Business History ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fbsh20 An aristocratic enterprise: the Ginori porcelain manufactory (1735–1896) Monika Poettinger To cite this article: Monika Poettinger (2020): An aristocratic enterprise: the Ginori porcelain manufactory (1735–1896), Business History, DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2020.1801643 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1801643 Published online: 24 Aug 2020. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 11 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fbsh20 Business History https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1801643 An aristocratic enterprise: the Ginori porcelain manufactory (1735–1896) Monika Poettinger Department for institutional Analysis and Public Management, Bocconi university, Milan, italy ABSTRACT KEYWORDS This study analyses the history of the Ginori porcelain manufactory, from its foundation owing to the entrepreneurial effort of the marquis Carlo Ginori in the 1730s to the merger with the ‘Società Ceramica Richard’ in 1896. The aristocratic entrepreneurship marked the manufactory with some atypical traits in accountancy, administration, succession, and strategic decisions that persisted for all the century and a half during which it remained in the hands of the Ginori family. The history of the Ginori manufactory so highlights a kind of entrepreneurship neglected by historiography. Porcelain; aristocratic entrepreneurship; Carlo Ginori; industrialisation; Tuscany; XVIII century; XIX century; Doccia manufactory CLASSIFICATION CODES N13; N33; N83 The foundation of the Ginori manufactory At the origin of the Ginori manufactory was the entrepreneurial idea developed by the scion of one of the leading aristocratic families of Tuscany: Carlo Ginori (1702–1757). Educated by Jesuits to become one of the advisors of the Medici family in the government of Tuscany, Carlo was also valued and respected by Francesco Lorena, who took over the Grand Duchy in 1737. Immediately appointed in the Consiglio di Reggenza, Carlo Ginori was responsible for the finances of the state and as such the most powerful Tuscan representative in the local government. To limit his growing influence, feared by Austrian envoys and officials, in 1746 Carlo was finally sent as governor to the port city of Leghorn, where he died in 1757. The education received by Carlo also included an enlightened pursuit of scientific interests, and chemistry became a veritable passion for the marquis. In his Florentine palace he set up a laboratory comparable to the ones of the most skilful alchemists of the time. Hence the interest in porcelain, whose manufacturing secret, sought after by Jesuits in China for a long time, was considered one of the most precious formulae of alchemy. The kick-off of the manufacturing activity can be dated to 1737, when Carlo Ginori relocated the experiments on porcelain to Doccia, the villa of the family estate situated in Sesto Fiorentino, a few miles away from Florence. At that time, he had finalised his own recipe for porcelain and thanks to a journey to Vienna he had also been able to acquire the services of skilled personnel from the local porcelain manufactory (Biancalana 2005; Lehner-Jobst 2005; Sturm-Bednarczyk & O’Donovan 2005). CONTACT Monika Poettinger Monika.poettinger@unibocconi.it © 2020 informa uK Limited, trading as taylor & Francis Group 2 M. POETTINGER AND M. POETTINGER The rationale of this aristocratic venture, though, is still controversial. Historiography doubts that Carlo Ginori can be considered an entrepreneur and his manufactory a modern enterprise. This essay challenges this view, thanks to a thorough survey of the archive of the Ginori family and of the archive of the manufactory in Sesto Fiorentino1 that uncovered new sources and accounting documents. Carlo Ginori valued the prestige entailed in the production of porcelain and founded his venture to create employment and thusly maintain over Sesto Fiorentino a feudal kind of control. Nonetheless the accounting practices, described in the following, reveal how the Ginori manufactory was set up and managed, expecting to produce profits by selling its goods on the market, as every merchant enterprise of its time. The aristocratic nature of the venture, though, influenced its structure and strategy as long as it remained in the possession of the Ginori family. As will be shown in the second paragraph, the accounting practices, the centralization of the production, inheritance norms and the absence of juridical personality were all consequences of the peculiar origin of the manufactory. A measure of the difference between the Ginori manufactory and other contemporary merchant