No abstract

Se intenta aclarar la formación de los centros urbanos y agrícolas del Nuevo Mundo a través de los documentos de los viajeros italianos en las Américas durante el siglo XVI. Los viajeros describían los procesos constructivos de ciudades y aldeas. De estos relatos emerge una situación que, aunque no exhaustiva, presenta interesantes aspectos de las arquitecturas de las casas, de las estructuras productivas y de edificios públicos o religiosos que, en algunos casos parecían influenciadas por el gusto del Renacimiento italiano.

No abstract

This study considers developments that led to the introduction and diffusion of double-entry bookkeeping in Tuscany in the late-thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. We examine the evolution of the four basic account books (debtors and creditors, cash, merchandise and moveable property), which, together with the capital account, established the basis of the accounting method. We reconstruct the social context of Tuscany to highlight how specific cultural factors, such as risk appetite and entrepreneurial spirit, fostered the creation of companies attentive to organisational modes of work and the valorisation of human capital. These elements, combined with an innate pragmatism of economic operators, produced innovation in the field of accounting as well. Accountants and firm managers were able to establish the double-entry bookkeeping method, which was not the result of abstract rules but rather of gradual evolution. Accounting systems can thus be considered as reflections of the society and the organisations in which they developed and spread.

Based on the reconstruction of the monetary flows of a merchant-banking company operating in Barcelona at the beginning of the fifteenth century, this study aims to understand the reasons behind exchange-rate variations in the local currency with respect to the principal European markets, as well as the modalities and predictability of such oscillations. By using real rather than ‘hearsay’ rates, we present new assessments of the seasonal character of exchange rates and their sensitivity to conditions of currency abundance or shortage. In addition, econometric analysis shows that exchange-rate volatility was quite modest and dependent on geographic and macroeconomic factors, such as the system of commercial flows.