Household accounts and hidden-cash notes, April 1499
Payments to Salai and others, where ducats are hidden, and a tally of holdings
Financial memoranda are scattered across the margins and columns of a working sheet. One column lists payments — Salai 20 lire, Fazio 2, Bartolomeo 4, Arrigo 15 — while another records 'I find myself with 218 lire on the first day of April 1499' and notes ducats hidden in various corners (on white paper by the nails, on blue paper, above the little ears). A long passage tallies holdings in ducats, doubloons, Alfonsini, Rhenish florins, grossoni and ambrosini, adding up to totals in lire, with columns of figures worked in the upper corner. The centre and lower part of the sheet also bear mechanical linkage and lever sketches that the bundle does not transcribe.
On this page
Payments to Salai, Fazio, Bartolomeo and Arrigo
A short right-hand column lists sums owed or paid: Salai 20 lire, for Fazio 2 lire, Bartolomeo 4 lire, and Arrigo 15 lire.
Cash on hand and hiding-places, 1 April 1499
A memorandum records finding oneself with 218 lire on the first day of April 1499, alongside sums in ducats. It then notes where cash is stored: 20 ducats in the corner of the nails on white paper, 28 on blue paper beside the same corner, and 97 in the corner of the little shelf above the 'little ears'.
Tally of coin holdings and running totals
A dense reckoning converts double ducats, Alfonsini, Rhenish florins, grossoni and 'hands' of ambrosini into lire and shillings, repeating the hidden-cash entries and building sums such as 619 lire 15 s. Cloth in the chest and coins in the purse are counted, closing with a summary list of the holdings.
Untranscribed mechanical and lever sketches
Beyond the accounts, the sheet carries pen sketches of articulated levers and crane-like linkages, together with small windlass and balance figures, none of which are included in the transcription.