15 mai – Les Rencontres du GEHM – EHESS, Paris

Was Renaissance Florence the cradle of Western capitalism and individualism? This seminar offers new answers to this old question. The presentation draws on an ongoing analysis of nearly 5,000 contracts of sociétés en commandite registered in Florence from 1445 to 1808. Since Max Weber, scholars have assigned to sociétés en commandite a crucial role in the development of Western capitalism, but to date no broad empirical study has illustrated who used this type of contract, when, and for what purposes. My project brings together the tradition inaugurated by David Herlihy’s and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber’s study of the 1427 catasto with insights from the new institutional economic history and the Digital Humanities. Preliminary results suggest that information technology and religious prejudice mattered as much as, if not more than, secure property rights.