Description:
Dati's La sfera/The Globe presents an Italian/English edition of this treatise on geography, cosmology, astronomy, and astrology, composed in the 1420s in Florence. Illustrated by dozens of color examples from original manuscripts.
Brief description: Gregorio Dati (1362-1435) was the son of the Florentine silk merchant Anastagio Dati and became a silk merchant himself. By 1384, he was conducting business in Valencia, Barcelona, and the Balearic Islands. Despite business failures, capture by pirates, and unscrupulous partners, he kept his business afloat. His four marriages bore Dati twenty-six legitimate children and an illegitimate son by an enslaved Tatar woman, Margherita. Dati was elected eleven times as consul of the Florentine silk guild, served on the Florentine trade board, and was twice Gonfaloniere di compagnia. In 1425, he was prior on the city's highest council, and in 1429 as Gonfaloniere di giustizia, its highest office. Between 1430 and 1433 he continued to advise in the city's deliberations.