摘要：In this essay, I re-examine Florentine woolen textile manufacture
with a focus on the types and quantities of cloth produced.
Although classic historiography notes several fluctuations in the
quantity and value of the sector’s output during the sixteenth
century, my approach to the archival sources shows a continuous
decline. In a time of crisis, the Arte della Lana partnerships
introduced new textiles between the end of the fifteenth and the
sixteenth century. These were high-quality cloths, able to bear the
rising costs of raw materials and skilled labor. The partnerships
also intervened by reducing the costs of managing unskilled labor,
using the services of fattori (labor masters) charged with supplying
labor and remuneration for unskilled workers (ciompi) who
performed the first phases of wool processing. These changes
influenced the partnerships’ bookkeeping methods; comparisons
of account books from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries
reveal downsizing of the accounting system.
