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Who was Gregorio Dati?
The Florentine merchant Gregorio Dati (1362–1435)—also known as Goro—was extremely successful in the late-fourteenth- and early-fifteenth-century silk trade. From modest beginnings, he developed multiple partnerships—especially with a brother based in Valencia, Spain—and eventually rose in influence in his native city to various prominent professional and civic posts: consul of the Silk Merchants' Guild, overseer of the prestigious Ospedale degli Innocenti (charitable hospital) and head of the town council or Signoria. Perhaps unexpectedly for a merchant, Goro was also a prolific writer, whose surviving works range from the fairly public (an Istoria di Firenze / History of Florence that covers the years 1380–1404) to the intensely personal (his Memorie / Memoirs and Libro Segreto / Secret Book). And then there is La sfera / The Sphere, a poetic textbook designed to teach the next generation of Florentine merchants about natural phenomena, navigation, and the topography of the Mediterranean.
Why is Dati's Work Still Important Today?
Against the modern misconception that medieval people believed the world was flat, La sfera articulates European perspectives on the world in the period before the “Age of Exploration.” Dati's work also shows how connected mercantilism and navigation were during a time of increased maritime trade. His treatise provides a concise introduction to medieval cosmology, science, geography, and navigation: all the basic information a young Florentine student or apprentice would need to understand the natural phenomena affecting travel and trade around the turn of the fifteenth century.
The Goro-Leonardo Debate
The authorship of La Sfera is, to some, a suspicious matter. Most of the manuscripts of La sfera that mention the work's author (at least 25 of the more than 150 manuscripts surviving) attribute it to Gregorio Dati. At least 6 other manuscripts, however, attribute the work to Goro's younger brother Leonardo, a high-ranking Dominican friar who served for some time as the order's Minister General. Because of this, some historians suggest that Goro Dati’s brother, Fra Leonardo Dati, was responsible for the text. Leonardo enjoyed extensive ecclesiastical education, whereas Goro concluded formal schooling at age thirteen. Some would assume that, as Goro seemingly lacked the education to write La Sfera, his more educated brother – who is credited as writing a portion of the text – wrote it himself.
However, this assumption does immense disservice to the power and education of Florentine merchants. Goro Dati may not have enjoyed as much formal schooling, but he was able to learn informally as an apprentice and merchant in the Florentine cloth trade, which would have provided more than enough material to produce La Sfera. Florentine cloth merchants operated throughout Europe and Asia Minor, and in fact maintained Florence’s place at the forefront of the Medieval mercantile world. Such men understood the complexities of trade, and by extension, the plethora of subjects detailed in Goro Dati’s work.
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