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

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 former 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.