Mason,
    Savanarola was basically a blip, in power only for a couple of years.  Yes, he marked the end of the high point of the Renaissance as an intellectual movement after the death of Lorenzo Il Magnifico, but economically and politically, Florence was more powerful and dominant during the following century, with its artistic output at a peak in the first half of that century, when such masters as Michelangelo and Leonardo were at work there, with arguably the world's greatest painting being painted there at that time by Leonardo, even if it ended up in France.
Barkley

-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of mason gaffney
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 2:46 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] risk and Far East philosophy/economics

It may be a mistake to equate The Italian Renaissance with a peak in civic, social and economic health. Think Ozymandias. Civilizations that leave expensive artifacts for us to admire centuries later may be in a stage of socio-economic decadence punctuated by revolution and disaster, as happened in Florence in 1494 with Savanarola and the Bonfire of the Vanities. 

Mason Gaffney

-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rob Tye
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 7:22 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] risk and Far East philosophy/economics

Dear Prof. Rosser

<<The 15th (century) saw the flowering of the Renaissance in Italy>>

I feel this stands in need of clarification.  Spufford seems to be correct in fixing a low point in pan-European monetary history in the exact year 1464, when coin issue came to a standstill almost everywhere, Venice and Milan included.  Trade stopped, and banks failed even in Florence.  The recovery, soon after in the 1470's, likewise was Europe wide.  Italy stood at the hub of these events but was not disconnected from the rest.

<<Braudel probably providing the best account of all that>>

I would not comment on those specific passages in Braudel, but I like to expand on my earlier negative comments on his work, as follows.  In passages I mentioned earlier, in his Capitalism and Material Life Braudel makes a general summary of the early modern Indian economy which is wrong, and preposterously so.  I spent a good part of the 1980's attempting to publish the necessary refutation of his simplistic, counterfactual bullionist approach, with no success what so ever.  It seemed no one wanted to see criticism of Braudel in print.  In the 1990's I abandoned historical research altogether for a good while, to investigate instead the background to Braudel's work.  At that time it was easy to track the many somewhat political affiliations his patron Lucien Febvre had forged in the murky worlds of interwar France and Cold War USA.  But it was not until 2002 I think, that confirmation began to appear in print that the large donations made to Braudel's academic institution by the Ford Foundation under McGeorge Bundy were made with regard to his political rather than intellectual value.
 Nor did I discover until then that the syllabus of Braudel's Maison des Sciences de l'Homme was co-written with Paul Lazarsfeld

I corresponded with Wallerstein (among many others) about 20 years back,.
asking how Braudel could make such a blunder, and got the reply that Braudel did not know much about India.  But is it reasonable to suppose that a man described as "one of the greatest of the modern historians", could go to print with work that would disgrace a secondary school essay, because he did not know any better?

Sincerely

Rob Tye, York, UK