161–186.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doni, Federica. 2007. La teoria personalistica del conto: Aspetti evolutivi ed approfondimenti critici. Milan: Giuffré.

    Google Scholar 

  • Falchetta, Piero, ed. 2009. “Il trattato De navigatione di Benedetto Cotrugli (1464–1465). Edizione commentata del ms. Schoenberg 473 con il testo del ms. 557 di Yale,” Studi Veneziani 57:16–334.

    Google Scholar 

  • Falchetta, Piero. 2012. “Benedetto Cotrugli et son traité De navigatione (1464–65).” Historical Review/La Revue Historique 12:53–62.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farlatus, Danielis, and Coletus, Jacobus. 1800. Illyrici Sacri tomus sextus. Venice: Jacobus Coletus.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kotruljević, Benedikt. 2005a. De navigatione. O plovidbi, edited and translated by Damir Salopek. Zagreb: Ex Libris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kristeller, Paul O. 1989. Iter Italicum: Accedunt Alia Itinera: A finding list of uncatalogued or incompletely catalogued humanistic manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and other libraries. London: The Warburg Institute. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luzzati, Michele. 1984. “Cotrugli (Contrugli, Cotrulli, Kotrulja, Kotruljevic, Kotrulj, Kotrljic), Benedetto (Benko).” In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 30, 446–450. Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muliačić, Žarko. 1995a. “Slicnosti i razlike Petrisova izdanja Kotruljeviceva traktata (Mleci, 1573, P) i najistarijeg dosad poznatog prijepisa (Napulj, 1475, R) izgubljenog autografa (1458).” Prilozi za istrazivanje hrvatske filozofske bastine 22(41/42):57–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Postma, Johanna, and Van der Helm, Anne J. 2000. “La riegola del Libro: Bookkeeping instructions from the mid-fifteenth century.” In Accounting and History: A selection of papers presented at the 8th World Congress of Accounting Historians, Madrid, Spain, 19–21 July 2000, 147–178. Madrid: AECA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Privitera, Claudio. 2010. Benedetto Cotrugli, un antesignano del Pacioli. Rivista Italiana di Ragioneria e di Economia Aziendale 110:514–522.

    Google Scholar 

  • Runjić, Andelko. 1989. “On Beno Kotruljevic and his work.” In Benedikt Kotruljević, O trgovini i o savrsenu trgovcu, edited by Žarko Muliačić, 510–517. Dubrovnik: U. Dubrovnik.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sangster, Alan. 2014a. “Preface.” In Libr. XV: Cotrugli and de Raphaeli on Business and Bookkeeping in the Renaissance, presented by Alan Sangster, 1–2. Stirling: Lomax Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sangster, Alan. 2014b. “Introduction.” In Libr. XV: Cotrugli and de Raphaeli on Business and Bookkeeping in the Renaissance, presented by Alan Sangster, 3–15. Stirling: Lomax Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spremić, Momcilo. 1986. Dubrovnik e gli Aragonesi (1442–1495). Palermo: Accademia nazionale di scienze lettere ed arti.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buzadzic, Miroslav, Habek, Mladen, and Stipetić, Vladimir, 1998. “Benedikt Kotruljević (Benedetto Cotrugli) of Dubrovnik on double-entry bookkeeping in the year 1458 – before L. Pacioli.” Abstract presented at the 21st Annual Congress of the European Accounting Association, Antwerp, April 6–8, 1998. ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk

  • Stipetić, Vladimir. 2002. “Marin Rafaeli of Ragusa on double-entry bookkeping in 1475: A recent discovery by Anne J. Van der Helm and Johanna Postma.” Dubrovnik Annals 6:123–129.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tafuri, Giovanni Bernardino. 1760. Istoria degli Scrittori Nati nel Regno di Napoli, vol. 3, part 5. Naples: Giuseppe Severini.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tagliente, Giovanni Antonio. 1533[1525]. [Luminario di aritmetica, libro doppio] Considerando io Ioanni Antonio Taiente quanto e necessaria cosa a li nostri magnifici gentilhomeni & adaltri mercatanti el laudabile modo de tenere conto de libro dopio cioe, el zornale, el libro con lalphabetto secondo el consueto de questa inclita citta di Venetia, io qui seguendo con lagiuto del mio carissimo compagno Aluise da la Fontana, vi daremo lo amaestramento che con facilita lo potrete imparare, laqual opera ancor sara di molta utilita vniuersalmente ad ogniuno, come ne lopera vedereti, Venice: per Giovann’Antonio di Nicolini da Sabio.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tenenti, Alberto. 1978. “Famiglia borghese e ideologia nel Quattrocento.” In Tenenti, Alberto. Credenze, ideologie e libertinismi tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna, Bologna: Il Mulino.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trovato, Stefano. 2009. “Il manoscritto De navigatione di Benedetto Cotrugli in Marciana. Cronaca di un acquisto mancato tra 1913 e 1914,” Studi Veneziani 57:549–558.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tucci, Ugo. 1990. “Introduzione.” In Benedetto Cotrugli, Il libro dell'arte di mercatura, edited by Ugo Tucci, 3–128. Venice: Arsenale.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zanato, Tiziano. 1993. “Sul testo della Mercatura di Benedetto Cotrugli (A proposito di una recente edizione).” Studi veneziani 26:15–65.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Venice, Italy

    Giovanni Favero

Authors
  1. Giovanni Favero
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giovanni Favero .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venezia, Italy

    Carlo Carraro

  2. Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy

    Giovanni Favero

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Favero, G. (2017). A New Edition of Benedetto Cotrugli’s The Book of the Art of Trade . In: Carraro, C., Favero, G. (eds) Benedetto Cotrugli – The Book of the Art of Trade . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39969-0_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39969-0_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-39968-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-39969-0

  • eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation