Venice, 31 October 1284. The Council of Forty, one of the highest governing bodies of the Republic, meets in the doge’s palace to decide on an important measure that will transform Venetian monetary policy forever. On the agenda is the vote to introduce Venice’s now-famous gold currency, the ducat. Curiously, only twenty-nine members of the Forty are present, joined by the doge and six councillors. The reason for this abstention is unknown. Yet, despite the low turnout, that day, with twenty-two members in favour and seven abstaining, marks both the birth of the florin’s main competitor in the late medieval monetary scene and a fitting end for our story.¹

Minted from March 1285, as pure as the florin (24 carats) but with a slightly heavier theoretical weight (3.54 g), as recorded in the surviving registers of the Great Council, the ducat represented the Venetian response to the well-established notoriety of the Florentine gold coin, and a successful one. As early as 1291, for example, thousands of gold ducats were already being carried to Egypt on Venetian ships often seized by the Arabs.² Such a significant export, supported by increasing mint output, was crucial in creating the critical mass of ducats in circulation that would soon allow the Venetian coin to replace the florin in the eastern Mediterranean. Other historical events with strong political implications also contributed to this, especially the destruction of the Pisan fleet by the Genoese at Meloria (1284), which deprived the city of Florence of its primary access to the sea through Pisa.³ However, as Philip Grierson pointed out, it was as if two distinct but entangled ‘monetary empires’ had been established in the course of the fourteenth century: the ducat of Venice in the East and the florin of Florence in the West.⁴ The simultaneous appearance of several ducat imitations, mainly of Aegean and Anatolian origins, further emphasises the popularity of the Venetian currency in those regions. The florin, for its part, maintained a predominant role in Europe where, from the early 1320s onwards, it became a standard benchmark for many imitative gold coins. Because of this, any study of the Florentine florin beyond 1284 implies the adoption of a comparative approach that takes into account the rivalry with the ducat, the appearance of gold imitations, and what this entailed from a monetary perspective, as well as the changing geopolitical conditions of the time. Yet, this goes beyond the scope of the present study.

This book set out to provide a comprehensive and complementary account of the florin’s early life beyond the close and exclusive association with the world of long-distance trade and commercial business to which the Florentine coin has traditionally been confined. By investigating the contribution of political institutions and social agents to the birth and diffusion of the florin, not only has it been possible to gain a better appreciation of the ‘return to gold’ phenomenon in western Europe, which considered both the historical preconditions that led to the minting of gold and its aftermath, but also and above all a more holistic picture of the Florentine money as an economic, social, and political instrument with a pronounced cultural dimension and a strong identity.

Specifically, the analysis has shown that, on a macro level, the economic conditions that fostered the introduction of the florin were conventionally explained using modern and arguably anachronistic approaches, i.e., questions of the balance of trade and the gold–silver ratio. While these may hold some truth, the contours of those phenomena remain unclear. The same applies to the micro level – i.e., within Florence – where a lack of documentary evidence does not permit an unambiguous assessment of the economic conditions that fostered the introduction of the florin. Yet, the political context in which the gold coin was conceived and eventually minted is clear: the florin was part of the political reforms of the new government, the Primo Popolo, which had gained power following the death of Emperor Frederick II.

In this respect, the frequent refrain that the Florentine gold coin was minted at the request of merchants tells only one part of the story. Giovanni Villani created this myth during the heyday of the florin, when it regularly served in long-distance trade between northern European markets and the Levant, to the extent of becoming synonymous in Arabic (ifrantī) with Western gold coins.⁵ Conversely, in mid-thirteenth century Florence, merchants were not just simple traders providing the necessary gold to the local mint. They were economic actors and policy-makers – the ones who conceived the coin and decided its iconography, administered the monetary policy of Florence, minted the new currency, and provided networks of circulation.

