Introduction -- Institutions: Contracts and Legislation -- Trade and Insurance: Routes -- Trade and Insurance: Goods -- Trade and Insurance: Seacraft -- The Premium: Structural Factors -- The Premium: Contingent Factors -- The Florentine Insurance Market Within the European Context -- The Market...

Introduction -- The costs and benefits of running away: late medieval Florentine plague mortality and behavior -- When economic theory meets medieval contracts: calculating the Monte Comune interest rate -- The chances of getting rich in Renaissance Florence: the wool industry occupational...

Richard A. Goldthwaite, a leading economic historian of the Italian Renaissance, has spent his career studying the Florentine economy. In this magisterial work, Goldthwaite brings together a lifetime of research and insight on the subject, clarifying and explaining the complex workings of...