The bOok aS CompAss: Mercantile Culture and the Shaping of Literary and Artistic Taste in Late Medieval Southern Europe

Objective

The TOSCA (The bOok aS CompAss) project investigates the interplay between vernacular writing, mercantile networks and visual culture in late medieval southern Europe. It reinterprets manuscripts, registers, correspondence and inventories as dynamic artefacts that channelled knowledge and exchange across commercial routes. Focusing on the Datini Archive in Prato (Tuscany, Italy), TOSCA sheds light on the cultural contributions of Tuscan and Italo-Catalan merchants and their families, including women, who ventured beyond traditional urban centres, revealing alternative landscapes of literary and artistic production. Three case studies examine women’s patronage and mediation, the dissemination of vernacular literacy and non-rhetorical humanism, and the role of decorated manuscripts as precursors to 'visual and popular humanism', which originated in mercantile environments. By combining archival research with digital tools such as prosopographical databases, network analysis and semantic modelling, the project generates FAIR datasets and a replicable framework for studying premodern knowledge transmission. Integrating approaches from cultural history and art history, TOSCA expands our understanding of European humanism, contributes to the valorisation of Europe’s cultural heritage, and supports the researcher’s career development as an independent scholar in cultural history and digital humanities.