Francesco Guidi Bruscoli

Fellow Type
Visiting Fellow
Fellowship
H.P. Kraus Fellowship in Early Books and Manuscripts
Fellowship Year
2009-2010
Project Title/Topic
The Borromei at the Papal Court and Their Mercantile Network Across Europe
Affiliation/Department
University of Florence
Biography

Dr. Francesco Guidi-Bruscoli gained his degree at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Florence. After an MA in Later Medieval Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London, he went back to Italy, where he obtained his PhD in Economic History at the University of Bari (1998); his thesis won the Young Scholar Prize of the European Association for Banking History. In 2002-2004 he was at Queen Mary, University of London, as a Research Assistant to the Borromei Bank Research Project. In 2005 he moved back to Italy, where he now teaches Economic History at the University of Florence, but was also appointed Senior Research Fellow of the History Department of Queen Mary. In 2007 he was enseignant invité at Université de Paris VII.Dr Guidi-Bruscoli’s main research interests focus on the activity of Italian merchant bankers between XIV and XVI centuries. During the later Middle Ages, Italian merchants often constituted the main link between different areas of Europe, thanks to their networks extending on all corners of the continent and beyond. Their business involved international trade, exchange by means of written instruments and loans to sovereign and popes. In addition, Dr Guidi is concerned with their strategies of settlement abroad, their interaction with local markets and with issues such as their collaboration and competition with each other.His most recent publications include, among others, a volume (Papal Banking in Renaissance Rome, Aldershot: 2007) and several articles: ‘When did Antwerp replace Bruges as the commercial and financial centre of north-western Europe? The evidence of the Borromei ledger for 1438’ (with J.L. Bolton), The Economic History Review, 61, n.2 (2008), pp. 360-379; ‘Banchieri senesi nel primo Cinquecento tra Roma, Lione e la penisola iberica’, in L’ultimo secolo della Repubblica di Siena. Politica e istituzioni, economia e società, ed. by M. Ascheri – F. Nevola (Siena: 2007), pp. 385-409; ‘Mercanti-banchieri e appalti pontifici nella prima metà del Cinquecento’, in Offices, écrit et papauté (XIIIe-XVIIe siècle), ed. by A. Jamme-O. Poncet (Rome: 2007), pp. 517-543; ‘Le tecniche bancarie’, in Il Rinascimento italiano e l’Europa, vol. 4, Commercio e cultura mercantile, ed. by F. Franceschi, R.A. Goldthwaite, R.C. Mueller (Vicenza: 2007), pp. 543-566. He also edited and calendared, with J. Bolton, The ledger of Filippo Borromei and co. of Bruges, 1438, available online at http://www.queenmaryhistoricalresearch.org.The fellowship at Beinecke Library will allow him to investigate the papers of a Florentine mercantile family: the Spinelli.