The Social Fabric of Fifteenth-Century Florence

Identities and Change in the World of Second-Hand Dealers

Alessia Meneghin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000712513
• Subtopic: European Renaissance History
• Index: History

The Arte dei rigattieri (merchants of second-hand goods in Florence) has never been ??the subject of a systematic study, even in scholarship devoted to the history of trades. Underpinned by a large collection of archival material, this book analyzes the social life and economic activity of rigattieri in fifteenth-century Florence. It offers invaluable information on issues such as the relationship between socio-political affiliations and economic interest as well as the structures of consumption and the spending power of different social groups. Furthermore, through the lens of the Arte dei Rigattieri, this work examines the connection between the development of the political bureaucracy, the establishment of Medicean power, and contemporaneous processes of identity construction and social mobility.

Part I

The Guild, Identity of Artifices, and Economic Activities

1 Methods and Problems in the Study of the Guild of Second-Hand Dealers in Florence

1. Rigattieri as Homines Novi and Social Mobility in Fifteenth-Century Florence

All these things, judges, you know that I produced the same day that I was called for trial … I am not a second-hand dealer who ordinarily holds double books, nor I am a fortune-teller, who two, three or four years ago could foresee this case and prepare himself.¹

In his Defensoria contra precedentem Francesco Guicciardini reflects on his responsibilities as a political participant during the Sack of Rome of 1527 and imagines that a tribunal has accused him of misappropriation. The quoted passage above reveals a thing of interest for the present book: with a single sentence Guicciardini stigmatizes rigattieri’s tendency to keep accounting reports untrue and incorrect on purpose. This was the vision of a man of his time; it reflects his prejudice against the spirit that animated the Florentine rigattiere—dishonest, faithful to a single principle, keen to make himself rich and to advance at any cost, his conduct often guided by ill practice.

The rigattieri, thus sketched by the writer’s pen, are identifiable for the most part with those who in the first half of the fifteenth century placed most of their commercial interests in the old market. Individually, or gathered in companies under the insignia of the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli (Guild of Second-Hand Dealers and Linen Retailers), they not only promoted the small local trade of used clothes and accessories, but also moved within a circuit of exchanges, credit activities, and appraisals that encompassed the whole city market; some were able to penetrate the circles of the administration and politics, and, also thanks to their insertion in important networks, as well as to successful marriages, managed to enter key roles of political life and acquire respectable places in Florentine society during the years of the early Reggimento. This book is the story of these rigattieri and of their social and economic mobility, against the backdrop of changes in fifteenth-century Florence.

One of the most important steps in social mobility was the appropriation of suitable and profitable commercial spaces, where ‘new men’ could operate and possibly grow rich. But where in Florence were the market areas where small entrepreneurs gained their profit? Who were the sellers engaged in the retail of basic goods, such as clothing, that went to meet the needs of the vast majority of the Florentine population, even those far from wealthy? I will argue that among these new men, the rigattieri, who controlled the market for second-hand clothes, were among the most active.

Who were the homines novi (literally ‘new men’) identifiable with the rigattieri?² In Italy, thanks to the influence of Dante’s words on the homines novi—the nouveau riche—“the upstart people and the sudden gains, pride and extravagance they have generated,”³ social mobility has always been considered a constitutive element of the world of the medieval commune and has been taken for granted and exempted from deep historical analysis.⁴ Later this topic was used for its political implications in the phases of replacement of the leading class that carried out the political and constitutional role elsewhere ascribed to the monarchy, and represented—in the dominant view of national history—the maximum contribution of the Italian Middle Ages to progress towards a modern statehood.⁵

In Florence, this middling group, characterised by strong social and political ambitions, with members who often came from the ranks of the small-entrepreneurial class and often gravitated around the Arti Minori and Mediane (lesser and middling guilds), played an important role. Over a few decades, some of them appeared beside the prestigious merchant elite in the administration of politics and business. This latter class underwent a crisis both economic and power-related, especially after the return of Cosimo de’ Medici to Florence in 1434.⁶

As Athanasios Moulakis has argued, “access to high office would undoubtedly be more arduous for homines novi, but [Francesco] Guicciardini welcomed the possibility for the renewal and continued competence of the elite.”⁷ So there was not a complete replacement of the ranks of those leading politics and business but a mentoring that saw newcomers engaged in administrative roles alongside representatives of the elite families. These men, outside the traditional role of the ottimati, participated in the co-optation of single individuals by means of controlled electoral scrutinies based on proven loyalty to the regime. It is no coincidence that Guicciardini’s main character in the Dialogue of the Government of Florence, as we shall see, is a former rigattiere, Bernardo Del Nero, a man said to have had no relations, nor to be of noble birth.⁸ Such a rise, as Guicciardini stated, had to be attributed to merit.⁹

If, as the author of the Florentine Histories seems to suggest, many of these fifteenth-century men—who, like the rigattieri, came from nowhere and managed to climb the steps of Florentine society—succeeded, they did so thanks to merit and their exceptional abilities, by building a solid material basis, a thing they could only do through trade, and the only trade they knew was that of used clothes. We must therefore try to understand first how this trade functioned and how the activity of the second-hand dealers was regulated within the local economy of distribution.

