untitled


IRSH 56 (2011), Special Issue, pp. 89–106 doi:10.1017/S0020859011000496
r 2011 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis

Attitudes to Work and Commerce in the Late Italian
Renaissance: A Comparison between Tomaso
Garzoni’s La Piazza Universale and Leonardo

Fioravanti’s Dello Specchio Di Scientia Universale

L U C A M O C A R E L L I

Università di Milano Bicocca

E-mail: luca.mocarelli@unimib.it

SUMMARY: This article compares two highly successful treatises written in the
second half of the fifteenth century: Tomaso Garzoni’s La piazza universale di
tutte le professioni del mondo [The Universal Workplace of All the Professions in
the World], and Leonardo Fioravanti’s Dello specchio di scientia universale [On the
Mirror of Universal Knowledge]. It examines how each of these books presented
and considered commercial activities such as the manufacture and trading of silk
and wool – which were of great importance to the Italian economy of the day – and
other more humble occupations. This is an interesting comparison since Garzoni
and Fioravanti personified two very different spirits of the Renaissance. The for-
mer was a learned man, anxious to construct a moralistic-literary monument,
complete in every detail, while the latter was a great observer, intent on making full
use of every kind of knowledge, even that which seemed lowly and contemptible.

Attitudes towards so-called manual skills in Italy during the late
Renaissance were not monolithic. In a recently published essay I pointed
out how, in the midst of the harsh mainstream condemnation of manual
work, differing opinions were also voiced, though they remained min-
ority opinions, in line with a tradition that came from afar, and that was
rooted especially in some of St Paul’s letters in which he exalted the
dignity of work.1

1. See Luca Mocarelli, ‘‘The Attitude of Milanese Society to Work and Commercial Activities:
The Case of the Porters and the Case of the Elites’’, in Josef Ehmer and Catharina Lis (eds), The
Idea of Work in Europe from Antiquity to Modern Times (Farnham, 2009), pp. 101–124,
105–107. In re-evaluating manual work, Bartolomeo Paganelli, from Prignano, even managed to
reverse the very negative connotation of the etymology of the term ‘‘mechanic’’. In his De
imperio Cupidinis (Modena, 1492), and with few classical references at his disposal, he com-
posed a poetic celebration of technical inventions in which the only distinction he made in

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What I intend to do here, developing this line of research, is to compare
two highly successful treatises written in the second half of the sixteenth
century, a time when the principal manufacturing cities of Italy were
still expanding rapidly, with waged work controlled by the merchants
becoming more widespread, to the detriment of the independent artisan.
I shall examine how each of these books presented and considered
commercial activities such as the manufacture and trading of silk and
wool – which were of great importance to the Italian economy of the day –
and other more humble occupations. This is an interesting comparison
because Tomaso Garzoni and Leonardo Fioravanti, the authors of the trea-
tises in question, La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo [The
Universal Workplace of All the Professions in the World] and Dello specchio
di scientia universale [On the Mirror of Universal Knowledge],2 differed
widely in terms of their background and beliefs. Consequently, they
approach the subject of work and occupations in different ways.

T O M A S O G A R Z O N I A N D L E O N A R D O F I O R AV A N T I

Garzoni was an ecclesiastic, a member of the Augustinian order, who wrote
about the world from within the protective walls of his monastery library,
inspired by post-Council-of-Trent moral and educational aims, which appear
not only in La piazza universale but in all his writings. His L’hospidale de’
pazzi incurabili [The Hospital of Incurable Madness] and La sinagoga degli
ignoranti [The Synagogue of the Ignorant] contrast sharply with the adverse
criticism by many Renaissance writers of the scope for human knowledge.
In those studies he derided the idea of the docta ignorantia expounded by
Cusano in a highly successful book published in 1440.3

Leonardo Fioravanti, by contrast, was a well-known physicist and
surgeon in his day. He performed the first successful operation in Italy to

mechanical work was between trades that were dirty because of their working conditions and
shameful jobs such as those of the moneylender and toll collector, who lived on money earned
by others; on Paganelli’s work see Giorgio Montecchi, ‘‘Bartolomeo Paganelli da Prignano:
ossia della nobilità della stampa, arte meccanica e liberale’’, Discipline del libro, 2 (1999),
pp. 117–122.
2. In this article I shall refer to the following versions of the two books: Giovanni Battista
Bronzini (ed.), La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo, 2 vols (Florence, 1996),
and Dello specchio di scientia universale dell’Eccell. Dottore et Cavalier Leonardo Fioravanti
Bolognese (Venice, 1583).
3. For Cusano, the docta ignorantia meant a ‘‘visio sine comprehensione, speculatio’’. See De
Docta ignorantia (1440), in Ernst Hoffmann and Raymond Klibansky (eds), Nicolai de Cusa,
Opera Omnia (Leipzig, 1932), I, p. 26. As mankind cannot grasp the infinity of a deity through
rational knowledge, the limits of science need to be surpassed by means of speculation that blur
the borders between science and ignorantia. In other words, both reason and a supra-rational
understanding are needed to understand God.

