Palazzo Datini, Medieval palace in Prato, Italy
Palazzo Datini is a medieval urban palace in Prato that blends a former residence with a museum dedicated to merchant life. Its interior courtyard features a portico with two naves and a central stone well, while the ground floor displays artifacts illustrating medieval commerce and trading practices.
Francesco Datini, a wealthy merchant dealing in weapons, jewels, and textiles, commissioned this palace in 1383 as his family residence. The building later became an important repository of commercial documents that shaped understanding of medieval trade practices.
The interior walls display frescoes painted by skilled artists of the late 14th century, reflecting the artistic tastes of wealthy merchant families of that time.
You can visit the ground floor to view medieval trading artifacts and access the State Archives, which hold more than 150,000 historical letters and documents. Exploring both sections gives a sense of how this merchant household operated and how its records have survived for centuries.
A vast collection of business correspondence and documents lay hidden within the palace walls for over 400 years until scholars discovered them in the 1800s. These papers offer one of the most detailed records of how a wealthy medieval merchant family actually conducted daily business and managed their affairs.
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