The rigattieri had once belonged to one of those Arti mediane that were demoted to Arte Minore in 1293.¹⁰ He was an independent seller—a small entrepreneur who often invested capital funds, mostly small sums.¹¹ The rigattiere stood somewhere between a skilled worker and a small business owner. He would not necessarily depend on a master (he could be on his own) and would not produce what he sold, as craftsmen did, but he was on the same level as such men. The rigattiere, by definition, in addition to belonging to the sphere of retailers of used clothing, was often a small businessman involved in trading and exchanging various kinds of merchandise, such as furniture, animals, and carpets.

To the Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli belonged a variety of sellers: the retailers whom the first statutes defined as sellers of ragged leather skins and other things (venditores of pelles veteres et alias res); those operators who regularly paid the guild fees, as well as the brothers, sons, and general relatives of deceased rigattieri who were exempted from the matriculation fee because they enjoyed the privileges kinship granted; poor craftsmen, such as mattress makers (coltriciai) and tailors, whose main occupation differed from selling old clothes, who also simultaneously enrolled in other guilds; among them were also the embroiderers, who scraped by, selling old rags and cast-offs alongside their main occupation; and finally, there were the peripatetic vendors and rag-sellers, and even some women, widows or daughters of rigattieri.

Second-hand dealers were sometimes called to estimate assets within their competence, when a public auction was called for or for goods in wills or donations. Finally, precisely because some of them, belonging to the group of middling sellers, were considered trustable and creditworthy, rigattieri often appeared in notarial deeds, not only as actors but often also as witnesses or guarantors (fideiussori).¹²

Although the mediocre volume of business and modest place the rigattiere was supposed to occupy in the market economy, at least in principle, made him by definition a small seller, a few of these rigattieri, excellent businessmen, did not long remain ‘small sellers.’ The richer and more powerful rigattieri, often owners of several businesses of regatteria and higher in rank and consideration, were not unlike the mercantile and financial elite. They quickly made their way into society. They were shrewd, industrious, and active. A few recognised the real advantage of grasping the changing times. Gradually, some managed to fill vacant roles in government by aligning with, and in some cases even supplanting, the representatives of the old families to settle into key roles in administration and politics. The goals of those who made their way into politics and who rose high socially were very ambitious. They did not marry just daughters of other rigattieri but also those of notaries, property owners, or members of the oldest and respected families. In no time, some of them became very influential.

2. Can Sociology Aid Historical Analysis in Examining the Channels of Mobility of the Rigattieri?

Social mobility first received attention in 1884 when Gaetano Mosca developed the theory of elites.¹³ In the following decade, Vilfredo Pareto expanded and modified it.¹⁴ Their elitist theory developed from their observation of the spontaneous division of every human society into two categories. At the head of society, above the majority, there was a restricted group, defined as a ruling or political class by Mosca and as elite by Pareto. However, these elites were subject to a continual process of internal mutation and replacement by new forces.¹⁵

While elitist theory already stressed selection and replacement, a profound consideration of social mobility as a theoretical problem would come only in 1927, with the publication of Social Mobility by Pitirim Sorokin. Sorokin, a Russian sociologist later naturalized as an American, was inspired by Pareto.¹⁶ Social Mobility shifted attention from the elite to the whole society, embracing collective mobility in all its possible forms.

The recent work of another sociologist, Margaret Archer from England, also deserves mention. Archer argued for a further influence on mobility: the ability to think and fantasize about oneself and one’s social world. Archer’s work also introduced a key aspect in the study of social mobility: its relational character. In essence, social mobility must be seen as a competition for status but also for something intangible and definable only (through relationships) in comparison with other groups. This competition could take place within the same universe of values and through the mimicry of social climbers in order to adopt strategies that otherwise distinguish the highest social groups from others, as often happened with European aristocracies. Or this process could alternatively lead to the creation of different values, opposite to those of the pre-eminent groups, such as those of the upstart comuni of medieval Italian towns.¹⁷

In this process of social competition, the players would adopt practices of exclusion and inclusion, which some would use to preserve their identity, others to stand out and acquire it. Note here the Weberian concept of ‘closure’ and the development of such a model by Frank Park...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Part I The Guild, Identity of Artifices, and Economic Activities
• Part II Work, Investments, and Social Mobility
• Appendix A: Florentine Quarters, Gonfaloni, and Parrocchie
• Appendix B: Glossary
• References
• Index