The fact that the florin is first documented by sources related to politics and only later by those of a purely mercantile nature (company accounts books, registers of notaries working for businessmen, minutes of corporate courts, and so on) depends, among other things, on archival contingencies. Yet, by focusing on the simultaneous diffusion of the florin in other non-commercial realms in the early years of its existence, namely the ‘public finances’ of the Angevin Crown and the papacy, an entirely new and hitherto unknown history of the currency comes to light.

Within the Angevin dominions, the florin was not only involved in the grain trade and the cloth market of the time but was also a political instrument deployed to further the king’s power by financing Charles’ political projects. The symbiotic relationship between the Crown and the coin fostered the circulation of the florin across wider regions, especially the Mediterranean, while establishing itself as a domestic currency in the Kingdom of Sicily. Through such involvement, the florin assisted the rise of Florentine merchants, who became necessary for the Angevin Kingdom and its military expenditure. Specifically, the fact that Charles depended directly on mercantile companies for the collection of gold florins (i.e., loans) for his expenses opened a unique opportunity for the Florentines, as creators of the florin, to interact with the monarchy while carving out a new position in the political sphere of the time. In other words, they gained political power through the financial power of their creation.

Conversely, the circulation of the florin in the papal coffers did not depend on either a legal obligation, a command, or an explicit request for florins coming directly from the Holy See. Nor was this the effect of the privileged status of the merchants of Florence in their relations with the papacy. In fact, it was only under the pontificate of Pope Boniface VIII that the florin, with its power and stability, would eventually act as a ‘unique selling proposition’, allowing the Florentines to increase their influence and displace other merchants, thus establishing themselves as official mercatores pape, especially in light of the serious financial crisis affecting other major banking companies. This would explain why, at the opening of the first jubilee in 1300, Boniface allegedly defined the Florentines as the ‘fifth element’ of the world, thus considering them as essential to life as earth, air, fire, and water.⁶ Florins naturally flowed into the coffers of papal collectors mainly because of their near ubiquity. In the same way as for the Angevin Crown, the florin became an instrument of power, ascertaining papal authority in the political arena of the time, especially by financing the pope’s projects and campaigns within and outside the Italian peninsula.

Taken together, the chapters have shown that the interplay between the different actors of the political, military, financial, and mercantile realms created a dynamic in which one factor of success depended on the other. The identification of one single element of success is perhaps moot, and it was instead the co-presence and convergence of several aspects that was crucial. Additionally, neither metallist nor chartalist approaches alone have fully captured the florin’s complex and multifaceted nature. Chartalism, for instance, cannot explain the market dynamics that led the florin, conceived here as a commodity money with unique intrinsic value and features, to outperform the competition of the other – yet debased – gold coins. On the contrary, metallism does not help us understand the florin as a key element in the acquisition of power and as an instigator of social and political change. Only the combination of the two, or what Katsari has interestingly called ‘fiscal metallism’, makes it possible for us to fully grasp the early life of the florin in the historical context it inhabited.⁷

More generally, the analysis has revealed that money, whether in the form of goods (i.e., shells, pepper or stones), coins such as medieval Chinese strings of cash coins (guàn), modern Reales de a ocho (pieces of eight) of the Spanish Empire, or today’s cryptocurrency, most notably Bitcoin, is not and never has been solely an economic artefact operating ‘over and above social – and political – life’.⁸ Money is and always has been a politically constructed object, created and shaped by historical contingencies and power relations, which cannot be ignored. In the case of the florin, in particular, our notions of economics and politics as entangled yet separate fields become blurred and untenable. While a separation between the political and financial spheres, and thus perhaps between politics and economics, characterised this period, the two realms remained deeply intertwined. In this context, the nature of the florin was twofold. On the one hand, the gold coin succeeded as an economic vehicle in the big business of the time, which was state-controlled resource extraction (both the papacy and the Angevin Kingdom) and force projection (Sicily). On the other, it became a political agent of change not only as an occasional tool and manifestation of power. The florin made kings, enabled military victories and, in turn, benefitted its operators, especially the merchants of Florence who, as they orchestrated, sponsored, and profiteered from their new creation, saw their status enhanced by the ‘political life’ of the florin.