Business interests and volume

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outstanding credits goes back four years according to the notes in the signed tax return, but most of the transactions were presumably concluded in the previous one to three years. Still, the ratio of this margin to the sum total of margin resulting from all transactions in this period remains an open question in the absence of integral sources. Therefore, this margin can be considered the minimum profit of business and hints at rather lucrative business activity for medium-wealth merchants.

Based on information on individual cargoes, the Melanesi marketed mainly textiles from Italy. The least expesive item in the textile cargo had a value of fl 416, whereas the most precious textile cargo was worth of fl 3.944. Mainly silver and copper was shipped to Italy from Hungary and as sporadic written evidence shows, merchandise comprising salt was among the goods as well.

Complementary to trade activity and also facilitating it, hints of crediting activity are revealed in the records.

Thus, the Melanesi brothers were able to control all aspects of business the Kingdom of Hungary could offer them, and this lead to business activity that can be considered successful in the first (and longer) phase of their sojourn in Hungary. At the same time, however, the records on their business activity also confirm the high risks they ran with their investments in the kingdom. The permanent need to involve external assets in all kinds of business forms, seriously affected their financial situation back in Florence. Together with the Davizzi and the Corsi brothers, they settled the account after one year, in 1427 (July 15, 1426-June 21, 1427).³⁵¹ The details of the partnership are included in the business partners’ records. The Corsi brothers inserted the debtor- and creditor lists of the account and also declared the margin (the profit) between the invested startup capital and income for each of the partners for a given time period.³⁵² The sums show a rather lucrative business, which was presumably also renewed after 1427. The situation, however, changed radically by 1433, as the other partner, Tommaso di Francesco Davizzi, declared in his catasto. In the meantime, the Melanesi brothers accumulated a debt, whose amount remained unknown to the old Filippo himself as he grimly stated in the joint declaration. As a result, the Melanesi were condemned in Florence, presumably in their absence.³⁵³ At least Davizzi declared that he purchased some Melanesi estates in Prato and in the nearby “contado” from the Florentine officials of the condemned, confiscated most likely from Melanesi properties following a sentence passed on the

351 Simone di Lapo Corsi, Tommaso di Lapo Corsi, ASF, Catasto 1427, 29. Tomo 2. fol. 631r-.658r, the accounts of the partnership: ibid. fol. 653r- 658r.

352 ASF, Catasto 1427, 29. Tomo 2. fol. 654r. on a side note “Tomaso Chorsi proprio tra capitale and ghuadagno fl 400, Tomaso Melanesi proprio tra capitale and ghuadagno fl 2326, Tomaso Davizi proprio tra capitale and ghuadagno fl 1815, Simone Chorsi proprio tra capitale and ghuadagno fl 851.”

353 Filippo di Filippo Melanesi and nephews, ASF, Catasto 1430, 369. fol. 717r. Filippo stated that an arbitral award be imposed for a certain heir of Papi di Bardo for some debts, confirmed to be in tax arrears with the Florentine comune for a sum of fl 600. This time the Melanesi catasto was not compiled by the elderly Filippo, but by a certain Jachopo di Marco Ghinetti as stated in the verso of the sheet.

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Melanesi. Davizzi bought the houses and estates in his and in Matteo di Giovanni Corsi’s name, and still owed fl 240 to the notary of the officials.³⁵⁴ This loss of properties in joint ownership must have lead to the above-mentioned definitive split among the Melanesi kin members. In fact, their bankruptcy in Florence and the loss of their immobile wealth there may have definitely obstructed any plans of returning to the homeland, something reflected in their tax returns, which over time became less and less informative about their Hungarian business. In the final step, the Hungarian accounts were not declared at all. The split between uncle and nephews in business relations in 1433, again due to the loss of commonly owned estates, suggests a turning point in their activity.

The admonition in the repeatedly mentioned Ricordanze by Giovanni di Pagolo Morelli to his offspring on avoiding common business ventures with bankrupt merchants, even where friends or members of the kin group were involved, was widely shared in the Tuscan city and must have affected the Melanesi as well to a great extent.³⁵⁵ Thus, even after having settled their debts by losing their estates, Tommaso or his uncle could hardly have been able to conclude partnerships in Florence and send external capital into their Hungarian activity any more.

At the same time, nothing hints at a similar financial decline for the brothers in Hungary. Tommaso and his young nephew, Piero, son of the late Simone were even granted the title of Count of the Lateran Palace in 1436, which is clear evidence on the royal favor they enjoyed at the court of King Sigismund.³⁵⁶ Finally, in 1435, Tommaso entered into Hungarian royal financial administration as an officer appointed by the king, and this again seems a turning point in his strategy, possibly a reaction on the drastic change in fortune he had suffered in Florence, since there are no records on his eventual participation in the management of royal revenues prior to it. Moreover, the management of the newly established copper chamber also opened up wider possibilities for long distance trade facilitating access to precious metals, salt, copper etc. and securing transport and maybe even diminishing transport costs at customs of the thirtieth.

Compared to the two companies hitherto introduced, Giovanni di Gabriello Panciatichi’s tax return entries are unfortunately laconic on his Buda company but in any case mainly report losses.

