Alfred Chandler a Memorial

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Imprese e storia Rivista semestrale promossa dalla Fondazione Assi di storia e studi sullimpresa

Comitato editoriale Franco Amatori, Giuseppe Berta, Gian Carlo Cainarca, Andrea Colli (condirettore), Nicola Crepax, Renato Giannetti, Stefania Licini, Amilcare Mantegazza, Guido Montanari, Luigi Orsenigo, Giandomenico Piluso (direttore), Francesca Pino (condirettore), Pier Angelo Toninelli (condirettore), Michelangelo Vasta (condirettore) Comitato di redazione Carlo Brambilla, Chiara Casalino, Michele DAlessandro (coordinatore), Fabio Lavista, Daniele Pozzi, Ferruccio Ricciardi, Valerio Varini Comitato dei corrispondenti Giorgio Bigatti, Piero Bolchini, Giorgetta Bonfiglio Dosio, Edoardo Borruso, Daniela Brignone, Maria Grazia Cadoni, Gia Caglioti, Andrea Calzolari, Anna Cantaluppi, Paola Carucci, Leandro Conte, Giuseppe Conti, Renato Covino, Concetta Damiani, Augusto De Benedetti, Nicola De Ianni, Fabio Del Giudice, Marco Doria, Gianluigi Fontana, Maria Guercio, Alessandro Lombardo, Michele Lungonelli, Rori Mancino, Giulio Mellinato, Marina Messina, Stefano Musso, Lucia Nardi, Isabella Orefice, Claudio Pavese, Mauro Pedemonte, Antonio Ratti, Diego Robotti, Giorgio Roverato, Emanuela Scarpellini, Luciano Segreto, Maria Teresa Sillano, Luigi Trezzi Sostenitori Servizio archivi statali, Fondazione Ansaldo onlus, Archivio storico Banca Intesa, Archivio storico Banco di Sardegna, Archivio storico Compagnia di San Paolo, Archivio storico Unicredito Italiano, Archivio storico Fiat, Archivio storico Ina, Archivio storico Pirelli, Banca di Roma

Tariffe un fascicolo 30,00 abbonamento annuo: per lItalia, 58,00; per imprese ed enti economici (camere di commercio e associazioni imprenditoriali) con diritto a cinque copie della rivista, 155,00 per lestero, 116,00; per imprese ed enti economici esteri con diritto a cinque copie della rivista, 260,00 A chi rivolgersi Per abbonarsi e per acquisire i singoli fascicoli rivolgersi a Marsilio Editori Marittima - Fabbricato 205 30135 Venezia tel. 041.2406529; fax 041.5238352 e-mail: [email protected] internet: www.marsilioeditori.it Modalit di pagamento Gli abbonamenti possono essere sottoscritti tramite versamento sul conto corrente postale n. 222307 carta di credito (American Express/Visa Eurocard/ Mastercard/Cartasi fattura). Decorrenza dellabbonamento Gli abbonamenti decorrono dal gennaio di ciascun anno. Chi si abbona durante lanno riceve i numeri arretrati. Rinnovi Gli abbonamenti non disdetti entro il 31 dicembre si intendono rinnovati per lanno successivo. Direttore responsabile: Marta Boneschi Autorizzazione del Tribunale di Milano n. 247 del 31 marzo 1990

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Realizzazione editoriale in.pagina srl, Mestre-Venezia 2007 by Marsilio Editori s.p.a. in Venezia Prima edizione: novembre 2007 ISBN 978-88-317-9233 www.marsilioeditori.it

Imprese e storia archivi, documenti, ricerche quarta serie di Archivi e imprese n. 35, gennaio-giugno 2007

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Alfred Chandler: A memorial Franco Amatori Investigating the origins of the late medieval entrepreneurs self-representation Giacomo Todeschini The British entrepreneur in the 20th century revisited Andrew Godley and Mark Casson Bartolomeo Cabella e il suo Tecnomasio: storia di un fallimento Stefania Licini Csr e responsabilit civile dellimpresa: due tradizioni a confronto in prospettiva storica Luigino Bruni FONTI E ARCHIVI Company archives and globalization: The case of the brewing industry Karl-Peter Ellerbrock Larchivio storico di Eni Spa Lucia Nardi Il Museo dellindustria e del lavoro Eugenio Battisti di Brescia Valerio Castronovo NOTIZIE Larchivio storico Caprotti, villa San Valerio, Albiate (Mi) Eleonora Sita Larchivio storico della Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana Ivan Paris RASSEGNA INTERNAZIONALE Notiziario a cura di Carlo Brambilla

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SEGNALAZIONI BIBLIOGRAFICHE a cura di Daniele Pozzi, Ferruccio Ricciardi e Valerio Varini Abstract

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Alfred Chandler: A memorial Franco Amatori*

Thanks and acknowledgements It is a great honor for me to talk about Alfred Chandler in the occasion of our annual meeting. This is an invitation for which I am grateful to the organizers as well as to president Cassis. But this is also a demanding task and a serious responsibility. I studied business history with Alfred Chandler, spent years of my professional life overseeing the translation of his works into Italian, and I continue to define myself as a stubborn Chandlerian. But there are other friends and colleagues present today who have been similarly close to professor Chandler and who could also have talked of his work, like me or better than me. I hope that I can speak on their behalf and that they will share the spirit of my comments.

Gratitude Dealing with Alfred Chandler in an assembly of business historians as significant as this one, the first thought is one of gratitude because even a tough critic must recognize Chandlers unique contribution in establishing business history as a scientific and academic discipline. It is well known that in business history circles, BC stands for Before Chandler when the discipline was trapped between the Scylla of the ideological fights and the Charybdis of a soulless company history. Working with a method that implied a wide comparison the consideration of hundreds of companies coupled with a sharp focus (the analysis of the crucial entrepreneurial decisions), Chandler supplied business historians with a solid intellectual framework and students of other fields with generalizations that they could not ignore. Scholars as well as practitioners of management had toimprese e storia n. 35 / gennaio-giugno 2007

* Franco Amatori (Institute of Economic History, Bocconi University, Milan). Speech given at the 11th Annual Conference of the European Business History Association, Geneva, 13-15 September 2007.

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consider Strategy and structure (a comparison of companies) almost like a bible. Lawyers working on antitrust issues receive invaluable support by reading The visible hand (for its comparison of sectors). Evolutionary economists were reassured about the importance of an analytical tool so crucial for them the organizational capabilities as they emerge in Scale and scope (a breathtaking comparison of nations). And business historians can finally have clear the centrality of technology with its constraints but also with its opportunities that can be grasped or can fade away. It depends on a complexity of conditions markets, relationships between business and government, cultures a human complexity that belongs to a first rate historiographical lesson. Sharp focus, as I mentioned earlier, sharp focus on that critical entrepreneurial act which is the creation of a wide organizational, managerial network. Here is the point of arrival of the seminal debate that took place at the Center for Entrepreneurial History. Schumpeter and Weber form a terribly effective blend for the engine of modern capitalism.

Lack of pretentiousness On this basis started a 20 year dictatorship of Chandlerian thought. It has been noted that between 1970 and 1990 it was very very rare that an article published in one of our most important journals did not quote Alfred Chandler. Certainly the danger of conformism must not be underestimated but it is equally sure that this clear hegemony was built on the strength of ideas, not on arrogant academic power. Professor Chandler was a simple, unpretentious man who was able to accept criticisms and eventually to answer without bitterness; a man eager for dialogue and to talk with everyone. More than three decades ago I was all of 28 when I met him for the first time. I was just starting my career as a researcher, I had no connections or recommendations, I showed up with no letters of presentation. I just telephoned him and immediately was given an appointment during which I could tell him about my intention to start a serious study of business history. He listened carefully and offered me an invitation to come to HBS in the Individual Studies Program where I then spent two years.8

Alfred Chandler: A memorial

For me those years were the equivalent of a doctoral program which, at the time, did not exist in my country. It was the beginning of the path that has brought me here today.

A crazy dedication It is well known in our circles that Alfred Chandler was a lucky person and a lucky scholar. It doesnt happen to most of us to find the sources for a doctoral dissertation in the basement of your own home, especially if your great grandfather was not a significant protagonist of the economic scene like Henry Varnum Poor. At the same time, it is not very frequent for a researcher to be closely related to a dynasty of American capitalism like the Duponts. Alfred Dupont Chandler openly recognized that these connections helped open doors that disclosed precious sources. But he regarded these gifts of good fortune with a total, unconditional, almost crazy dedication to work. In my but I am sure in many other colleagues too experience, professor Chandler seemed able only to talk about work. When he met you at a party, it was the end. He would corner you and make you listen to his latest research until the evening came to a close. It was the price you paid to enjoy the friendship of a great man.