90 Luca Mocarelli

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remove a spleen. He was also known as an inveterate experimenter and
globetrotter, who, during his adventurous life, visited most of the Medi-
terranean world, Spain, and Africa, and worked in Messina, Palermo,
Naples, Rome, Pesaro, Genoa, and Venice. He believed that scholastic
knowledge was of little use in itself, since true knowledge is none other
than the theory of experience. His colourful life has been recreated by
the incomparable pen of Piero Camporesi in a book eloquently titled
Camminare il mondo [Walking the World].4

What these two such different personalities shared was an unconditional
admiration of the printing press, one of the great innovations of the
Renaissance, which they both exploited to the full, producing highly suc-
cessful books – beginning with the two considered here. La piazza universale
was indeed a veritable bestseller in its day. Between 1585 and 1665 there were
fifteen Italian editions, an adaptation into Spanish, and translations into
German and Latin. It then fell into oblivion, but it has been resurrected in
recent years in linguistic-cultural studies.5 Dello specchio di scientia uni-
versale had similar success. Published for the first time in Venice in 1564, it
reached its tenth edition in 1660 and was also translated into French, English,
and German. This book is of particular importance because it started
the genre of letteratura dei mestieri (literature on trades and professions) in
Italy. Although the most complete work of this genre is in fact Garzoni’s
La piazza, it owes a great deal to the work of Fioravanti, as we shall see.6

T O M A S O G A R Z O N I A N D L A P I A Z Z A U N I V E R S A L E D I

T U T T E L E P R O F E S S I O N I D E L M O N D O

Garzoni’s work is more organized, and his system of classification much
clearer, than Fioravanti’s, since his aim is to provide a comprehensive
catalogue. However, it is not merely a rhetorical catalogue, but a con-
scious attempt to order all social functions, thus presenting the image of a
perfectly organized society. Indeed, because of its richness and com-
plexity, La piazza, divided as it is into 154 sections dealing with no fewer
than 540 professions and trades, can be read in different ways.

4. Piero Camporesi, Camminare il mondo. Vita e avventure di Leonardo Fioravanti medico del
Cinquecento (Milan, 1997).
5. In 1996 two very accurate editions were published, almost contemporaneously: one by
Olschki Press, edited by a great anthropologist, Giovanni Battista Bronzini, and the other by
Einaudi, edited by the great historian of Italian literature, Paolo Cherchi.
6. There are, in fact, strong links between these two books, as pointed out by Elvina Vidali
Giorio, ‘‘Una fonte del Garzoni: ‘Dello specchio di scienza universale’ di Leonardo Fioravanti’’,
Lingua nostra, 30 (1969), pp. 39–43. On the other hand, one cannot exclude the possibility that
Fioravanti modelled his work on the encyclopaedic Catalogus gloriae mundi, the work of the
Bourgogne jurist Barthélemy de Chasseneuz, published in Lyon in 1529 and printed in Italian in
Venice around 1560.

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So whereas Paolo Cherchi recognizes in Garzoni’s precise exploration
of the world of skills and occupations the desire to be associated with
the efforts of the Counter-Reformation to restore the dignity afforded
to manual work by the Gospels, Beatrice Collina convincingly proposes
that La piazza should be read as an instruction manual for a prince.
Giovanni Battista Bronzini, however, stresses the author’s attempt, which
he believes to be successful, to point out the connection between classes,
and to engender harmony among the workforce in order to build up a
principality in which a man is valued for what he knows and what he can
do:7 a unitarian and harmonious reality in which it would be possible to
overcome the bitter observation of Guicciardini that ‘‘often between the
palace and the town square there is such a thick fog and such a high wall that,
since no man can see through them, the populace know as much about what
their rulers do and why, as they know about what goes on in India’’.8

Obviously, what we are most interested in is Garzoni’s attitude to work
and workers, and a significant indicator is the omission of the phrase ‘‘noble
and ignoble’’, referring to all the professions of the world, in the title of the
book’s second edition. This is perfectly consistent with his desire to value
work, in opposition to the humanist-Renaissance scepticism seen particu-
larly in the work of Cornelio Agrippa, who had heavily criticized the arts,
sciences, and the clergy in De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum et artium
(published in Italian in Venice in 1547) while also, in De occulta philosophia,
exalting magic, considering it the perfection and fulfilment of all natural
sciences. This does not mean that Garzoni questioned the superiority of the
intellectual, liberal arts, but simply that he wanted us to understand the
reciprocal functioning between noble and less noble activities, without in any
way reducing the distance between them.

