[Ledger of Medici debtors and creditors].

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Language:

Italian

Subjects (All):

Medici, House of--Archives.

Medici, House of.

Accounting--Italy--16th century.

Accounting.

Italy.

Genre:

codices (bound manuscripts)

accounts

credit records

ledgers (account books)

Manuscripts, Italian.

Manuscripts, Renaissance.

Archives.

Penn Provenance:

Sold by Bernard M. Rosenthal, 1961.

Physical Description:

240 leaves : paper ; 334 x 228 mm bound to mm 344 x 234 + 1 booklet (18 leaves), 2 notes

Production:

[Italy], [1537?]

Language Note:

Italian.

Summary:

Ledger of debtors and creditors of the Medici family for the years 1536-1537. Often includes the nature of a given credit or debt and its amount, as well as listing the names of the individuals or institutions that hold the debt or credit, the most important being the Spedale di Santa Maria degli Innocenti (p. 5), a children's orphanage in Florence, and the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore (p. 34). An alphabetical index, with 18 lettered tabs, containing names of individuals that appear in the ledger, is laid inside the upper cover of the manuscript. The index's cover is made from a vellum fragment of a 14th-century manuscript, perhaps from a medical text, written in 2 columns with red initials and in a Gothic script, surrounded by numerous marginal annotation.

Notes:

Ms. codex.

Title supplied by cataloger.

Pagination: Paper, i (parchment) + 240 leaves + i (parchment); versos numbered 1-91, [92], 93-118, [119], 120-121, [122-240]; contemporary pagination in ink, modern pagination in pencil, upper left verso; rectos numbered [i], i-xx, [xxi], xxii-xxiii, [xxiiii], xv-xxvii, [xxviii], xxviii-lxi, 62, lxiii-lxxi, [lxxii], lxxiii-cxxii, [cxxiii-ccxl], contemporary pagination in ink, modern pagination in pencil, upper right recto (leaves after p. 122 are blank but ruled). Each opening has a matched arabic numeral on the left and a roman numeral on the right.

Layout: Written in 2 columns with vertical bounding lines in lead; the large column on the left with the debtor or creditor and a brief description of the credit or debt, and the smaller one on the right with the amount of the credit or debt in arabic numerals. Usually credits are listed on the left page and debts on the right page of an opening, with the same individuals or institutions appearing as debtors or creditors on facing pages.

Script: Written in a cursive script.

Binding: Contemporary vellum, no. 29 on spine; the heading Q[uadern]o di chassa sesto, no. 290, on upper cover; lower cover wraps around upper cover with leather strap, metal buckle on upper cover; decorative leatherwork on spine.

Origin: Written in Italy, ca. 1537 (latest date of entries, p. 122).

Forms part of: Gondi-Medici Business Records.

Cited in:

Ledger described in Zacour, Norman P. and Hirsch, Rudolf. Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Libraries of the University of Pennsylvania to 1800 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965), p. 192 (Ms. Lea 218).

Index described in Zacour, Norman P. and Hirsch, Rudolf. Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Libraries of the University of Pennsylvania to 1800: Supplement A (3), Library Chronicle 36 (1970), no. 2, p. 98 (Ms. Lea 493).

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 1278

OCLC:

288934504