An encounter with the generation of 68 Several times I have asked myself why so many business historians of my generation were so attracted by the lessons of Alfred Chandler. In the end, I believe that it was because many of us were about 20 years old in 1968. Ours was a generation which could not appreciate very much a business history populated by entrepreneurs-heroes or, worse, an apologetic business history. Much more appealing to us was something that suggested a vision of the firm as an ensemble of human resources, of productive forces. And in many respects that was Chandlers story of modern capitalism. When he writes that scale is only a technological characteristic but the economies of scale are organizational, they depend on knowledge, skills and9

Franco Amatori

teamwork, on the human organization essential to exploit the potential of technological processes; when he places himself in opposition to Oliver Williamson who sees the transaction as the basic unit of analysis while he envisions the firm with its specific physical and human assets; when he writes of the large corporation as an act of economic rationality capable of benefiting an enormous amount of the worlds inhabitants; when he describes the painful materialization of the threepronged investment in a way that reminds us of the old conflict between property rights and forces of production, all this can sound like good music to the ears of a generation that has dreamt of changing the world. It is a paradox, this kind of outcome of a Parsonian non evaluative historian, from the son of the American high bourgeois. But thats the way it is life is crowded with fruitful paradoxes!

Depth of his research and critiques The breadth of Chandlers work, of his comparisons, easily brought about challenges and criticisms. It was natural in this respect that the work which generated the most challenges was his enormous research comparing the US with Europe, Scale and scope, an opus for which Chandler necessarily had to rely on secondary sources and on the support of research assistants. Here he probably underestimated the resilience of European family businesses, the effectiveness of peculiarly European forms of enterprise like the holding companies and the real performance of European nations. Youssef Cassis book on European big business has shown all of this with great efficacy.

Humility Chandler was radically aware of the limits of his work and I never saw him get upset for criticisms received. Here is what he wrote at the end of a thousand page manuscript such as that of Scale and scope (I am reading from a version which precedes the definitive one): Indeed, this book has only begun to map the history of the institution before World War II. Much more10

Alfred Chandler: A memorial

work needs to be done at every level, on each industry, each country. New information, more detailed evidence, will certainly modify the patterns of institutional change outlined and so will alter and enrich the explanatory theory derived from the patterns of dynamic change recorded here. That process is the essence of historical scholarship.

And now? And now? There is an ample variety of perspectives on Chandlers work and how to use it. There are those who are sympathetic (like myself ) and there are others who are critical, sceptical, and searching for an entirely new paradigm. For our generation, the essential problem is whether we write a business history la Chandler with modifications and new insights or whether we write a new business history that subordinates Chandler, squeezing his great contribution into a footnote or two. In either case, business history will still have a place an important place for what Chandler did and what he did for us.

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Investigating the origins of the late medieval entrepreneurs self-representation Giacomo Todeschini*

* Giacomo Todeschini (Department of History and History of Art, University of Trieste). Il paper qui pubblicato stato presentato in occasione del convegno The self-perception of early modern capitalists, svoltosi presso la Clark Library (University of California, Los Angeles, gennaio 2007) e organizzato da Margaret C. Jacob, UCLA, e Catherine Secretan, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. In una versione pi ampia e completa in corso di stampa in M.C. Jacob and C. Secretan (eds.), The self-perception of early modern capitalists, New York, Palgrave Macmillan.

The self-representation of late medieval entrepreneurs should be deciphered on the basis of a specific survey of the standardized vocabularies utilized by these hommes daffaires when they actually sought to articulate the meaning of their daily activities. Indeed, its essential to understand the inadequacy of reading sources that concern medieval and early modern mercantile identities and imposing upon them an anachronistic individualism. From the 14th to the 16th century the writing of personal and family memories, or of handbooks devoted to explaining the techniques of local trading and exchange, or of catalogues of prices and exchange rates (Hoock, Jeannin and Kaiser, 1991, 2001; Denzel and Hocquet, 2002) should not be conceived as moments of purely subjective and functional expression or communication. The interpretation presented here does not suggest a mere lack of originality on the parts of merchants, or subvert the commonplace notion of a lay rationality also expressed in the religious zeal of medieval merchants, but, on the contrary, aims to emphasize the involvement of merchants cultures in the cultural stream which produced, in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, economic lexicons and discourses within linguistic structures that were also deeply theological. Currently, the main problem lies in a historiography that asserts a forced and timeless separation between the lay and religious rationalities and assumes an everlasting conflict between economic and moral codes. Thus the idea of a medieval or early modern origin for the gap between theory and practice can be discarded on the basis of a close reading of the sources. They reveal a fundamental and institutional relationship between ethical and religious arguments and logical procedures aimed at defining the concept of profit or economic utility (Todeschini, 1980, 1992, 1994, 2002, 2004; Langholm, 1992; Kaye, 1998; Ceccarelli, 2001, 2003; Greif,imprese e storia n. 35 / gennaio-giugno 2007

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2006). The fundamental nature of this relationship is seen in the words and conceptual grammar utilized in medieval economic treatises, questions or manuals, but also in bureaucratic formularies. Actually all were strictly connected to the theological language of election, salvation and spiritual profit. In many cases the same language and the same words operated in the theological as well as in the economic field. There existed a semantic potency so characteristic of many Christian economic metaphors or archetypes regarding the strategies exploitable to gain the heavenly treasure. To understand this link, it is sufficient to remember the relevance of many evangelical allegories, such as the one depicted in the talents parable. The linguistic construction of medieval economic reflections on profit and loss, the influence exerted on theologians and jurists economic analysis by a wide diffused Christs agraphon, made it a duty for the Christian to be similar to the skilled moneychanger, that is to be able to make a distinction between good or wicked actions as one would between legal or fake currencies (Resch, 1906; Herz, 1958; Todeschini, 1992). At the same time, the core of theological speech from the Patristic age to the 11th century, demonstrates the possibility of affirming an equivalence between spiritual or immaterial and economic values (Bogaert, 1973). Ambrose, for instance, in his treatises on avarice and charity declares without ambiguity that the foundation of a well ordered Christian society is a balance between solidarity or friendship and utility or profit (Ambrose, 1985; Quaglioni, Todeschini and Varanini, 2005). The Christian tendency to see familiar prosperity as dependent on the spiritual understanding of the bond between mutual affection and common or private good becomes the foundation of a logic that gave value and an extension (latitudo) of grace. At the end of the 12th century, in consequence of the so-called commercial revolution, but also in consequence of the controversy about simony, theologians canonists and confessors intensified their analysis of the probable economic equivalence between a grace or favor or similar manifestation of friendship (gratia, favor, amicitia, beneficium) and a monetary payment or reimbursement (Todeschini, 2002). The speculative possibility of calculating the economic value of immaterial things, or evaluating the price of manifold expressions of affection, within a society14

Investigating the origins of the late medieval entrepreneurs self-representation

founded on the polysemic notion of trust, then created the opportunity, for theologians and jurists, to utilize the complete textual library on that subject organized during the previous centuries by the Christian West. From the second half of the 13th to the last quarter of the 14th century, in France, England, Spain and Italy, the close interplay of economic and theological-juridical rationalities or vocabularies reach a final peak with the economic writings produced by the Franciscan School. The treatises or commentaries on contracts written by Peter Olivi, John Duns Scotus, Alexander of Alexandria, Guiral Ot, Francesc Eiximenis, and others more or less known authors, can be interpreted today as a coherent textual chain. This doctrinal tradition evolved then in the 15th-century economics represented, among others, by Bernardino da Siena, Antonino da Firenze, Gabriel Biel and Konrad Summenhart (Brett, 1997; Todeschini, 2004). At the same time in the cities of central or northern Italy and southern France, from the end of the 13th century, the connection between merchants families and Franciscan friars as confessors and leading experts on economic subjects became more and more visible. So, it is easy to find in 13th- and 14th-century sources many proofs of a privileged relationship between Franciscans and merchants. The private documentation from Narbonne and Montpellier shows very clearly the role of the Mendicant convents as courts where the economic conflicts were resolved. Analogously, the several Italian merchants testaments written under the control or at the presence of the friars (Piron, 1998; Nolens Intestatus Decedere, 1985) in the same period are a good proof of the close relationship between friars and merchants in the age of flourishing of the more reputed commercial companies. The well-known role of the Mendicant friars as confessors and judges in the tribunals enforcing the roman inquisition makes, then, easier the understanding of the social importance implicated by the Franciscans economic elaborations from the end of the 13th century. The authority to judge and evaluate the economic crimes represented by the word usury was the origin of a more and more accurate reflection about the meaning of the legitimate economic relationships. Nevertheless, the traditional economic culture elaborated by15