So Garzoni too subscribed to the harmonious and organistic view of
society which was so deeply rooted in the aristocratic culture of his day, and
he took pains to hide the conflicts, quarrels, and civil strife which, however,
were also present. It was a view expressed by many other contemporary
writers, such as Silvio Antoniano, who wrote ‘‘that the humblest worker
wishes to be the equal of the townsman, the townsman of the gentleman, the
gentleman of the nobleman, and the latter of the prince; such things are
beyond reason and not to be tolerated, they are displeasing to God, and lead
to a thousand sins’’.9 This was a totally hierarchic concept of society, in
which everyone had a role and a well-defined place, in which he had to stay,

7. Compare the essays of Paolo Cherchi and Beatrice Collina in Tomaso Garzoni, La piazza
universale di tutte le professioni del mondo (Turin, 1996), and that by Giovanni Battista
Bronzini in the Olschki edition of La piazza.
8. Francesco Guicciardini, Ricordi, diari, memorie (Pordenone, 1991), pp. 213–214.
9. Silvio Antoniano, Tre libri dell’educatione christiana dei figliuoli (Verona, 1584), p. 296. For
Antoniano – humanist, cardinal, and prime mover in the educational changes that followed the

92 Luca Mocarelli

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in the order that was assigned to him. Not by chance did sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century writers compare this society to the biblical statue of
Nebuch, with a head of gold (the prince), breast and arms of silver (the
highest ranks of the nobility), other parts of baser metal (the lower-ranking
nobles and honoured professions), and feet of mud (the populace).10

An example of this thinking is the passage in which Garzoni observes how
all the manual (mechanical) arts, from those reputed honourable to those less
honourable, are to be taken equally into consideration, because their humble
nature sets off ‘‘the more noble arts, just as the clouds soften the piercing rays
of the sun, which filter through the surrounding haze in spite of them’’.11

This passage is taken from the Discorso universale [Universal Comments]
with which he prefaced La piazza and which he entitled, not coincidentally,
In lode delle scienze et dell’arti liberali e mechaniche in commune [In Praise
of All the Sciences and the Intellectual and Manual Skills in Common]. In
his all-embracing catalogue of skills and trades he considered necessary to
the socio-political scheme of his ideal principality, Garzoni plundered the
work of the most disparate authors, often committing outright plagiarism.
Fioravanti himself was a victim, although cited in La piazza, in a section
dedicated to surgeons, as ‘‘the glorious miracle-worker Fioravanti’’.12

L E O N A R D O F I O R AV A N T I A N D D E L L O S P E C C H I O D I

S C I E N T I A U N I V E R S A L E

In his Specchio Leonardo Fioravanti, who lived by direct observation of and
dialogue with a section of humanity eschewed by most, was not a systematic
cataloguer like Garzoni. Many trades are missing from his work (suffice it to
say that there is practically no mention of domestic service), and there is a
strong bias in favour of his own specialism, the preparation of remedies for
various illnesses. This is also confirmed by the multiple dedications which
preface the book, most of which are to doctors and surgeons practising in
Italy’s most important cities.13

Council of Trent (1545–1563) – see Elisabetta Patrizi, Silvio Antoniano un umanista ed
educatore dell’età del Rinnovamento cattolico (1540–1603) (Macerata, 2009).
10. An example of this appears in the volume which synthesizes and systematizes this train of
thought by Giovanni Battista De Luca, Il principe cristiano pratico (Rome, 1680). Of great
interest is the essay on these problems by Daniela Frigo, ‘‘La ‘civile proportion’: ceti, principi e
composizione degli interessi nella letteratura politica d’antico regime’’, in Cesare Mozzarelli
(ed.), Economia e corporazioni. Il governo degli interessi nella storia d’Italia dal medioevo
all’età contemporanea (Milan, 1988), pp. 81–108.
11. Bronzini, La piazza universale, I, p. 56.
12. Ibid., p. 155.
13. Following the obligatory dedication to an eminent person, in this case the Milanese count
Giovanni Anguissola, the most important scholars and physicians of Venice, Padua, Bologna,
Naples, and Rome are named and praised (Dello Specchio, pp. iii–x).

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We need only remember the subject matter of the three books which
constitute the Specchio, a great deal of which was the fruit of Fioravanti’s
own studies. The first is dedicated to ‘‘all the intellectual and manual
skills’’, the second deals with ‘‘various sciences and many fine reflections
on ancient philosophies’’, and the third, ‘‘some notable inventions, which
it is necessary to know about, and which are most useful’’. Fioravanti
therefore moves through the full circle of human knowledge, strong in the
belief expressed in the Ragionamento importantissimo ai lettori [Observa-
tions of Great Importance to the Readers], with which he opens his work,
that interdisciplinarianism is fundamental to knowledge. Indeed, since ‘‘no
science or art can be perfect without an understanding of the others, it
seemed fitting to deal with many arts and sciences in this book’’.14 In terms
of quantity, however, the result is that Fioravanti dedicated much less space
to skills and trades than Garzoni did, roughly 150 pages as opposed to 1,000.

