THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN the various currencies that appear in Ippolito’s account books is enormously complex. Most states in sixteenth-century Europe had their own silver-based coinage. France, which had long been a centralized monarchy, had a single system based on the livre (1 livre = 20 sous = 240 deniers). In Italy, where the peninsula was fragmented into numerous different states, each city had its own local currency: Ferrara, for example, used the lira march-esana (1 lira = 20 soldi = 240 denari), while Rome preferred a decimal system based on the scudo di moneta (1 scudo di moneta = 10 giulii = 100 baiocchi). There were also internationally recognized gold coins, such as the Venetian ducat, the Florentine florin and the gold scudo. The latter appears frequently in Ippolito’s account books and could clearly be used across Europe. Wealth was assessed in gold, the currency of inter-national trade, while silver coinage was used for everyday transactions, such as buying food or paying wages. These currencies, gold and silver, fluctuated against each other in response to market forces: during the years 1534—40, the period covered by this book, the gold scudo was worth 45 sous in France, 70 soldi in Ferrara and 105 baiocchi in Rome.
To simplify the bewildering number of currencies that appear as a result of Ippolito’s extensive travels, I have translated all prices into gold scudi, only occasionally using the local currency to clarify exchange rates.
What was the gold scudo worth in today’s terms? There is no single answer to this question. In 1536—40 a scudo would buy 28 chickens or 50 kg of flour and represented one week’s wages for a master builder. Nowadays a builder can easily earn £500 a week, but 50 kg of flour costs only £30.