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theologians, Canonists and Romanists, was primarily reconsidered by the Franciscan masters in light of their own representation of Christian perfection. The Franciscan economics (Langholm, 1992) was in fact the outcome of the accurate juridical re-elaboration of the evangelical poverty. Paupertas as concept and praxis performing Christians economic identities became the core of different procedures of using money and commodities (Todeschini, 2004). In this perspective, the public role of a well reputed Christian merchant and banker could be well separated from that one ominously played by the notorious usurer (usurarius manifestus) or monopolist (De Roover, 1951, 1962, 1974). From the De Contractibus written in Narbonne by Petrus Olivi in the last decade of the 13th century, to the textual section of the Commentary on sentences regarding commerce and merchants exposed by John Duns Scotus in Oxford at the beginning of the 14th century, the social meaning of the merchants profession was even more evident and understandable. The mercator was therefore recognized by the theological authority of Mendicant masters as the main lay expert of values and prices. More exactly, he was described as a professional whose capacity to understand and analyze the current market price of money and commodities founded the reason and the moral validation of his right to get an unpredictable profit (a profit calculable in terms of probability) (Kaye, 1998; Ceccarelli, 2001). If the correct Christian way to possess wealth was depending as the Franciscan masters wrote on the renunciation to absolute property and consisted in the specific understanding of the difference existing between necessary and superfluous amount of wealth proportionally to each status (Burr, 2001), the lay Christians having the mind-set able to estimate this difficult balance (and so being able to evaluate the proportion value/price) resulted, amongst the moral imperfection of the crowd, the less imperfect lay individuals. Because the summit of the Christian perfection was poverty, that is a simple use of things without any sort of durable appropriation or accumulation, the ability to calcuate the economic value of things and the capacity to manage and circulate wealth could be perceived as Christian virtues. In the 14th and 15th centuries, many Mendicant theologians and confessors or16


jurists, Franciscans as well as Dominicans or Augustinians (Guiral Ot, Gerald of Siena, Eiximenis, Bernardino of Siena, Antonino of Florence, Johannes Nider, Gabriel Biel) will divulgate the notion of the basic social role played within the Christian market society by the mercatores, though this word wouldnt mean each trading man, but rather the merchant bankers or the big entrepreneurs. Actually, the Franciscan economic attention was concentrated on those merchants who Olivi defined as the more clever (industrii in res subtiliter extimandis), more rich (pecuniosi), more renowned and trustworthy (honorabiles et fide digni) among the people actually present in the market place (Todeschini, 1980, 2002). Let us now consider the sources that, starting at the middle of the 13th century, imply or declare the visible evidence of a selfrepresentation expressed by the individuals consciously belonging to the group denoted by the Latin word mercatores. Until the first half of the 14th century we have to deal with a heterogeneous mess of documents. A short catalogue of these more ancient sources includes commercial letters, many official documents written by notaries, the first records of unities of measurement, prices and changes (the so-called pratiche, like the most famous one of Francesco Pegolotti) (Sapori, 1934, 1955), and the first chronicles produced in Italy by men belonging to the arts and crafts societies like Dino Compagni and Giovanni Villani (Compagni, Villani, Villani and Aquilecchia, 1968; Villani and Luzzato, 1979). Then, from the Thirties of the 14th century, it is possible to read the first manuals or memories relating to commerce written by Giovanni di Pagolo Morelli, Saminiato de Ricci, and the socalled Anonymous of Florence. The Ragusean that is Venetian merchant Benedetto Cotrugli will then write a major work implying this model in the 15th century (Morelli, 1986; Saminiato de Ricci and Borlandi, 1963; Corti, 1952; Cotrugli, 1990). Many renowned novelists of the Trecento as Sacchetti and Boccaccio were also members or agents of commercial companies. Nevertheless, it seems inappropriate to catalogue their work as a typical evidence of the self-representation that the medieval and early modern groups of traders and bankers could produce in writing. The historiography today discards the Pirennes dreamy picture regarding the first medieval merchants as outlaws or adventurers, that is poor and brave17

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people, able to extract their capitals, as if by magic, from the emptiness of a depressed condition (Pirenne and Pirenne, 1936). It is necessary, however, to question also the idea, clearly expressed in the Fifties by Sapori (Sapori, 1952, 1955), that Italian merchant culture in the Middle Ages corresponded to a homogeneous rhetoric. This mercantile intellectual style would have been shaped both by its more technical written products like merchants memories or commercial letters, and at the same time by novels or political writings written by men that, like Boccaccio, Sacchetti or Machiavelli, were formally belonging to the merchants rank. On the contrary, it seems essential to analyze the first textual group letters and memories, pratiche or official records as the written forms directly attesting the specificity of the languages consciously or unconsciously produced by medieval entrepreneurs. Whilst the second group of sources, novels and chronicles concerning merchants, usurers or merchants, should be interpreted more as social representation organized by a complex system of stereotypes and rhetorical images often resulting from ancient cultural models, than as a source simply communicating the lexical substance of a newly developed culture like the merchants culture actually was. Before we proceed, it is essential to criticize another very common historiographical definition. It is actually crucial to state clearly that, when we read the documentation produced by medieval or early modern merchants or merchants companies, we should make a distinction between two different styles of writing. The mercantile written sources have, in fact, a double and well-differentiated structure. On one side they have the aspect of simple tables comparing prices and qualities of wares in different Mediterranean market places. On other side they are organized books of memories including economic reflections, market news and descriptions of computing techniques. The first style of writing, exemplified by the pratiche di mercatura of the Datini Archive in Prato (Ciano, 1964), is very important to analyze the first steps of the European economic rationality and to compare it to the modern one (what sometimes creates notable methodological problems). Nevertheless the second way of memorizing allows a better understanding of the growing merchants selfperception at the end of the Middle Ages, and a better18


opportunity to compare it to what we mean today with the word self-perception. In this light, it is possible to isolate inside of the textual flow shaped by letters, manuals and memories of the medieval and early modern merchants, some discursive elements apt to testify the inner and crucial embedding of these textual forms in the previous and contemporary theological or juridical written culture. The first and more important of these semantic elements is clearly substantiated by the constant underlining in merchants memories, documents and letters of the social and symbolic value defined by concordia amongst the commercial company (Arlinghaus, 1997). This lexical unit indicated the bond of friendship or kinship unifying the single members of the company within an economic Body. Concordia and the notion of civic friendship implied in this word recalled the concept of common and civic good so deeply rooted in the 13th-14th century communal theology of citys mystic Body as earthly representation of Christs Body (Lubac, 1949; Vauchez, 1995; Terpstra, 1995, 1999). It is then possible to find in many commercial records regarding the legal structure of the commercial and financial societies the visible consequence of this doctrinal complex. In the Secret book written by Giotto dArnoldo Peruzzi in Florence, around 1324, for instance, we can read that the solidarity or mutual agreement and the total and proportional logic of subdivision of profits or losses are the legal/religious bases of the business society. The compagnia is described also as a Body whose gain, because of that harmony, will be blessed by God.E sono per tutti diciesette conpagni. E i detti conpagni sono in concordia che quando voranno fare ragione de la detta conpagnia che si facia e a quelo tenpo e a sudetti conpagni, i quali saranno ne la citt e nel contado di Firenze piacer, o a le due parti di loro che di que cota conpagni si ritrovasero ne la citt o nel contado di Firenze, e ci che nne faranno valia e tengha s come per tutta la conpagnia fosse fatto; e di ci che nostro Segniore Idio ci conceder di trovare guadagniato, netti di spese o danno che si ricievese o perdite o di ma debiti o di salari di fattori e dogni altre spese che fatte fosero per la nostra conpagnia per quale che fose la cagione in qualunque parte fosse, quelo cotale guadagnio cos netto si debia partire in tra sopradetti conpagni e dame a catuno sua parte secondo la parte che ciascuno de conpagni19

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ne la detta conpagnia; e se si trovase perduto, di che Dio guardi, ciascuno de conpagni ne debia portare sua parte secondo la detta parte ch in questa compagnia. I sopradetti compagni riconoscono dessere partefici e dessere tenuti di tutto quelo che la detta compagnia d ricievere e d dare altrui in Firenze e fuori di Firenze in qualunque parte sia. I sopradetti compagni sono in concordia che a quale de compagni di questa compagnia mancase danari per adenpiere quelo che d dare per lo fornimento de la parte ch meso nel corpo di questa conpagnia che ne doni a la compagnia per buono e lecito guadagnio a ragione di sette per cientinaio lanno benedetti da Dio. E ancora sono in concordia che quale de conpagni di questa conpagnia tengono de loro danari in questa conpagnia di fuori dal corpo de la conpagnia che la conpagnia ne doni a que chotali a ragione di sette per cientinaio lanno per buono e lecito guadagnio benedetti da Dio (Sapori, 1934, pp. 440-441).

