Cadastre

A house in the city might cost hundreds.

Only nine years ago, in 1427, Florence carried out a remarkable survey of its citizens' wealth, the Catasto, in which every household had to declare its property, income and debts for tax purposes.

The records survive, and they give historians an extraordinary picture of the city's economy.

They show a city of enormous inequality, in which a small number of families held a vast share of the wealth, and many thousands lived close to poverty.