[344] Pagnini, "Della Decima," ibid.
[345] Villani, lib. xi. chap. 94.
[346] Villani, lib. xi. chap. 94.
[347] It would seem that the Guild of Por' Santa Maria originally traded in Florentine woollen stuffs, and that the silk merchants formed a secondary and separate branch. Gradually, however, they became amalgamated with the guild (early in the thirteenth century), and then became its principal components, until at last the Silk Guild and Por' Santa Maria were entirely fused in one.
[348] Vide the "Cronaca" of Benedetto Dei (1470–92), preserved among the MSS. of the Magliabecchian Library. Many interesting portions of this "Cronaca" have been published in the appendix to vol. ii. of Pagnini's "Decima."
[349] Vide the same "Cronaca" of Dei.
[350] "Again, a law was passed in 1371, inasmuch as many men traded the shares of the Monte in this wise: One said to another: 'the shares of the Monte are at thirty; I wish to do some business with you to-day. This time next year I'll sell to you, or you to me, at what price shall we say?' At thirty-one the share [of one hundred]? 'What premium do you ask for this?' So they bargained, and the terms were fixed. When shares fell, the merchant bought, if they rose, he sold out, and the stock changed hands twenty times in the year. Accordingly a tax was charged of two florins in the hundred for every transfer." Marchionne di Coppo Stefani, vol. viii. p. 97, in the "Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani," vol. xiv.
[351] Vettori, "Il Fiorino d'oro"; Orsini, "Storia delle Monete." Florence, 1760.
[352] Pagnini, "Della Decima," vol. ii. sec. iii. chaps. i.-iv. Other details are supplied by Ammirato, Dei, and more especially by Villani (xi. 88, and xii. 55).
[353] G. Villani, xl. 54.