It is self-evident that merely the lexicon of trust (fides/fiducia) makes possible the discourse. Fides/fiducia is the core of each conceivable friendship, economic and familiar kinship or civic happiness. More than the explicit and intentional meaning, the syntactic organization of the text (di ci che nostro Segniore Idio ci conceder di trovare guadagniato [...] E ancora sono in concordia che quale de conpagni di questa conpagnia tengono de loro danari in questa conpagnia di fuori dal corpo de la conpagnia che la conpagnia ne doni a que chotali a ragione di sette per cientinaio lanno per buono e lecito guadagnio benedetti da Dio) and the choice of words (concordia, corpo de la conpagnia, compagni, buono e lecito guadagnio, doni, benedetto) indicate that the entire representation is informed by the popular doctrine of the common good. Actually bonum commune was the more common theological and juridical definition of the outcome produced by the good administration of the sacred wealth belonging to an ecclesiastical institution. The prosperity of a city however could also be represented as bonum commune because of the sacred meaning attributed to the civic and communal subject (Vauchez and Murugazzen, 1985; Kempshall, 1999; Von Moos, 2000). In another type of mercantile document, the contract of engagement of an administrator by the Salimbeni Company in Siena, around 1280, the textual procedure is very similar. The new member of the commercial staff gives the leading20


members of the Company, Alessandro and Giovanni dei Salimbeni, his word in form of legal guarantee (in fact in the form of a iuramentum made touching the Book of Gospels). By the iuramentum the new administrator is engaged to avoid both each form of economic deceit directly damaging the Company and each daily behavior identifying him as a wicked Christian involved in gambling and sexual crimes like adultery or fornication with virgins and nuns (and so damaging, in a different way, the reputation, that is the most precious treasure of the Company) (Sapori, 1955, II, pp. 762-763). Here, as in the example quoted above, it is easy to decode the connection between the merchants will to be recognized as collective subjects belonging to the Corpus civitatis and the merchants construction of a public renown or image: a topic afterwards particularly developed by merchants textuality. It would be easy to underestimate this attention of the sources to the merchants reputation and to define it the obvious result of an increasing market society, duly concerned for the economic trustworthiness of its members. Indeed, it would be a very reductive point of view. The value and sense of fame and renown is, in fact, a pivotal problem both from the late medieval religious perspective of Christian election and from that one relating to the civic and economic identity of residents in late medieval European cities (Landau, 1966; Migliorino, 1985; La renomme, 1993; Fenster and Smail, 2003). To put it simply, the notion of good reputation (fama) was deeply embedded in the theological and juridical discourse regarding the importance for Christian individuals to protect carefully the purity of their civic and religious name to be accepted as true citizens. The notion will become from the 13th century a central moment of the definition of civic credibility and contractual trustworthiness. Nevertheless, the archeology of this conceptualization is very significant. At the origin of the association between fama and citizenship, or trustworthiness, there were some Augustinian texts regarding the cruelty (crudelitas, cruditas) that is the inhuman wildness of nonChristians (that is infidels: infideles, perfidi) or imperfect Christians (rudes). Theologians and jurists represented these inadequate inhabitants of the Christian city as individuals paying no attention to their reputation in consequence of their religious and cultural otherness or wickedness. Therefore,21

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1 Augustine, 1983, Sermo 355, De moribus clericorum: Duae res sunt conscientia et fama. Conscientia tibi, fama proximo tuo. Qui confidens conscientiae suae neglegit famam suam, crudelis est: maxime in loco isto positus, de quo loco dicit Apostolus scribens ad discipulum suum: Circa omnes te ipsum bonorum operum praebens exemplum (Tit 2, 7); see the juridical and semantical adaptation of these concepts in Decretum Gratiani, 1879, C. XII, q. I, c. 10; Todeschini, 2007.

because of the scandal that they incessantly give to the pious Christians, they actually were depicted as not-citizens or dangerous outsiders within the Christian civitas1. This notion of a social identity dependent on a concern for personal reputation that each Christian must publicly show to confirm his right to participate in the social Body had been widely divulgated during the high Middle Ages through the hagiographic and canonistic writings. Then, from the 12th century, it will be circulated by the commentaries on Roman Law and, then, the homiletic and penitential literature. We can subsequently discover its semantic reutilization within the civic and bourgeois argumentations of the late Middle Ages (for instance, in the perorations of the 13th century advocatus Albertano da Brescia) regarding the rules of correct citizenship. So, it is highly verisimilar that the late medieval merchants obsessive assertion of the need to have and protect a good reputation would have to do with the merchants need to be recognized as trustworthy subjects by a market context whose intellectual grammar was Christian. The merchants need to be accepted from his commercial partners, in other words, was identical to the necessity to be identifiable by them as a real Christian member of the civic Body namely as an effective, trusty citizen. In this perspective there was no textual or conceptual contradiction between the functional or utilitarian identity of the merchant and the legal or religious identity of the citizen who firmly believed that Christ was the foundation of each specific and local civic religion (Vauchez and Murugarren, 1985). From this point of view, the occasional notations relating to the utility of some commercial operations evident also in the more elementary merchants pragmatic sources are not explicable in terms of a simple proto-capitalist rationality. The medieval merchants utility is not the obvious premise of a modern and rational intelligence of economics. When, for instance, we read in the Pratica of the administrator of the Datini Company Ambrogio de Rocchi, at the end of the 14th century, thatChi vende draperia in Valenza, e abi buone robe e con vaghi lavori, pu ben regere la roba; ma se non chosa avantagiosa, si vuole sapere alarghare la mano per riuscirne, ch non stenti poi la roba altrui ados-

22


so; ma sopra tuto ciedi in luogho sichuro e a buoni pagatori (Dini, 1980, p. 190).

2 Albertano da Brescia, 2000, IV. Hic est Sermo, quem Albertanus causidicus de Sancta Agatha composuit et edidit inter causidicos brixienses, apud Fratres Minores in congregatione solita, sub anno Domini M. CC. L, in media Quadragesima.

Though it would seem absolutely clear to our economic and modern eye that here we have to do with a first appearance of a functional and practical logic, it is nevertheless essential to relate that remark to the medieval common notion of utility and benefit. The medieval concept of utilitas, lucrum or beneficium actually depended on the idea and vocabulary denoting as financially and politically right that is virtuous the wide circulation of money and wares (in an antimonopolistic or dethesaurization view: largitio). At the same time, the commercial but also moral aptitude to deal out wealth (alarghare la mano per riuscirne) in the perspective of a future main income, or the ability to find trustworthy economic partners, that is reliable and well-known buyers, friends or socii, were commonly indicated as the ethical ways to earn a good and not shameful or dishonorable profit. Lucrum cum mala fama dampnum est appellandum was the most ancient and widely quoted saying2. The decisive meaning of name and renown or fame for merchants culture at the end of the Middle Ages is well demonstrated by the anonymous Advices on trade (Consigli sulla mercatura) written in Florence at the end of the 14th century (Corti, 1952). The author claims that the right merchant should be a rich and well-reputed man (di netta fama). His riches and his fame are, jointly, the fundament of his merchants identity. By contrast, the wicked and/or ruined men (homeni disfatti e di mala vita, the ruined and notorious men) have not to be identified as true merchants. Similarly, at the beginning of the Pegolottis Libro di divisamenti di paesi e di misure di mercatantie, written around 1330, we can find a sort of rhymed foreword briefly but efficaciously summing up what the real and just merchant must have inside of him (Quello che dee avere in s il vero e diritto mercante) (Pegolotti and Evans, 1936, p. 20). The work of Pegolotti, banker, politician and merchant of the Bardi Company, was widely circulated and made well known by the Florentine Chancellor of the Tithe, Gian Francesco Pagnini in 1766. So we can appreciate the historical importance of the catalogue of merchants qualities included in the foreword. The identity of

