Together with introducing a set of key innovations in commercial practices, the merchant-bankers of the commercial revolution of the 13th century were also the first European economic agents to adopt Hindu-Arabic numerals. As practical arithmetic provided the mathematical foundation for commercial innovations, studying its European spread provides a particularly suitable angle to study the diffusion of practical knowledge in the pre-modern period. Italy was the early adopter of these techniques, while in England these practices became widespread at the onset of the little divergence. In this paper, I discuss in comparative perspective the social diffusion of this knowledge in Italy and England, and its wider impact. On the one hand, this analysis makes it possible to show a number of parallels between the trajectories followed by these societies. On the other hand, it allows to observe the complex interactions between practical knowledge and wider economic, institutional, and social changes.
Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies Pisa, Italy
Titolo del capitolo
The spread of Hindu-Arabic numerals among practitioners in Italy and England (13th-16th c.): two moments of a European innovation cycle?
Autori
Raffaele Danna
Lingua
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0092-9.06
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2023
Copyright
© 2023 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
L’economia della conoscenza: innovazione, produttività e crescita economica nei secoli XIII-XVIII / The knowledge economy: innovation, productivity and economic growth, 13th to 18th century
Curatori
Giampiero Nigro
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
456
Anno di pubblicazione
2023
Copyright
© 2023 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0092-9
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0091-2
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0092-9
Collana
Datini Studies in Economic History
ISSN della collana
2975-1241
e-ISSN della collana
2975-1195