W O O L L E N M A N U F A C T U R I N G I N T H E W R I T I N G S O F

G A R Z O N I A N D F I O R AV A N T I

In spite of this, it is possible to compare these two books by examining
what they say about commerce and occupations, and by noting whether
observations are based on the perceived importance of the work, and the
possible ranking of the professions and trades.15 Some interesting facts
emerge when we consider how Garzoni and Fioravanti examine the
textile industry and its most important activities. This was the basis of the
economic success of the late Italian Renaissance, starting with the pro-
cessing of wool, in which cities such as Milan, Florence, and Venice, as
well as many smaller centres, still excelled. It should be noted that
towards 1570–1580 – that is, when Garzoni was writing La piazza and
Fioravanti supplementing and reprinting his Specchio – around 150,000
bolts of cloth per year were produced in central and northern Italy, much
of which was exported.16

Fioravanti’s comments on this are particularly interesting. After
underlining the importance of this activity – a skill which is ‘‘noble all
over the world, as everyone knows [y] and the masters of this skill are all
wealthy and noble men’’ – and having described in detail the complexity
of the production process, from the selection of the wool to the making of
the final product, he gives us a realistic glimpse into the organization of
this sector, and the unstinting effort that went into the success of Italy’s

14. Ibid., pages not numbered.
15. Unfortunately, Garzoni and Fioravanti did not mention gender in their evaluation of the
different occupations.
16. See Paolo Malanima, L’economia italiana dalla crescita medievale alla crescita con-
temporanea (Bologna, 2002), p. 192.

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wool-manufacturing centres. He observed that the manufacture of wool
is ‘‘a job that is most lucrative for those who order it to be done: but for
the poor workers who actually do it, it is very bad, since they can never
earn more than a meagre living, for all the profits go into the pockets of
the merchants’’. He added, however, that ‘‘it cannot be said that this is not
better for the artisans, even though they live in poverty, than to go begging
in the world’’.17

Thus, Fioravanti demonstrated that he was well aware of the change
that the sector had undergone since the late Middle Ages, with the gradual
disappearance of autonomous artisans and the merchant class taking
control of the whole production process as two of the characteristics of
the developing market economy. He clearly understood the great
importance of the woollen mills as a source of employment. Confirmation
that his appraisals were the result of his own observations comes from the
fact that he cited some of the most important manufacturers of woollen
cloth in Venice at the time, such as Camillo Molgora from Milan and
Giovanni Piero Girardoni.

Fioravanti’s remarks in the section dedicated to weaving and weavers,
which naturally refers to the working of the wool, are also worthy of
note. He makes it clear that a job which is considered among the meanest
and most humble actually required great skills, which ranged from the
ability to recognize ‘‘the quality of all the different kinds of yarn’’ to
knowing how to carry out the complex operations involved in weaving.
In the production of the best quality goods, this kind of expertise called
for skills which could be acquired only after a long apprenticeship.18

Fioravanti was well aware of the numerous skills required of weavers,
and concluded this section by saying that

[y] since we are dealing with an art which is extremely intricate, it calls for a
much more detailed description; this I do not give, since my knowledge of it is
limited. And it is no surprise that I do not know everything about the art of
weaving, since among the weavers themselves those doing one job do not know
or understand what the others do.19

This situation was not surprising given that the wide variety of goods
produced by the Italian weaving industry was the fruit of a policy of strict
specialization, which meant that ‘‘the person doing one type of weaving
cannot do another type, nor even understand it’’.20

17. Dello specchio, p. 58r.
18. Some illuminating ideas on the importance assumed by the guilds in the transmission
of these skills were put forward by the late Larry Epstein, as recalled by Maarten Prak,
‘‘S.R. Epstein (1960–2007) and the Guilds’’, International Review of Social History, 53 (2008),
Supplement, pp. 1–3.
19. Dello specchio, p. 26r.
20. Ibid.

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Garzoni also reconstructed the complex chain of production in this
sector, and presented the various and numerous end products in much
more detail than Fioravanti, listing dozens of articles, from the finest
cloths to the humble beret and mattress. However, it is interesting to note
that when writing about the woollen mill, he departed from the mere
citation of books only in order to formulate more concrete considera-
tions, when he repeated, almost to the letter, the work of Fioravanti,
although he took care not to quote him. In section CII, ‘‘De’ lanaiuoli o
lanefici e mercanti di lana’’ [On Wool-Workers, Woollen Mills, and Wool
Merchants], Garzoni wrote that the activity ‘‘yields much more to the
merchants than to the poor workers, who, even though they barely
manage to earn a living, represent the great number of artisans who would
finish badly if it were not for this work’’.21 It is significant that the author,
consistent with his ideological purpose, did not include in his evident
plagiarism the more polemic and less politically correct ideas of Fior-
avanti – that this art is bad for the workers, and, above all, that the total
profits went into the pockets of the merchants.

