Francesco Balducci Pegolotti

PEGOLOTTI, FRANCESCO BALDUCCI (fl. Florentine merchant and writer, was a factor in the service of the mercantile house of the Bardi, and in this capacity he was at Antwerp from 1315 (or earlier) to 1317; in London in 1317 and apparently for some time after; in Cyprus from 1324 to 1327, and also in 1335, when he obtained from the king of Little Armenia (i.e., mediaeval Cilicia, etc.) a grant of privileges for Florentine trade. Between 1335 and 1343, he compiled his Libro di divisamenti di paesi e di misuri di mercatanzie e d'altre rose bisognevoli di sapere a' mercatanti, commonly known as the Pratica della mercatura (the name given it by Pagnini). Beginning with a sort of glossary of foreign terms then in use for all kinds of taxes or payments on merchandise as well as for "every kind of place where goods might be bought or sold in cities," the Pratica next describes some of the chief trade routes of the 14th century, and many of the principal markets then known to Italian merchants; the imports and exports of important commercial regions; the business customs prevalent in those regions; and the comparative value of the leading moneys, weights and measures.

There is only one ms. of the

Pratica, viz., No. 2,441 in the Riccar dian Library at Florence (241 fols. occupying the whole volume), written in 1471; and one edition of the text, in vol. iii. of Gian Fran cesco Pagnini's Della Decima e delle altre gravezze imposte dal com mune di Firenze (Lisbon and Lucca—really Florence-1766) ; Sir Henry Yule, Cathay, ii. 279-308, translated into English the most inter esting sections of Pegolotti, with valuable commentary (London, Hak luyt society, 1866). See also W. Heyd, Commerce du Levant, ii. (Leipzig, 1886) ; H. Kiepert, in Sitzungsberichte der philos.-hist. Cl. der berliner Akad. (Berlin, 1881) ; C. R. Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geog raphy, iii. (Oxford, 1906).