Much of the literature on Florentine economic history of the first half of the fourteenth century has focused on the very large companies, especially those of the Bardi and Peruzzi, perhaps leaving the impression that they were representative of business organizations during this period. Nothing could be further from the truth. The number of companies operating in Florence in the 1330s and 1340s ran to many hundreds. Hundreds more flourished in the numerous commercial centers in Italy and northwestern Europe. But the term “company” encompassed a broad range of enterprises of differing magnitude and complexity, the preponderance of which were small and simple businesses. Some were in manufacturing, others in merchandise trading, others in banking and money changing, and still others in combinations of these activities.

Only a few companies, however, embraced the entire spectrum. Of these, most formed relatively modest-sized organizations, with a small number of partners and limited capital. To be sure, there were many Italian companies of significant size during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, such as the Ricciardi of Lucca, the Bonsignori of Siena, and the Frescobaldi and Scali of Florence. And of the important non-Italian businesses, William de la Pole's had attained a size that made it a formidable competitor of the Italians in England and northern Europe. But there were a few international companies of such extraordinary dimensions that they deserve to be singled out with the special descriptive term “super-companies.”