T H E S I L K T R A D E I N T H E W R I T I N G S O F G A R Z O N I

A N D F I O R AV A N T I

The other activity which was experiencing growing success in Italy at that
time was the silk trade. There was widespread rearing of silkworms, and
an imposing array of spinning and weaving machinery was set up to
process the raw silk produced. There were numerous excellent centres of
this activity, which provided a steady flow of produce for export, from
Milan to Venice to Bologna. Thanks to this development, some 23,000
looms were in operation in the peninsula by the end of the sixteenth
century, mostly concentrated in northern and central Italy.22

Also in the case of silk, Fioravanti insisted upon the decline in the
earning power of the work in ‘‘an art which further enriches the rich and
helps the poor’’. In the chain of production which links the countryside,
where the silkworms are reared and the silk obtained, to the city, where
it is woven, he emphasizes the role of the merchants, who dominated
the sector and took charge of the most delicate phases of the process,
such as the dyeing. These were people of great standing, not only
financial, but also social and political, if what he says is true, namely that
‘‘throughout Italy, this art carries great privileges, and in many cities

21. Bronzini, La piazza universale, II, p. 898.
22. The number of looms can be calculated from the accurate count by Francesco Battistini,
‘‘La tessitura serica italiana durante l’età moderna: dimensioni, specializzazione produttiva,
mercati’’, in Luca Molà, Reinhold C. Mueller, and Claudio Zanier (eds), La seta in Italia dal
Medioevo al Seicento (Venice, 2000), pp. 335–352, 344–345.

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has its own independent court, which administers justice in complete
freedom’’.23

Garzoni, on the other hand, besides repeating Fioravanti’s detailed
description of the whole productive process (without citing the source),
dedicated ample space to the variety of products from this sector, and to
the changing tastes of purchasers in favour of silk: ‘‘is it not obvious that
there is as much difference between a lady dressed in silk and one in
woollen cloth, as there is between luminous day and dark night?’’ It is
worth noting that in the usual description of the shortcomings of the art,
with which he concluded all his commentaries, he directed his criticism
not at the workers, accused only of ‘‘frequently’’ stealing the silk given to
them to work, but at the merchants who

[y] underpay them [the workers], avoid paying tax by smuggling out the
finished goods, buy the silk from women who have obtained it cut price, so that
even the Jews in the bank would have qualms of conscience, and make a
thousand deals and contracts among themselves and with others, all illegal.24

So Fioravanti alone gave a realistic view of work and workers in these
two important sectors. What he looked at, however, is the organizational
aspect of the sector, and the logic behind the functioning of the system,
created and dominated by merchants and their capital, which was widening
and extending market relations. He said nothing about the conditions of
workers, or how the work was allocated to the different sexes, aspects which
were dealt with, albeit summarily, by other contemporary writers.

One such writer was Count Giovanni Maria Bonardo, whose description
of the ‘‘miseries of the life’’ of those engaged in the mechanical arts begins
precisely with the woollen mill. ‘‘I will not speak again of the toils of trans-
forming wool into cloth, I shall say only that from the middle of the summer
when the wool is cut, sometimes until the following summer, without a single
day of idleness, the cloth is laboriously formed.’’ Of the utmost importance in
this work were the spinners, whose task was ‘‘vile and wearisome’’, and the
weavers ‘‘who have no sensibility which is not used up in their weaving’’.25

His writing shows clearly his awareness of the hard work involved in
pre-industrial trades. It was a wearing existence even without factories and
assembly lines, because the hours of work could be extended to the bitter end,

23. Dello specchio, p. 58v.
24. See section CL, ‘‘De’ setaiuoli ove si comprendono gli accavigliatori, bavellari, agguindi-
latori, filatori, le maestre, i tessitori e i mercanti da seta’’ [On Silk Workers, including Thread
Crossers, Flossers, Winders, Spinners, Teachers, Wavers and Silk Merchants], in Bronzini,
La piazza universale, II, p. 1124.
25. Giovanni Maria Bonardo, Della miseria et eccellenza della vita humana, ragionamenti due
dell’ill. s. Gio. Maria Bonardo Frateggiano, conte & caualiere. Nel qual con infiniti essempi, cauati da
più famosi scrittori, s’impara quali siano i trauagli, et quali siano le perfettioni di questo mondo. Fatti
alla illustriss. signora la sig. Lucrezia Gonzaga marchesana (Venice, 1586), pp. 17–18.

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without any ‘‘day of idleness’’, and many jobs, such as weaving, required the
total involvement and attention of the workers, who were given no rest.

Figure 1. Silk worker.
Biblioteca Riccardiana Firenze, Ricc. 2580, Libro d’arte di seta, second half of the fifteenth
century, Florentine school. Used with permission.

98 Luca Mocarelli

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M E R C H A N T S I N T H E W R I T I N G S O F G A R Z O N I A N D

F I O R AV A N T I

When describing the woollen mill and the silk factory, Garzoni was even
less interested in the aspects of the actual work and limited himself, from
his strictly hierarchical standpoint, to assigning the most important role to
the merchants. However, with reference to the undisputed protagonists of
the manufacturing and commercial success of the most important cities in
Italy between the Middle Ages and the early modern period, his basic
point of view seems very different from Fioravanti’s. In his lengthy
treatment of merchants, Garzoni, after a fairly technical section (again
taken largely from Fioravanti), and some mannered praise for the positive
role that merchants played in the economic life of their day, then dedicates
much of what follows to a moralistic invective because ‘‘looking at it
afterwards more closely, and bringing into discussion the strength of this
profession, I see it as ragged and ruined, and am aware of the thousand
vices and faults contained within it’’.