23

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the just and authentic merchant as well as the confirmation of his fame results from his righteousness (dirittura), skill in economic prevision (lunga provedenza), trustworthiness (ci che promette non venga mancante), good manners and honorable behavior (bella e onesta contenenza), a very cautious habit in buying combined with a propensity for selling (scarso comperare e largo venda), an irreproachably friendly attitude (fuori di rampogna con bella raccoglienza), the regular religious practice and the practice of donating gifts in name of God (la chiesa usare e per Dio donare), the selling on a simple verbal engagement (vendere a uno motto), the avoiding of usury and gambling (usura e giuoco di zara vietare e torre al tutto) and, finally, the writing of an accounting book without errors (scrivere bene la ragione e non errare). Some syntactic particulars of the text underline the correctness (gli conviene, gli sta bene) and at the same time the growth of renown (crescie in pregio) that the good merchant will acquire in consequence of his social and economic or moral virtues. In light of this peremptory foreword, the following sections of Pegolottis Pratica, regarding the itinerary toward the Near East, weights, prices, measures, commodities and coins relative values, can be easily read as a good example of the exhaustive, continuous and specialized attention to the elements of the mercantile profession that the right merchant has the duty to show and to record in the perspective to be recognized as a worthy professional. These characteristics of validation or legitimization of the merchants identity, so evident in the earliest forms of selfrepresentation produced by the more cultivated tradesmen, are at the same time perfectly visible (from the end of the 13th to the first half of the 15th century) in penitential or economic writings and sermons produced by the Franciscan and Dominican School. On the whole, the emphasis on the carefulness that, on an economic as well as on a moral level, must characterize the man who intends to be acknowledged as merchant is common to mercantile and theological or moral writings. The Latin word sollicitudo or its synonym industria are habitually employed by theologians and preachers (Pietro Olivi, Giordano da Pisa, Bernardino da Siena, among others) (Todeschini, 1980, 2002; Piron, 1998, 2001) to describe the right attitude of the good merchant.24


Correspondingly the equivalent Italian words sollecitudine and esercitio are commonly used by Florentine or Venetian merchants when they write their own memories. These cultivated entrepreneurs employ now these words to emphasize their or their ancestors skill and virtues and to explain, as Giovanni Morelli declares, how they had become typical exemplars of the honorable citizen and good merchant (onorevole cittadino e buono mercatante) (Morelli, 1986, III, life of Bartolomeo Morelli). The caution and vigilance concerning moral, civic as well as economic behaviors, an attitude very evident in the 14th century book of memories by Morelli, as later, during the 15th century, in the similar writings by Benedetto Cotrugli and Leon Battista Alberti, may not be reduced to an early manifestation of bourgeois spirit (as Sombart, 1913, suggested). It seems more appropriate to read this attitude as the product of the social and emotional transformations promoted and performed by the Christian ecclesiastic as well as civic policy after the fourth Lateran Council. The most visible sign of this reorganization of the social rules was shaped by the growing and imperative institutional obligation to recognize, by the reiterated and periodical confession of sins and the visible participation to public ceremonies or rituals, the correspondence between civic and religious identities. The Mass as a civic ritual denoting explicit forms of belonging to the Christian and communal group, namely the Mass as a social institution, and the transformation of the confession into a recurring ritual of civic identification, have probably much to do with the growing, from the end of the 13th century, of merchants communication standards. The diffusion inside of the Christian society of religious-linguistic techniques making possible the verbalization of the self (Bossy, 1973, 1983; Rusconi, 2002) will facilitate the growing of specific abilities to manage and record even more exactly and carefully each economic attitude, but also to consider attentively each sentiment, as well as each visible manifestation of friendship or hostility. A good example of this new forms of rationality, apt to combine religious feelings, social intelligence and economic skillfulness, can be seen in the following passage from the Morellis memories.25

Giacomo Todeschini

Fugli favorevole la fortuna e la sua sollecitudine e esercizio, ch mai non perd punto di tempo, sempre attento in acquistare lamore del suo creatore Idio pelle sue limosine e buone operazioni, appresso in acquistare amicizia di buoni uomini e da bene e potenti. Riteneasi con loro, mostrando loro grande amore in servigli di quello avesse potuto, in consigliarsi con loro di suoi fatti, dove e dimostrava fede e speranza in loro; onoralli in dare loro mangiare e in tutte altre cose; battezzare loro figliuoli, e simile cose e maggiori, come accaggiono tutto giorno nellusare e praticare con quelle persone a chi altri vuole bene. E con questi e con altri savi e antiveduti modi e seppe s fare e s provvedutamente temporeggiare, che al tempo del maggiore bisogno, come i penso raccontare, egli ebbe degli amici, e non parenti, che latarono e sostennello per modo che non gli fu fatto torto, mediato principalemente laiuto e volere di Dio, sanza il quale non si pu venire a perfezione dalcuna cosa. E se noi volessimo essere fedeli cristiani e amici di Dio, noi vedremmo ogni giorno la sua potenzia e somma giustizia; ma noi pe nostri peccati siamo accecati e vogliamo piuttosto giudicare e credere che le cose o prospere o dannose ci avvenghino per avventura o per indotto di pi o di meno senno, che per volont di Dio; e questo non vero, ch tutto procede da Lui, ma secondo i nostri meriti (Morelli, 1986, III).

3 The high economic value of the sollicitudo mentalis is described at the end of the 13th century by the Franciscan Olivi (Todeschini, 1980, De emptionibus et venditionibus) with these words: ad altiora officia debite exequenda exigitur maior pericia et industria et amplior sollicitudo mentalis, et eciam quia multo et diuturno studio ac experiencia et labore, multisque periculis et expensis communiter adquiritur pericia et industria talis, et eciam quia rari et pauci sunt ad hoc ydonei, et ideo in maiori precio reputantur.

The three factors determining the commercial as well as existential success of the subject (Pagolo di Bartolomeo Morelli, the father of the author) are the chance namely the favor of God, but at the same time Pagolo Morellis skillfulness (sollecitudine) and unexhausted activism (esercizio), together with an exceptional capacity to sustain hard work (fatica). The use of the word sollecitudine is not casual, since, as we have seen, this word in its Latin form sollicitudo was normally used by the theologians/economists from the 13th century, to denote the carefulness and continuous mental concentration that should characterize the political leaders as well as the good merchants 3 . The concrete expression of Pagolo Morellis economic and moral virtues is, in the text, a daily life with no wasting of time (ch mai non perd punto di tempo), his habit to obtain the love and favor of God through alms and good actions, as well as his capacity to acquire by gifts and favors the friendship of worthy, respectable and powerful men (buoni uomini e da bene e potenti). At this point, the author explains very clearly what he means as rational pursuit of an economic and social high standing. The financial success, he explains, is the outcome of the cleverness revealed by the merchant-citizen

26


able to become friend and socius that is political and economic ally of many praiseworthy, authoritative and rich men. The acquaintance and friendship with these maiores of the city will be the starting point for the better use of the economic and psychological qualities of the hero at the center of the story. Nevertheless the building of friendships (amicitiae) and agreements with the leading citizens, as well as the gaining of the Gods love, is not a simple task. The closeness to God is the result of a complicated ritual and economic practice actually made of alms, gifts to the ecclesiastic institutions and, at the same time, charitable donations that is discounts made by the merchant to his own economic partners or customers. As Scotus writes, the reducing of a price voluntary decided by a merchant, who nevertheless retains the main part of his own right profit, can be understood as a donum that the merchant offers to his partner/friend, and consequently like a form of charitas (Duns Scotus and Wolter, 1989, p. 56; Todeschini, 2002, p. 352). The friendship with the buoni uomini appears however an even more delicate question. It is necessary to become part of a complex system of kinships, habitually described (also by Morelli) as symbolic parenthood (Terpstra, 1999). Morelli, it is not meaningless, underlines as valid social strategies to become a member of the dominant group, both the habitude to show deference to the leading citizens with the organization of banquets and feasts (literally by offering to eat: onoralli in dare loro mangiare e in tutte altre cose), and the religious-familiar consuetude derived from the fundamental role of godfather at the christening font. The final statement made by our author regards the indispensable social and religious awareness that, as the history of Pagolo Morellis family shows, is the starting point for each professional career. The good and right merchant has to be conscious of the importance to manage very carefully his own social life. He should look after his own business, but he should especially be concerned with his own civic reputation and belonging to a strong social group. Finally, the understanding of the connection between on one side the individual activism and on the other the favor of God, namely the inner anti-fatalistic consciousness of the intimate relation between success or failure and relative individual skillfulness, seems to be the merchants version of the by then diffuse27