enterprises can be appreciated by considering that no certain foundation date can be fixed. Some historians canonise the year 1735, when Carlo Ginori expressed his intention to set up a porcelain production, others the year 1737, when the production site in Doccia was established. Such uncertainty is unthinkable for merchant ventures whose foundation is easily traceable through notary acts and registration or incorporation procedures. By detailing the peculiar characters of the Ginori factory and of its administration, this essay wishes also to contribute to the revived debate on the role of aristocratic entrepreneurship in economic development processes (Church, 2003). Recent historiography on the Italian case revalued the entrepreneurial traits of the aristocracy in the early modern period (Calcaterra, 2017, pp. 150–166) and the later industrialisation process (Ciuffetti, 2009; De Luca, 2009; Tedeschi, 2009; Conca Messina, 2014; Tolaini, 2019). In Milan, in the middle of the 19th century, aristocrats contributed substantially to the capital invested in partnerships and companies, acting as leading investors and injecting trust in the process of structural change (Poettinger, 2015). Tuscany’s case is different. In the 19th century the local nobility preferred financial speculation and the innovation in agriculture to manufacture (Poettinger, 2017). The porcelain production, managed by the Ginori family for over a century as part of the estate of Doccia, is, also in this regard, worthwhile analysing for its uniqueness. The entrepreneurial idea: a mercantilist pursuit The starting point of a business history is always the entrepreneurial idea. Each time, the birth of a firm follows a stroke of genius, a rebellion to the economic equilibrium, a Schumpeterian innovation that is strictly individual. Not by chance did Richard Cantillon define, for the first time, the economic function of entrepreneurs not long before Carlo Ginori decided to set up his porcelain manufacture (Poettinger, 2007). He described entrepreneurs as economic actors that suffered definite costs in the present and expected an uncertain income in the future. A risky business, that of entrepreneurs, that disrupted the societal structure of the ancien régime, paving the way to modernization in economy and society. Could a nobleman such as Carlo Ginori fit in the definition of Cantillon? Was the Tuscan marquis an entrepreneur? BuSINESS HISTORy 3 The picture emerging from archival data is multifaceted and complex. Official documents depict Carlo Ginori as a politician more than an entrepreneur. The management of his possessions and of the lands that he administered on behalf of Francesco Lorena, followed mercantilist principles. Carlo Ginori waged war with economic weapons for a wealthier and powerful Tuscany. He made the land flourish with a multitude of manufactories that employed local resources and generated exports or substituted costly imports. Documents of the Consiglio di Reggenza, the governing body that Francesco Lorena entrusted with the administration of Tuscany, report in detail the activities of Ginori in his own feud of Cecina and in the governorate of Leghorn (Balleri et al., 2006, pp. 28–29). Ginori drained the wetlands surrounding Cecina and then built a Roman-style villa (Zocchi, 1753, p. 30) to host a multiplicity of manufactures: preservation of oily fish, processing of coral, firing of earthenware and weaving of straw hats. Thanks to these activities, many families of fishermen that had migrated from the coast of Maremma because fishing alone could not ensure survival, settled back. After just a decade of activity, in 1748, the ‘corallari’, who had arrived in Cecina from Naples and Sicily, came to employ 17 boats with a crew of 50 sailors each (Mari, 1744). The coral manufacturing activity, then, employed 300 workers (Relazione, 1754). In Leghorn Carlo Ginori ruled along the same lines. He built a new city district to host all activities related to the processing of fish and the production of fishing nets. He even promoted the construction of a new shipyard (Consiglio di Reggenza, n.1744d.). Nonetheless, the porcelain manufacture set up by Carlo Ginori in Doccia, just beneath the hills in the west of Florence,2 was different from the activities in Cecina and Leghorn. Tuscany lacked completely the raw materials and the technical capabilities needed for such a manufacture. A fact that even the continuous and unrelenting geological researches of the marquis could not change. The production of porcelain could neither exploit a comparative advantage in resources, in location or knowledge of the region, nor expect to enjoy potential economies of scale. The entrepreneurial idea, in the case of Doccia, did