The Two First Centuries of Florentine History: The Republic and Parties at the Time of Dante. Fourth Impression. — Dante Alighieri — John Shaqi
The Two First Centuries of Florentine History: The Republic and Parties at the Time of Dante. Fourth Impression.
Dante Alighieri · en
In the same year of 1338 the Calimala Guild owned twenty warehouses
in Florence, "yearly receiving more than ten thousand pieces of
cloth, to the value of three hundred thousand florins, all sold in
Florence, and without including those sent out of the city."[346] The
Calimala craftsmen were exceedingly skilled as refiners and dyers,
and particularly successful in preparing the crimson cloth for which
there was a great demand in Florence, as it was used for the _lucco_,
a hooded robe worn by all citizens entitled to enter the Public Palace
and sit in the tribunals or councils of the Republic. The two guilds
afterwards made a division of labour in order to avoid infringing each
others rights. The statutes absolutely prohibited the Calimala from
dying anything save foreign stuffs, and the Woollen Guild had dyers
of its own, forming, as it were, a subordinate association. These
dyers were bound to deposit three hundred florins with the guild as
a warranty, and fines were deducted from this sum whenever the goods
delivered were soiled or dyed a bad colour. The officers of the guilds
were exceedingly severe on these points. Every inch of cloth underwent
the minutest examination, and the least defect in colour, quality, or
measure exposed the workman to heavy penalties. Some of these great
Florentine guilds were not composed solely of one trade, but were often
agglomerations of various crafts, particularly in the case of the Wool
Guild, which included many kinds of workmen, ranging from carders of
the rough material to dyers and finers of the most costly fabrics.
Thus, the guild being able to carry on the manufacture in all its
details, and the different craftsmen required for the common end being
all bonded together, there was no fear that any one branch of the trade
would raise its prices to the detriment of the rest. The emblem of the
Wool Guild was a lamb bearing a flag (_Agnus Dei_), while the Calimala
showed a red eagle on a white bale corded with many twists.