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Books : The Merchant of Prato: Francesco Di Marco Datini, 1335-1410In association with Amazon.comby: Iris Origo  List Price: $18.95 Amazon.com's Price: $14.21 You Save: $4.74 (25%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 2 to 3 weeks
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 380.10924 EAN: 9780879235963 ISBN: 0879235969 Label: David R Godine Manufacturer: David R Godine Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 415 Publication Date: March 01, 2002 Publisher: David R Godine Studio: David R Godine Sales Rank: 506659 Related Items:
Editorial Review: Product Description: Datini, a fourteenth-century Florentine merchant-banker, provides us with one of the great success stories of the Middle Ages. A dealer in wool, sacred pictures, spices, and iron, he established an import/export house with branches in Pisa, Genoa, Barcelona and Majorca. He also left behind, in wooden crates, the entire archive of his business - over 150,000 letters, some 500 ledgers and accounts books, and a mass of personal and business documents that Iris Origo tracked down, translated, and, through patient selection and perfect understanding, made accessible to the modern reader in this award-winning and singular biography. In her fine introduction, Barbara Tuchman asks, "Why is this book one of the great books of historical writing of the twentieth century?" She answers, "[Origo's] success in resurrecting not only a personality whom we can recognize but also his times, his town, his marriage, his household, his country home, his friends and associates, makes for a work of extraordinary interest with that quality to grip and take hold of a reader that makes a book everlasting." And as for Datini himself, the epicenter of this remarkable historical recreation, she writes, "the story of his achievement is something more signifcant than the mere record of the enrichment of a single man. In the extent and variety of his ventures, in his powers of organization, in his international outlook, in his swift adaptability to a society in turmoil, as in his own ambition, shrewdness, tenacity, anxiety, and greed, he is the forerunner of the businessman of today." Average Rating:
 Rating: - A historical study at its finestThis is probably the most famous book of Iris Origo, who at the same time offers to the world the most extensive study of Francesco di Marco Datini, a Tuscan merchant of the pre-renaissance. The book is directly based on thousands of letters and contracts that were found in the 1870's and that allow this unique insight into the life and the work of a merchant, but also a private person of his time (1335-1410). The book is divided into two parts. The first part discusses the merchant; ... Read More Rating: - The Merchant of Prato: Francesco Di Marco DatiniSuperbly researched and written, this is a book of history taken from the detailed dairies of a successful merchant in 14th century Prato, Italy. Any one interested in daily life in this period will appreciate this book. Rating: - A historical study at its finest.This is probably the most famous book of Iris Origo, who at the same time offers to the world the most extensive study of Francesco di Marco Datini, a Tuscan merchant of the pre-renaissance. The book is directly based on thousands of letters and contracts that were found in the 1870's and that allow this unique insight into the life and the work of a merchant, but also a private person of his time (1335-1410). The book is divided into two parts. The first part discusses the merchant; the ... Read More Browse for similar items by category:
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