Giacomo Todeschini

theological concept of the free will as blessed principle of each civic and ethical achievement. The pious and successful businessman, in Morellis pages, is above all a man able to penetrate the mystery posed by the divine identity of the social Body. He should understand that his own identity essentially depends from that sacred Body or super-individual community. Actually, he must realize that just his belonging to the social Corpus, perceived as a collective subject bound together by many forms of kinship on the whole resumed and day by day performed by the religious ritual, can sanctify his economic activities and identify him as a trustworthy merchant. At the beginning of the 15th centur y, the quoted constellation of economic and moral attitudes typical of the good merchant is represented both in the treatise on contracts written around 1430 by the Franciscan Bernardino of Siena, and in the Libro dellarte di mercatura written by the merchant Benedetto Cotrugli of Ragusa in 1458. Cotruglis treatise about navigation dedicated to the Venetian Senate in 1462 is also easier understandable in the background of this rhetoric (Bernardino da Siena, 1956; Cotrugli, 1990; Cotrugli, De navigatione). In these works, like in the Libri della famiglia of Leon Battista Alberti (1969), the core of the discourse is the necessity to display a very clear social and religious identity. The problem is to be and to appear not simply a rich man, but moreover to result primarily visible as a devout and well reputed citizen, therefore as a man whose family and company is belonging to a renowned and powerful circle of families. On this perspective, it is possible to understand the multiplication of pious foundations or confraternities established by the European merchants during the 15th and 16th centuries. Actually, when Bernardino da Siena wrote his treatise on contracts, it was perfectly evident at his eyes that the merchants society surrounding him was not simply an economic and religiously undisciplined crowd. As intellectual heir of the economics produced by the Franciscan School in the two previous centuries and as son of a leading merchants family of Siena, he could easily understand that the problem was not merely to convince the merchants community to be pious and to avoid each greedy behavior. On the whole he had28


clear that the main goal was to communicate to his co-citizens able to be merchants the duty to be rich and at the same time honorable men. This obligation was the result and the proof of their belonging to the civitas symbolically embedded in the universalistic Catholic patria. Actually, the merchants honor is the core of Bernardinos discourse, especially when our author and preacher considers the social role of the merchant within his own neighborhood. So, it is noticeable that from Bernardinos point of view, one of the most relevant features apt to qualify the merchant as virtuous and Christian man, together with the abstaining from usury, liberality and economic cleverness, is his skillfulness to distinguish among his own partners the good and religious merchants from the dishonest and wicked ones. On this perspective Bernardino shapes a portrait of the good merchant very neatly orientated by the idea of control that the conscious merchant should exercise on his commercial neighborhood (Todeschini, 2004, ch. 4). The good renown of the merchant, in other words, should be based on his ability to have a good perception of the behaviors of his commercial partners or neighbors or possible friends. The honest commercial life of the merchant, his religious habits and manifestations of belonging to the civic community must be confirmed by his attitude to detect the misbehaviors and, in total, the untrustworthiness or infidelity of other participants to the market (Bernardino da Siena, 1956, Sermo XXXIII. De mercationibus et vitiis mercatorum, pp. 158-159). This care about the integrity and trustworthiness of the commercial society, so anxiously prescribed by Bernardino on the religious side, is present too, on the secular side, in a different and more daily version in the merchants writings of the 15th century. Formerly in the manual of Pegolotti it was possible to find references to the carefulness (or to the precautions regarding the suitability: avisamento di convenenze) (Pegolotti and Evans, 1936, p. 322) that, for instance, the clever merchant should use when he is looking for a trustworthy shipmaster or ship-owner. The shipmaster like the ship-owner who are also commercial partners of the merchant should be considered from different points of view. So they have to be rich, able to manage and conduct the ship, skilful in ruling the sailors, disposed to sign a paper when the merchant gives to them some money (that is lends to them a sum, in a contract of29

Giacomo Todeschini

societas nautica). On the whole, they must be trustworthy and well reputed men, that is men recognized as right citizens by the civic/religious community. The same problem is also the core of some chapters inside of Benedetto Cotruglis treatise on sailing recently transcribed by Piero Falchetta (Cotrugli, De Navigatione). The shipmaster should be sober, moderate, not food lover, able to sustain the strain, vigorous, vital, not greedy, not young, father of children, apt to speak properly, and well renowned (temperato, continente, sobrio, domestico nello magnare, apto alle fatigie, acre et vivo, non avaro, non giovene, patre che agia figlioli, addire apto et ornato, de extimatione predito) (Cotrugli, De Navigatione, c. V, f. 30r). At the same time the ship-owner should be a good looking, serious and authoritative man, while it is suitable that who rules would have a nice and respectable appearance (the author observes that this pleasantness is typical of the Genoese ship-owners). The quality of being pleasant to the others (piacievole ad ogni uno) is very important in Cotruglis quoted book: the ship-owner, in particular, should be agreeable to the merchants, as well as to the sailors, and, on the whole, so well disposed to each one that, as Cotrugli notes with some irony, it is commonly said that he should be similar to a whore (lo patrone scia piacievole ad ogni uno, tanto ad marinari, vivato o mercatanti, et communemente se dicie che bisognia che lo scia come la bagascia). This model identity is exemplary represented, according to Cotrugli, by Genoese and Venetian tradesmen. The description, with its rhetorical color, emphasizes vividly the necessity for the merchant to be very careful when he decides to organize a shipping society. At the same time, the text communicates to the reader that the catalogue of the economic and civic qualities of a merchant, shipmaster or ship-owner is the codification of the complicated interplay between the subjects belonging to the merchants universe that is to the Christian market. At the middle of the 15th century, the market republic, the civitas mercatorum, has by then deeply interiorized the system of civicreligious values concerning the charisma of the lay as well as ecclesiastic leaders who rule the civic communities. Also in consequence of the influence of images embedded in and transmitted by the classical or humanistic culture, they become the model of each economic or social leading subject. At the middle of the Mediterranean 15th century, the good-looking30


presence, the seriousness, the tireless vigor, the (spiritual or physical) fatherhood, the authority, the riches, in a word the main characteristics of each entrepreneurs renowned identity, appear the realistic and middle-class adaptation of the notions of civic virtue, temperance, asceticism, personal charm and, on the whole, publicly acknowledged honor that, in theological as well as juridical or homiletic writings described both the religious and political or military Christian leaders (duces) (Evangelisti, 1998). The semantic shift from the syntax of the charismatic holiness to the discourse regarding the ruling capacity and the civic centrality of the merchants class is evidently made possible by a growing merchants self-representation connoted by the vocabulary of honor and good reputation. Throughout the 14th century debates about the legitimacy of the public debt of Florence and Venice, the Franciscan Scholastics had shown the correspondence between the public natures both of the Church and civic economies (Langholm, 1992; Todeschini, 2002; Armstrong, 2003). Similarly, during the 15th century Bernardino, Alberti, Cotrugli, among others, readapt a more ancient lexicon regarding the public and civic meaning of the holiness to describe the civic importance of the merchants. But now, this new merchants sanctity is defined by the complexity of the name that the businessman has acquired through the complex strategy of alliances, friendships, careful exchanges and accurate participation to the ritual life of his community. The theological deepness of this identity is, more than simply declared by the underlining of the merchants religious duties, clearly expressed by the specificity of a vocabulary. The ancient and so typical lexicon of Christian virtues embodied by each saint monk or bishop, seems now the more appropriate to translate in the daily discourse the description of the merchants honor as result of his tirelessness and attitude to sacrifice. At the beginning of the so-called commercial revolution this model of economic and religious perfection had been well represented by the celebrated and wide divulged physic heroism of Francesco dAssisi. In the more known Cotruglis writing, the Book on the merchants art (1458), it is actually possible to find a final synthesis regarding the difficult professional identity of the businessmen who are accustomed to the practice of commerce31