According to Garzoni, merchants, as we have seen, already harshly
criticized in the section dedicated to the silk factory, were not only
fraudulent by nature, but above all

[y] are the ones who murder the world many times over with their falsified
rubbish, with rotten and tainted goods, who bring about famine in the provinces
and the cities, hoarding excess food and keeping it hidden, so that the poor
gentleman and the miserable populace fall dead from starvation in the streets,
they cause their creditors to fail, they ensnare and skin the citizens with
documents and bonds of the very devil, they devour the substance of the whole
populace through usury and interest, they put up their prices and cause
shortages whenever they wish.26

Garzoni is very harsh in his criticism, and it is not by chance that
section LXV deals not only with merchants, but puts them together with
banchieri, usurai, fondaghieri e merciari [bankers, usurers, wholesale
grocers, and drapers]. Associating merchants with moneylenders, who
were ‘‘known to be infamous’’, and with drapers, who, on a smaller scale,
used the same incorrect dealings and tricks as the merchants to deceive
and harm their fellow men, clearly emphasized the negative connotations
of the category.

Here again Garzoni aligned himself with the current of thought, pre-
valent in his time, which reflected the increasing desire of the urban
aristocracy to close ranks against the merchants, who were on the rise and
aspiring to nobility themselves. Indeed, in the course of the sixteenth
century an ever-widening gap emerged between commerce and the

26. Bronzini, La piazza universale, I, p. 664.

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discharge of public office, attested to by the growing insistence on the
idea that the nobility were born with certain qualities and requirements –
blood, birth, and honour – which were automatically transposed to

Figure 2. Jewish Paduan merchant.
Biblioteca Riccardiana Firenze, St. 12886, P. Bertelli, Diversarum nationum habitus, Patavii,
apud Alciatum Alcia et Petrum Bertellium, 1594–1596. Used with permission.

100 Luca Mocarelli

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political virtue. These ‘‘natural’’ virtues were the prerogative of a single class,
and effectively marginalized the members of the merchant class, who could
neither possess them nor cultivate them since they were occupied the whole
day in ‘‘lowly activities and mechanical arts’’, as Memmo wrote in a volume
published in Venice in 1563.27

Evidence for this changed attitude to commerce in this period, which in
view of its political and social reappraisal led to greater emphasis being
laid on its negative aspects, can be found in the most important Italian
cities, from Genoa to Milan. In Genoa, the inclusion of the silk industry
among the mechanical arts led to a reduction of about 300 in the number
of people who could consider themselves noble. In 1575 the College of
Jurisprudence in Milan prohibited access to the nobility to ‘‘those who,
even though only through agents, have been involved in squalid com-
mercial activity’’, reaffirming, in 1593, that ‘‘people, whether they them-
selves or any of their ancestors, who might be in any way connected with
commerce’’ could not become noble.28

It is also significant that in early modern Milan the only pragmatic
sanction against luxury, which imposed precise and differentiated modes
of behaviour according to sex and social class, was that of 1565. This was
in fact a period of great vitality in the local economy, accompanied by
remarkable social mobility, and it was consequently deemed necessary to
observe the boundaries between the classes, also by safeguarding external
symbols such as attire, before eventually cutting off access to the nobility,
which, as we have seen, happened quite soon after.29

Fioravanti’s treatment was much more lucid and devoid of any mor-
alistic tone when dealing with an activity which he regarded as ‘‘an art
involving great memory and intelligence’’. He showed the very essence of
big business, demonstrating a sound knowledge of the Venetian situation
by giving a detailed description of the flow of merchandise to and from
the city. His merchant was not a merchant-entrepreneur, but one involved
in business on an international scale. He perceived, with great modernity,
how the merchant’s real capital lies in his knowledge of the market and the

27. Giovanni Maria Memmo, Dialogo del magn. caualiere m. Gio. Maria Memmo, nel quale
dopo alcune filosofiche dispute, si forma un perfetto prencipe, & una perfetta republica, e par-
imente un senatore, un cittadino, un soldato, & un mercatante, diuiso in tre libri (Venice, 1564),
p. 92.
28. On these topics see Rodolfo Savelli, ‘‘Tra Machiavelli e S. Giorgio. Cultura giuspolitica e
dibattito istituzionale a Genova nel Cinque-Seicento’’, in Aldo De Maddalena and Hermann
Kellenbenz (eds), Finanze e ragion di stato in Italia e in Germania nella prima età moderna
(Bologna, 1984), pp. 249–321, 295, and Mocarelli, ‘‘The Attitude of Milanese Society to Work
and Commercial Activities’’, pp. 114–115.
29. Luca Mocarelli, ‘‘‘Lusso dannoso e lusso discreto’. Il lusso nella Milano settecentesca tra
prescrizioni legislative e comportamenti’’, in Antonella Alimento (ed.), Modelli d’oltre confine.
Prospettive economiche e sociali negli antichi Stati italiani (Rome, 2009), pp. 295–308, 296–297.

