Drawing on a wide range of literature and adopting a macroeconomic
approach, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the Italian
economy during the Renaissance, focusing on the period between 1348, the
year of the Black Death, and 1630.
The Italian Renaissance played a crucial role in the formation of the
modern world, with developments in culture, art, politics, philosophy,
and science sitting alongside, and overlapping with, significant changes
in production, forms of organization, trades, finance, agriculture, and
population. Yet, it is usually argued that splendour in culture
coexisted with economic depression and that the modernity of Renaissance
culture coincided with an epoch of epidemics, famines, economic crisis,
poverty, and destitution. This book examines both faces of the Italian
economy during the Renaissance, showing that capital per worker was
plentiful and productive capacity and incomes were relatively high. The
endemic presence of the plague, curbing population growth, played an
important role in this. It is also shown that the organization of
production in industry and finance, consumerism, human capital, and
mercantile rationality were the forerunners of modern-day capitalism.
This book is an invaluable resource for scholars and students of the
Renaissance and Italian economic history.