Expenditures and revenues June 6°, 1379 – December 31°, 1384

ASUPg, Sapienza Nuova, Collegio della Mercanzia, reg. no. 2

Parchment-bound paper accounting book

Probably arose in the early thirteenth century, the Art of Mercanzia of Perugia was considered as the leading citizen corporation and used to regulate the activity and the organization of professionals working in the field of textile products trade (mercatores).

As prescribed in the first Statute of 1323, the Mercanzia was in charge of the administration of a Hospitalis, founded less than a century before and located in porta Sant'Angelo; we find clear indications about the keeping of its accounting records in the statutes and subsequent amendments: the entire accounting documentation had to be drawn up by the notary of the Mercanzia, from the month of May or June till the following year.

The sick, the poor and the guests of the Hospital are not a homogeneous category, so even the organization of the distribution of meals and of the admission procedures was structured with systematic precision, described in details in the register entries.

In the book chapters is reported a wide range of expenditures: masonry work, wages paid to vineyards and field workers, Priors travel expenses, clothing and food for domestic servants, kitchen tools, food for civil and religious festivities.

The displayed page represents one of these expenditures: “doie paia de polastre per gli enferme”. (two chickens for the sick)

Full meals (bread and meat or fish) were daily distributed, together with wine, and “calçarethe” (woolen trousers) were commissioned to clothe the poor.

The meals for the sick partly depended on local market practice, partly were planned on the basis of medical science.

It is worth paying attention to the affinity with Montagnana’s indications on eating well to preserve health: spices, vegetables and meat, prepared according to the medical-culinary art, were always intended in the service of health rather than of gluttony.