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A RENAISSANCE SILK-MERCHANT’S MANUAL, in Italian, manuscript on paper [Italy, possibly Florence, first half 15th century
A RENAISSANCE SILK-MERCHANT’S MANUAL, in Italian, manuscript on paper [Italy, possibly Florence, first half 15th century] An extremely rare working handbook of an Italian silk merchant – likely Alamanno Salviati, of the great Florentine textile and banking family – containing practical notes on the production of good-quality silk and on the different types to be found in Europe, along with tables of prices and measurements. 222 x 150mm. A single gathering of 10 leaves, of which the first and last used as wrappers, early foliation 123, 125-132 and 134, thus likely a fragment from a larger manuscript (possibly lacking a blank bifolium, edges frayed, some wormholing and spotting). 19th-century red velvet over pasteboards. Provenance : ‘Alamanno di Messer Jacopo Salviati’ (inscription in the form of repeated pentrials on f.1), almost certainly the same Alamanno whose father Jacopo Salviati founded a successful textile business in the early 15th century. Alamanno opened branches of the family business in Bruges and London. In 1409 he married Caterina de’ Medici, daughter of Averardo de’ Medici, and the Salviati family swiftly became one of the wealthiest in Florence. The bulk of the Salviati family records is held in the Archivio Salviati at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, ‘the most important archive for the history of Tuscan and European economy’ – ‘Maffeo d’Armarini’? (near-contemporary ownership inscription on f.1v).