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product, ‘‘knowing the products that are well-received in one place rather
than another’’, and he was equally realistic about the bad business practices
that could devour accumulated capital. On the astuteness and trickery so
harshly criticized by Garzoni, he had little to say, evidently considering them
inherent to the profession, and limited himself to advising that ‘‘the mer-
chants should be content to sell their merchandise at a fair price, and not be
overcome by greed or tempted by high profits’’.30

A note of criticism was present in Bonardo since the Venetian nobleman
limited himself to pointing out, in great detail, the problems and difficulties
that made the practice of commerce so complicated, and of uncertain success,
‘‘because the selling price of goods bought at a high price so frequently
drops, meaning that no profit is made [y] buying dear and selling cheap
[y] the increases and falls in business because of the constant changes in the
currency, domestic theft, robbery by strangers, taxes’’. This was an extremely
precarious situation, therefore, which led him to conclude that ‘‘miserable
merchants are not safe at sea, nor on land, neither in the wood nor the city,
not even in the town square or their own home’’.31

T H E M E C H A N I C A L A R T S I N T H E W R I T I N G S O F G A R Z O N I

A N D F I O R AV A N T I

The difference between Garzoni and Fioravanti is even more apparent in
their treatment of the trades they considered to be lowly. Here we will
consider what Garzoni and Fioravanti had to say about stonemasons and
shoemakers. When, after a few mannered praises, Garzoni goes on to
consider the meanest occupations such as these, he lays great emphasis
on their faults and tricks. So, even though stonemasons carry out work
of ‘‘strict necessity, since they construct dwelling places’’, they are not
precise and they prolong the work unnecessarily in order to earn more,
‘‘thus as a penance they frequently fall from the roof, or the wall or the
stairs, and break their necks’’.32 Similarly, shoemakers undoubtedly pro-
duce useful articles, but they knew little about ancient footwear, and
above all they ‘‘often cheat you with the stuff they give you [y] diffi-
culties and lies are commonplace with them, as with all such people who
serve others’’.33

30. Dello specchio, pp. 35r–38v.
31. Bonardo, Della miseria et eccellenza della vita humana, p. 20.
32. See section XCIIII, ‘‘De’ muratori o fabricatori et de’ biancheggiatori’’ [On Bricklayers,
Builders, and Decorators], in Bronzini, La piazza universale, II, pp. 843–844. Bonardo’s tone is
quite different (Della miseria et eccellenza della vita humana, p. 19) when he says ‘‘but who is
more unfortunate than the bricklayer or the carpenter who when building walls or adjusting
beams is in danger, a thousand times a day, of falling from on high and breaking his neck?’’.
33. See section CXXXI, ‘‘De’ calzolari, o caligari et ciavattini’’ [On Shoemakers and Slipper-
Makers], in Bronzini, La piazza universale, II, p. 1031.

102 Luca Mocarelli

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Figure 3. Stonemason.
Biblioteca Casanatese Roma, Rari 212, F. Indovino and A. da Carpentieri, Il mezzo più sicuro
per vincere al lotto, o sia nuova lista generale de’ Sogni, col Nome di tutte le cose, e numeri
corrispondenti all’Estrazioni (Macerata, 1796). Used with permission.

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The attitude of Fioravanti is totally different; he exalts the art of the
stonemason – the most necessary after the provision of food and clothing –
to the point where he deals with them before architects. He does not
limit himself to the technical abilities and skills required of such workers,
but points to the redistributory nature of the building industry, noting
how ‘‘in no other case will a man so willingly pay others, as when he is
having a sumptuous and magnificent house built [y] yet since this is what
he wants to do, the art of the stonemason is necessary’’. He also appreciates
the significance of houses as status symbols, remarking that some houses are
built with ‘‘stupendous facades, which add nothing to the comfort of the
owner and serve no purpose other than to be seen by others’’.34 Even in the
case of shoemakers, whose art he considers the lowliest of all, Fioravanti
indicates many positive elements, from the protection of our feet to the
aesthetic aspect, reaching the conclusion that ‘‘among the other arts this is
most necessary and worthy of doing’’.35

C O N C L U D I N G R E M A R K S

What considerations does this comparison suggest? First, that though dealing
with the same subject, the two authors made very different appraisals.

