The economic
results of the black death were and could be observed and described
nowhere else in all Europe as in this city.20 Only a Florentine could
have left it on record how it was expected that the scanty population
would have made everything cheap, and how instead of that labor and
commodities doubled in price; how the common people at first would do
no work at all, but simply give themselves up to enjoyment, how in the
city itself servants and maids were not to be had except at extravagant
wages; how the peasants would only hill the best lands, and left the
rest uncultivated; and how the enormous legacies bequeathed to the poor
at the time of the plague seemed afterwards useless, since the poor had
either died or had ceased to be poor. Lastly, on the occasion of a
great bequest, by which a childless philanthropist left six 'denarii'
to every beggar in the city, the attempt is made to give a
comprehensive statistical account of Florentine mendicancy.
This statistical view of things was at a later time still more highly
cultivated at Florence. The noteworthy point about it is that, as a
rule, we can perceive its connection with the higher aspects of
history, with art, and with culture in general. An inventory of the
year 1422 mentions, within the compass of the same document, the
seventy-two exchange offices which surrounded the 'Mercato Nuovo'; the
amount of coined money in circulation (two million golden florins); the
then new industry of gold spinning; the silk wares; Filippo
Brunellesco, then busy in digging classical architecture from its
grave; and Leonardo Aretino, secretary of the republic, at work at the
revival of ancient literature and eloquence; lastly, it speaks of the
general prosperity of the city, then free from political conflicts, and
of the good fortune of Italy, which had rid itself of foreign
mercenaries.
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