Florentine Renaissance Resources: Online Catasto of 1427 Database

A database of Renaissance Florentine tax data.

The Online Catasto of 1427 is a web-searchable version of tax data for the city of Florence in 1427-29 based on David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Census and Property Survey of Florentine Dominions in the Province of Tuscany, 1427-1480. The Online Catasto provides the same information that is contained in the print volumes currently in the Archivio di Stato in Florence, but adds some variables that are not present in those volumes. As an early example of the capabilities of the WWW, Geoffrey Bilder converted the existing data of the Florentine Catasto from David Herlihy’s original database files into Sybase, and developed a web-based search capability that provided for complex queries and statistical views of tax data, households, occupations, and assets. In 1999, Burr Litchfield and Anthony Molho were awarded an NEH grant to clean up, supplement and publish more of Herlihy’s original research. When the work of supplementing and checking the additional information was complete, STG worked with Litchfield to publish the new data, structuring a database and developing an interface for the new materials. STG also consulted with Litchfield on an ongoing basis about the former and future formatting and organization of the new information.

Florentine Renaissance Resources: Online Catasto of 1427 Database is a project of the History Department

Contributors to this project include Elli Mylonas (CDS), Geoffrey Bilder (STG), Anthony Molho (Faculty lead), Carole Mah (STG), R. Burr Litchfield
(Faculty lead)

Funding for this project came from NEH PA-23264-99 ($70,420)