Garzoni built his argument on scholarship and his principal objective
was the formation of a humanist prince,

[y] in this scene and this rich display you will easily understand the good and
the bad that all the workers of the world can do; since the prince who governs
must take care of so many people and so many things, perhaps there could not
be any book more useful than this.36

The prince must indeed know the world, since his basic role is to heal the
more serious rifts and put the different classes back into their designated
places. According to Giovanni Battista Pigna, a writer well-known to
Garzoni, the prince had to reduce the nobles and the populace ‘‘to their
(just) dimensions and mediocrity’’. That was no easy task since, if it is true
that ‘‘gentlemen have a preference principally for honour, and plebeians for
profit’’, it is also true that without the intervention of the prince to keep

34. Dello specchio, p. 78v.
35. Ibid., p. 73r.
36. The quotation is taken from Garzoni’s dedication to Alfonso II d’Este in Bronzini, La
piazza universale, I, p. 6. His desire to include everything was echoed in the preface to L’autore
a’ spettatori [The Author to the Spectators], in which Garzoni recalled the ‘‘very lowly skills
which I have described’’ and concluded, not without a certain satisfaction, that he has created a
‘‘monstrous’’ building because of ‘‘the great number of people it accommodates all together’’
(ibid., pp. 47–48). It is certainly not a coincidence that Garzoni’s work opened with section I,
‘‘De’ signori o principi, et de’ tiranni’’ [On Lords or Princes, and Tyrants], and finished with
section CLV, ‘‘Degli humanisti’’ [On Humanists].

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‘‘these two such different natures within their own confines, one will aspire
to be a magistrate, and the other will interest himself in merchandise’’.37

This was Garzoni’s perspective in attempting to restore order and sense to
the bustling life of trades and professions, and it led him to study the mul-
titude of human activities rather as an entomologist studies insects – calmly
and clinically. So he takes particular care to reveal the cunning tricks and
faults of the humble, without trying to find any meaning in their work.

Fioravanti on the other hand based his work on direct observation and,
beyond praising each activity, he attempted to restore dignity to all types
of work. His interest was not that of the cataloguer, but of a professional
and a participant, and he offered considerations which would be incon-
ceivable to Garzoni. An example of this can be found in what each of
them wrote about tailors. To Garzoni, they were people who offered
beauty and dignity to all, especially when they made fine clothes,38 but to
Fioravanti they represented an opportunity to question the social hier-
archies of the time. It is worth quoting his reasoning:

[y] for all honours and robes are but smoke. And the truth is that we are born
equal and we die equal, the greatest and the least alike, for we are born naked,
and in the end we die and abandon our faculties. So I conclude that when all is
said and done, we are all the same.

His criticism of dressing in a certain way to show distinction, an
unassailable requirement in the most important cities at the time, inevi-
tably became directed at tailors. For Fioravanti their art did not require
the skill and competence one might suppose ‘‘since making clothes is
nothing more than draping a piece of cloth over someone and cutting
away the excess, thus the garment is made’’.39

What clearly differentiated the two authors was also the ranking of the
professions, which is evident in their work. Garzoni, besides having no
doubt about the superiority of the intellectual arts, offers us a catalogue
apparently based on aesthetic criteria and the desire of the curious scholar
to compile a history of what is lowly and neglected.40 The structure of
Fioravanti’s writing is different: he puts human occupations on a func-
tional scale, ordering them according to how necessary and useful they
are. Thus, he begins his treatise with agriculture and animal husbandry,
and puts among the first the arts of the blacksmith and the woodworker,
since very few skills, if any, can be practised without recourse to these.

37. Giovanni Battista Pigna, Il principe [y] nel qual si discrive come debba essere il principe
heroico, sotto il cui gouerno un felice popolo, possa tranquilla & beatamente vivere (Venice,
1561), pp. 35–36.
38. See section CXX, ‘‘De’ sartori’’ [On Tailors], in Bronzini, La piazza universale, II,
pp. 999–1000.
39. Dello specchio, p. 27r.
40. Bronzini, Introduzione, in idem, La piazza universale, I, pp. xx–xxiv.

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Furthermore Fioravanti does not make the traditional distinction
between liberal and mechanical arts, preferring instead to distinguish
between using one’s hands and pure knowledge (skills and sciences):

[y] so that everything that calls for the use of hands can justly be defined as
skills, yet medicine, surgery, and anatomy are all manual: therefore I call them
skills, as I do all the others. The sciences are composed of memory and intellect,
they can be defined as reasoning, and manual work plays no part in them.

Fioravanti goes even further, maintaining that knowledge alone is of
little use in itself, as he confirms when speaking about anatomy: ‘‘this
knowledge is of very little importance, because when one is unlucky
enough to be injured [y] one needs to be treated and cured: which cannot
be done by knowing about anatomy, but only by medicating with tried
and tested remedies’’. Indeed he claims that ‘‘it is far better to operate well
than to know how to speak about it [y] therefore we can rightly affirm
that anatomy is nothing more than knowing how our body is made. But
the truth is that it cannot be used in medical treatment’’.41

In short, it can be said that Garzoni and Fioravanti incarnate two very
different spirits of the Renaissance, although both were driven by the
same inexhaustible curiosity and thirst for knowledge. The Augustinian
was a contemplative, learned man, anxious to construct a moralistic-literary
monument, complete in every detail. The restless physician-surgeon from
Bologna, however, was a student of first-hand experience, a great observer
intent on making full use of every kind of knowledge, even that which
seemed lowly and contemptible: a man who was not in the least scholastic,
and who would never have agreed with the distinction between noble and
ignoble arts included in the original title of Garzoni’s La piazza universale.

41. Dello specchio, pp. 52v and 51v.

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