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(usi alo exercitio della mercantia). As we can see, the text is focused on the description of many merchants tiring activities, and underlines that the foundation of a good merchants identity is performed by an especially strong mental and physical endurance as well as by an exceptional thoroughness and patience.Per che a volere fare gran proficto per la conseghuition del fine al quale ordinata questa arte mercantile, necessario, posposta ogni altra cura, vacare con grande diligentia a tucte quelle cose le quali possono fare utile et giovare a tale perfectione, onde si conviene alle volte durare gran fatica di giorno et di nocte, camminare personalmente a pie et a cavallo, per mare, per terra, et cos affaticarsi nel vendere et nel comperare, et usare in tucte simili facciende quanta diligentia possibile, posponendo ogni altra cura non solamente di cose superflue, ma etiamdio di quelle che sono necessarie alla conservatione della humana vita. Et per noccorre alcuna volta il differire il mangiare et bere et dormire, anzi necessario di tollerare fame, sete et vigilie et simili altre cose che sono noiose et contrarie alla quiete del corpo; il quale se non fussi acto come dextro instrumento, non potrebbe sopportare, et sopportandolo ne riceverebbe incommodit, alla quale di necessit sequirebbe infirmit et di poi morte. Onde di due inconvenienti ne sequirebbe luno, o veramente che non pigliando simili exercitii come si conviene non sarebbe il proposito et cet., n verrebbe al suo desiderato fine, o che facciendolo non potrebbe per la disaptitudine del corpo perseverare et perseverando chascherebbe nella infirmit et morte. Et perch luno et laltro di questi due inconvenienti extremi sono da schifare, diciamo et confirmiamo chegli sommamente utile et ancora necessario lavere il corpo in buona dispositione, acto a simile essercitio, il quale a questa opera della consequition del fine concorrer come instrumento adacto non altrimenti che si facci il martello che concorre come dextro instrumento del fabbro quando fabrica lacuto (Cotrugli, 1990, pp. 144-145).

The material and immaterial merchants wealth, represented by commodities, money and name, will be the right result not only of an honored and renowned civic identity, but also of a well exercized mind and body. The physical vigor is now especially represented as one of the most indispensable requisites of every economic achievement. The aptitude to stand hunger, thirst, lack of sleep, tiring journeys by feet or by horse, the capacity to renounce not only to the superfluous things, but also to the indispensable victuals, make the good32


and right merchant. Beyond the representation of the merchants identity as a skillful, ritualistic and civic identity, the representation of the merchants self becomes, in the Cotruglis text on the complicated art of trading, the description of a continuous, strenuous training (essercitio) whose aim is to strengthen the merchants body perceived as the main instrument (instrumento) of his job. This sort of physical asceticism has to prepare a body that, like the hammer of the blacksmith sharpening a blade (non altrimenti che si facci il martello che concorre come dextro instrumento del fabbro quando fabrica lacuto), will consent through its resistance the pursuit of the merchants prefixed goal. The mental and physical promptness as final product of the described continuous and hard training will be hence, at the end of the Mediterranean Middle Ages, the core of a merchants self-representation implying, however, an even more detailed definition of the control that the good businessman should exercise over his own body and mind. When we consider the economic European situation in the second half of the 15th century from the point of view of the enormously growing poverty of the working and lower middle class, we can easily understand that the cultivated selfrepresentation produced by the merchants class was also the expression of a social process of cultural and economic exclusion. The idealized and heroic or religious representation of businessmen mind and body silently hinted at the rising cultural insignificance and at the low price and value of work, body and mind of the outcasts or exploited people.

BibliographyAlbertano da Brescia (2000), Sermones, edited by S.L. Hiltz, at www.gmu. edu/departments/fld/classics/albertanus.html. Alberti, L.B. (1969), I Libri della famiglia, edited by R. Romano and A. Tenenti, Torino, Einaudi. Ambrose (1985), Elia e il Digiuno; Naboth; Tobia, Milano, Biblioteca Ambrosiana. Arlinghaus, F.J. (1997), Io, noi und noi insieme. Transpersonale Konzepte in Den Vertrgen Einer Italienischen Handelsgesellschaft Des 14. Jahrhunderts, in T. Scharff Hagen Keller and T. Behrmann (eds.), Bene Vivere in Communitate: Beitrge zum Italienischen und Deutschen Mittelalter: Hagen Keller zum 60. Geburtstag berreicht von seinen Schlerinnen und Schlern, Mnster, Waxmann, pp. 131-153. Armstrong, L.D. (2003), Usury and public debt in early Renaissance Florence: Lorenzo Ridolfi on the Monte Comune, Toronto, Pontifical 33

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University of Pennsylvania, at www.gmu.edu/departments/fld/ CLASSICS/albertanus.html. Menant, F. and Redon, O. (2004), Notaires et crdit dans loccident mditerranen mdival: [Colloques organiss Nice et Bordighera en Octobre 1996 et Lyon en Dcembre 1997], Rome, Ecole Franaise de Rome (Collection de lEcole Franaise de Rome, 343). Migliorino, F. (1985), Fama e infamia. Problemi della societ medievale nel pensiero giuridico dei secoli XII e XIII, Catania, Giannotta. Moos, P. von (2000), Public et priv la fin du Moyen ge. Le bien commun et la loi de la conscience, in Studi medievali, vol. 41, n. 2, pp. 505-548. Morelli, Giovanni di Pagolo (1986), Ricordi, in V. Branca (ed.), Mercanti e scrittori: ricordi nella Firenze tra Medioevo e Rinascimento, Milano, Rusconi. Nolens Intestatus Decedere (1985), Il testamento come fonte della storia religiosa e sociale, Atti dellincontro di studio (Perugia, 3 maggio 1983), Perugia, Regione dellUmbria (Archivi dellUmbria, 7). Pegolotti, F.B. and Evans, A. (1936), La pratica della mercatura, Cambridge (Mass.), The Mediaeval Academy of America. Pirenne, H. and Pirenne, J. (1936), Histoire de lEurope des invasions au XVIe sicle, Paris, F. Alcan. Piron, S. (1998), Marchands et confesseurs. Le trait des contrats dOlivi dans son contexte (Narbonne, fin XIIIe-dbut XIVe sicle), in Largent au Moyen Age. XXVIIIe congrs de la Shmesp (Clermont-Ferrand, 1997), Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, pp. 289-308. (2001), Perfection vangelique et moralit civile: Pierre De Jean Olivi et lthique conomique franciscaine, in Ideologia del credito fra Tre e Quattrocento. DallAstesano ad Angelo Da Chivasso, Atti del Convegno internazionale Ideologia del credito fra Tre e Quattrocento (Asti, Palazzo Mazzola, Archivio Storico, 9-10 giugno 2000), edited by Astesano and A. da Chivasso, B. Molina and G. Scarcia, Asti, Centro studi sui Lombardi e sul credito nel Medioevo. Quaglioni, D., Todeschini, G. and Varanini, G.M. (2005), Credito e usura fra teologia, diritto e amministrazione: linguaggi a confronto, sec. XIIXVI, Rome, Ecole Franaise de Rome (Collection de lEcole Franaise de Rome, 346). La renomme (1993), monographic issue of Mdivales, n. 24, Saint-Denis, Presses et Publications de lUniversit de Paris VIII. Resch, A. (1906), Agrapha: Aussercanonische Schriftfragmente, in Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, Band 30, Heft 3/4 (Neue Folge, 15. Bd., Hft. 3/4), Leipzig, J.C. Hinrichs. Rusconi, R. (2002), Lordine dei peccati: la confessione tra Medioevo ed Et Moderna, Bologna, il Mulino. Saminiato de Ricci and Borlandi, A. (1963), Il Manuale di Mercatura, Genova, Di Stefano. Sanchez Martinez, M. (2005), El fisc de les usures en la corona de Aragn a principios del siglo XV, in D. Quaglioni, G. Todeschini and G.M. Varanini (eds.), Credito e usura fra teologia, diritto e amministrazione: linguaggi a confronto, sec. XII-XVI, Rome, Ecole Franaise de Rome (Collection de lEcole Franaise de Rome, 346). Santarelli, U. (1984), La categoria dei contratti irregolari: lezioni di storia del diritto, Torino, G. Giappichelli. Sapori, A. (1934), I libri di commercio dei Peruzzi, Milano, Fratelli Treves. (1952), Le marchand italien au Moyen Age, Paris, A. Colin. (1955), Studi di storia economica, secoli XIII, XIV, XV, Firenze, Sansoni (Biblioteca Storica Sansoni, Nuova Serie, V. 5, 43). Sombart, W. (1913), Der Bourgeois. Zur Geistesgeschichte des modernen Wirtschaftsmenschen, Mnchen, Duncker & Humblot. Terpstra, N. (1995), Lay confraternities and civic religion in Renaissance Bologna, Cambridge-New York, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge studies in Italian history and culture). (1999), The politics of ritual kinship: Confraternities and social order in 36