According to the records of 1427, the capital invested in the Buda partnership run to fl 9287, and

354On the officials of those condemned and banned for debt see Laura Ikins Stern, The criminal law system of medieval and Renaissance Florence (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 58-60. The evidence on the Melanesis’ trial and sentence was only documented by Davizzi because he had not settled the purchase price for the confiscated Melanesi properties in due time and had to report it in his declaration. See ASF, Catasto 1433, 33. fol.1005v. Also Prajda mentiones the Melanesis’ bankruptcy based on ASF, Catasto 466. fol. 394r. See Prajda, “Florentine merchant companies” footnote 30.

355 Morelli, Ricordi III, Quinto danno: delle trappole a’pupilli sori, 185. “E sopra tutto (e questa tieni bene a mente) non t’obbrigare mai per niuno fallito, assai ti sia egli parente o amico”

356 RI XI,2 no. 11303, in Regesta Imperii Online, URI:http://www.regesta-imperii.de/id/1436-03-20_10_0_11_2_0_5582_11303 (Last downloaded: June 02, 2013).

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ended in the hands of King Sigismund.³⁵⁷ Despite the alleged losses and the heavy liabilities in Florence, the company continued operating in the kingdom. As opposed to the extremely sparse information available from 1427, the 1432 tax return of Giovanni di Bartolomeo Panciatichi contains two separate lists on his Hungarian business; a creditor-debtor list with rather small sums (11 debtors owing a total amount of fl 2.337, and 17 creditors owing a total of fl 1.329.5), while another list was entitled the list of “business ventures in Hungary”. In the first list, the called

“creditors’ and debtors’ list” he appeared to list his open accounts with his various partners in Hungary, in which of course the Melanesi of Buda, Filippo Capponi, his own agent in Buda and other Florentine businessmen interested in Hungary are strongly represented.³⁵⁸ The above-mentioned small amounts can be explained by both the intention of diminishing profits which could easily be controlled by the Florentine authorities and by the eventually decreasing number of open accounts at the time of the declaration. Yet, the second list on the “business venture in Hungary”

apparently mainly concerned his most prominent clients in the country, a list, which was not surprisingly headed by King Sigismund. This list shows markedly higher sums, running to fl 24.180, which I suppose, he tried to portray as a loss.Both lists may be connected with the “new account” launched around 1432. The general picture of a rather unreliable declaration seems to prevail later as well. Giovanni, in his tax return in 1433, already differentiated between two

“accounts”, that is, two partnerships, an old one, in which he allegedly invested a great deal of money until 1430. Although its account was not yet settled, it represented to great extent in a loss.

He also stated that he had himself abandoned business in the kingdom and returned to Florence. At the same time, however, he also mentioned a new business account in which silk and woolen clothes valued at fl 2.420 were sent to Antonio Popoleschi, a fellow countryman working in the Kingdom of Hungary, to be marketed there.³⁵⁹ From this second account Panciatichi was paid fl 774 through the submission of his tax declaration, out of the remaining fl 1646, however, fl 300 were lent by Popoleschi to Giovanni di Andrea Buondelmonti, archbishop of Kalocsa, which Panciatichi cut as a loss in his declaration.³⁶⁰ The payment of the remaining outstanding account had been due December 14, 1432, but had apparently not been settled yet. Meanwhile, Giovanni Panciatichi petitioned for a safe-conduct from King Sigismund in order to return to Hungary to recover his

357 ASF, Catasto 1427, 53. fol. 1014r. The other transactions/accounts on the page can not be unequivocally connected to Hungarian business ventures given the lack of specifying notes, therefore, I did not consider take them into consideration.

358All the information in this paragraph were adopted from Katalin Prajda’s above mentioned recent article, see:

Katalin Prajda, “Florentine merchant companies established in Buda at the beginning of the

fifteenth century,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome - Moyen Âge [Online], 125-1 | 2013, Messo online il 26 settembre 2013, consultato il 08 aprile 2014. URL : http://mefrm.revues.org/1062. The general picture provided by this later, although valuable record according to the analysis carried out by Prajda confirms my conclusions drawn from the 1427 sources.

359On Popoleschi see Teke, “Firenzei kereskedőtársaságok”, 209.

360 Giovanni di Gherardo Buondelmonte, kinsman of Filippo Scolari, archbishop of Kalocsa 1425-1435, and later 1438-1447; Engel, Archontology I/66, 335, 515, II/43.

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frozen assets so he could definitively settle his business affairs there.³⁶¹ Eight years later, Panciatichi informed the Florentine authorities that in 1435 he had again lost his assets in Hungary through royal confiscation. The assets, according to his estimates, totaled around fl 12.200.³⁶²

Only in the case of the Panciatichi do we have comparative information on cargoes sent to other European centers. Giovanni di Bartolomeo Panciatichi occasionally invested in various European trade hubs of first rank at the same time, apart from having the companies in Buda and in Venice. In 1422, he shipped wares worth up to fl 500 to London while he shipped a cargo to Barberia worth approximately the same value (fl 485) and a rather precious cargo to Valencia worth fl 2.328.

Unfortunately, he gave no details on the goods he sent to be marketed, but he mainly traded with textiles, so presumably these cargoes were also made up of different types of textiles.³⁶³