Quertier, Cédric <br/><br/>
“The Frog and the Ox”? Fraudulous Rise, Wealth and Fall of a Super Company Emissary (Silimanni vs. Peruzzi, Florence, 1330) 

 -  2023.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 18 
<br/><br/> ‪In November-December 1330, three bankruptcy sentences were issued against Silimanno and Giovanni di Lottieri Silimanni, at the request of Tommaso Peruzzi. Unusually, one of them contains a long list of seized objects and another version mentions the individual price of the objects. These trials evoke the meteoric rise of an emissary in the English branch of the Peruzzi company. However, the interrogations reveal that it was based on the massive misappropriation of precious metals and coins, with the complicity of goldsmiths and his family in a period of crisis that threatened the company’s security.These trials thus open a window on the material wealth of the intermediary players in the trade of one of Europe’s largest economic center. It also questions the means or the methods that would have been necessary to maintain this fortune, as the Silimanni’s fall was as rapid as their rise.After presenting the protagonists, we describe the fraud, before explaining the composition of Silimanno’s movable fortune and ending with an examination of the trial of his brother Giovanni, an infamous merchant, capable of frequenting prison circles as well as supplying the most important families.‪