early modern Italy, Cambridge-New York, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge studies in Italian history and culture). Todeschini, G. (1980), Un trattato di economia politica francescana: il De emptionibus et venditionibus, De Usuris, De Restitutionibus di Pietro di Giovanni Olivi, Roma, Nella Sede DellIstituto. (1992), Quantum Valet? Alle origini di uneconomia della povert, in Bullettino dellIstituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo, n. 98, pp. 173234. (1994), Il prezzo della salvezza. Lessici medievali del pensiero economico, Roma, La Nuova Italia Scientifica. (2002), I mercanti e il tempio: la societ cristiana e il circolo virtuoso della ricchezza fra Medioevo ed Et Moderna, Bologna, il Mulino. (2004), Ricchezza francescana: dalla povert volontaria alla societ di mercato, Bologna, il Mulino. (2007), Visibilmente crudeli. Malviventi, persone sospette e gente qualunque dal Medioevo allet moderna, Bologna, il Mulino. Vauchez, A. (1995), La religion civique lpoque mdivale et moderne: Chrtient et Islam, Actes du colloque, Rome, Ecole Franaise de Rome (Collection de lEcole Franaise de Rome, 213). Vauchez, A. and Murugarren, P.I. (1985), La espiritualidad del Occidente medieval: siglos VII-XII, Madrid, Ediciones Ctedra, S.A. Veraja, F. (1960), Le origini della controversia teologica sul contratto di censo nel XIII secolo, Roma. Villani, G., Villani, M., Villani, F. and Aquilecchia, G. (1979), Cronica: con le continuazioni di Matteo e Filippo, Torino, Einaudi.

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The British entrepreneur in the 20th century revisited Andrew Godley and Mark Casson*

1. Entrepreneurship and economic development in Britain in the 20th century In 1900 British firms enjoyed 35% share of the global trade in manufactured products, when Britain had less than 2% of the worlds population (Matthews et al., 1982, p. 435). This economic success was the foundation of global political power. Power brought rewards for Britons in the early 20th century; most obviously among the entrepreneurial and capitalist classes. In 1913 the richest 0.1% of Britons received over 12% of the nations income (Atkinson, 2002). Economic success had emerged through Britains early dominance of world textiles markets cotton and woollens and then the iron and steel industry, coal, shipbuilding and other pre-mass production forms of mechanical engineering. But by the beginning of the 20th century, British economic success was increasingly tied to markets overseas. British overseas investment had attained wholly unprecedented levels by World War I. Never before nor since has any major nation committed such a large part of its economic resources to activities overseas (Edelstein, 1982). And the link between domestic consumption and overseas investment was abundantly clear, for it was such prodigious levels of British investment in foreign economies that led to the creation of transport networks and infrastructure necessary for integrating far flung places into the world trading system, enabling the worlds resources to be productively deployed. It was investment in railways, ports and harbours, in tramways and electric utilities, in plantations of tea, coffee, cotton, rubber and cocoa, in mines and oil wells, all around the world, within the Empire and without, that created the supply lines, the institutional framework for market exchange, as well as the principal economic activities themselves that led to a level ofimprese e storia n. 35 / gennaio-giugno 2007

* Andrew Godley (Centre for International Business History, University of Reading); Mark Casson (Centre for International Business History, University of Reading).

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global economic integration that has only very recently been recaptured (Jones, 2005, chapter 2). It is these two themes of specialization in the staple industries and in overseas investments that must be emphasized in order to understand the economic context of entrepreneurship in Britain in the 20th century. In 1913 British domestic industry remained especially focused on the traditional staple industries; 60% of British exports still came from the cotton and woollen textiles, coal, iron and steel and machinery sectors (Magee, 2004, table 4.9). But these were all sectors that depended upon a high labour content of production. They were all sectors that were vulnerable therefore to either cheaper labour or substitution through mechanization. Moreover the sectors that were growing in prominence in the world economy were sectors that relied both on a much higher scientific content of production and far more sophisticated managerial practices most obviously in electrical engineering, in chemicals and in advanced mechanical engineering sectors. The worlds leading producers of electric power generation equipment, of synthetic dyestuffs and automobiles depended upon a qualitatively superior level of engineering knowledge in product and process design. Compared with Britains leading firms in the staples, the technological content of production at Siemens vast factory site in Berlin, or the move to systematic research and development at Du Pont, or Bayer or BASF in the chemical industry, or the intensity of the flow of production at Fords Highland Park manufacturing plant, revealed a level of inferiority that shocked British commentator of the day. Britains share of exports from vehicles and electrical goods was barely 1% in 1913. And while British chemicals output and export share was higher, British chemicals firms were largely focused on increasingly outdated products and processes (Lindert and Trace, 1971). In these technologically advanced sectors first movers pursued vertical integration strategies and developed strong managerial capabilities in order to compensate for the absence of specialist market-making intermediaries in what were novel markets. With their specialization in older, more labour-intensive industries, it is unsurprising that overall British labour productivity had been overtaken by both the new technological leaders of United40

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States and Germany by 1913 (Broadberry, 1998). But it was also the case that with intermediaries already established in these sectors, British entrepreneurs were not forced to develop managerial capabilities in the same way as US and German technologically advanced firms were. And so the prevailing theme of British 20th-century economic history was set. As other nations specialized in the more technologically intensive sectors of the second industrial revolution, British firms and entrepreneurs appeared unable to make the transition from their specialization in the lower productivity staples into the higher productivity new sectors. Where British entrepreneurs emerged in these sectors, they typically were only able to enjoy success when protected from the full force of competition. As levels of protection began to disappear in the 1970s and 1980s, so British weaknesses here were exposed and these firms failed. By 2000 Britain enjoyed only a 6% share of world trade in manufactures, barely one-sixth the share at the centurys beginning (Economist, 2005). With the disappearance of the staple industries, Britain, the country of the worlds first industrial revolution and the global superpower of 1900, had been relegated to the second division of national economies. In what was seen as a great indignity in the UK, Italians celebrated Il Sorpasso in 1990, as the GDP of Italy overtook that of the UK for the first time since the days of the Medici. The 1992 ejection from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism seemed to be the culmination of almost a century of economic weakening. Of course, British households were many times richer than they had been at the centurys beginning, but such was the deterioration of Britains rank in the world order, that the overwhelming consensus was that the country had somehow failed during the 20th century. Influential commentators penned titles like The British Disease (Allen, 1976), How British is the British Sickness (Brittan, 1978), and The Slide of Britain (Porter, 1990, pp. 482 ff.). But then in the final few years of the century an economic renaissance appeared to take place, as British economic growth accelerated. Suddenly the entire framework for interpreting Britains 20th-century economic experience was transformed. What was it all about, after all, if not a story of decline? While its determinants still remain subject to some considerable debate, this very recent transformation in British economic41

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fortunes therefore demands that economic historians begin to reinvestigate the traditional interpretation of relatively poor British 20th-century performance and the alleged failure of its entrepreneurs. So free from having to account for the now reversed inexorable relative economic failure and its inferred entrepreneurial deficiencies, this survey will depart from the conventional treatments of the topic. Instead we begin with a widely accepted theory of entrepreneurship and then proceed by surveying the areas of significant entrepreneurial activity in a more or less chronological fashion. A systematic examination of the historical literature on British entrepreneurship suggests there was less apparent failure and seemingly more continuity to the present day than has hitherto been acknowledged.

2. Entrepreneurship: Context, culture and theory Entrepreneurs were an obvious and early target for commentators wanting to understand British industrial lethargy throughout the 20th century. Over the course of the century the focus of blame has moved from a fairly general concern with poor leadership in the emerging industries of the second industrial revolution (Clapham, 1938; Orsagh, 1961), to specific criticisms of apparent failure by entrepreneurs to invest in new technology (Aldcroft, 1964), or to adopt improved management techniques (Chandler, 1990; Hannah, 1983). Explanations of why British entrepreneurs failed to invest in new equipment, techniques, or organization (and so apparently to forego profits so willingly) often revolved around allegedly anti-entrepreneurial qualities in British culture. David Landes famously quipped that British enterprise reflected a:combination of amateurism and complacency [...]. The British manufacturer was notorious for his indifference to style, his conservatism in the face of new techniques, his reluctance to abandon the individuality of tradition for the conformity implicit in mass production (Landes, 1969, p. 337).

Despite fierce criticism from scholarly histori

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