not follow from the ordered development of Tuscany’s productive forces according to the dictates of comparative advantages. Whereas in Cecina and Leghorn Carlo Ginori introduced manufactures that derived from long standing local activities like fishing or a peculiar local resource like coral, porcelain was completely out of context. The entrepreneurial idea: a merchant’s speculation An alternative explanation, for what contemporaries judged as an extravagance, is offered by Adam Smith, writing, again not per chance, in 1776 (Smith, 2004, pp. 238–39). Smith judged the introduction in a territory of extraneous manufactures as the result of the violent operation of the international trade in luxury wares. The importation of extravagant goods from foreign countries created an inexhaustible demand and granted a level of profits that had no relation with the local economy. The same merchants, then, who imported these precious wares, set up local manufactories to imitate the foreign products and exploit the newly generated demand. Could this be the case of the Ginori porcelain factory? For over a century the Ginori family had managed Portuguese and Spanish trade with the East Indies, also buying and selling porcelain pieces (Spallanzani, 1997; Radulet, 2000; Alessandrini, 2006). The most striking proof of this business is the huge Chinese porcelain service with the family’s coat of arms that the father of Carlo, Lorenzo Ginori (Viola, 2012), 4 M. POETTINGER AND M. POETTINGER commissioned in Goa at the end of the seventeenth century and had delivered to Florence between 1700 and 1701. At that date, Lorenzo had just returned to live in Tuscany from Lisbon, where he had administered for some decades a complex trade network and had acted as Consul of the Grand Duchy. Among his manifold businesses, Lorenzo had supervised the orders of porcelain that the Grand Duke Cosimo III de’ Medici (1642–1723), a collector, made to the merchants in Goa. Lorenzo Ginori had also devised and lobbied for the constitution of a Tuscan trading company for the East and West Indies (Auditore dei benefici Ecclesiastici, n.2012d.): a plan nullified by the opposition of Holland. No one better than he had an accurate knowledge of the porcelain trade, of the growing European demand and of the potential profits to be obtained by setting up a local manufacture imitating the Chinese and Japanese products. What better endeavour for his first-born son, Carlo? Along these lines, the manufactory of Doccia sprang out of the abrupt changes in the international production and demand for porcelain of the second half of the seventeenth century. For a long time, Europe had been completely ignorant of the production process of porcelain and at the same time had had no use for the resulting products. Chinese porcelain and its Middle Eastern imitations had been confined to the treasure chambers of cathedrals and to princes’ Wunderkammern (Hofmann, 1980, pp. 14–15), or had been used as architectural decoration. They had, as in the studies of Marco Spallanzani, a modest economic value if compared to other luxury products (Spallanzani, 1997, pp. 107–128). A fact confirmed by the available statistics on Chinese porcelain imports until the end of the seventeenth century. Even if Portugal had stabilised the trading routes to China,3 from 15204 to the middle of the seventeenth century imports were limited to 30,000–60,000 pieces for every Portuguese cargo sailing home from the Indies (Arez et al., 1984, pp. 16–18). From 1604 to 1657 Dutchmen, instead, imported around three million porcelain pieces (Volker, 1954). These small numbers are also biased by the fact that porcelain was the preferred ballast for the journey back from the East Indies around the Cape of Good Hope. Demand alone would have justified even slighter quantities. Two events, in the middle of the seventeenth century, abruptly changed the situation (Emerson et al., 2000). First, the almost complete embargo of China on porcelain exports, levied in 1657, that lasted officially until 1682, but really until 1695 (Le Corbeiller, 1974, p. 2). Second, the growing diffusion in Europe of new beverages: tea, coffee and chocolate (Coe & Coe 2013, pp. 125–74; Schivelbusch, 1992; Clarence-Smith, 2003, pp. 8–10). These new consumption goods gave, at last, a cultural significance to Chinese porcelain, stimulating its widespread use and appreciation (Jones, 2013). An appreciation that resulted in an increased monetary value of porcelain, all the while the Japanese production and the imitations crafted as earthenware in Kubachi, Dagestan, could only partially replace the ceased Chinese imports5. Tuscany was at the forefront of these changes. The Medici family had always been a collector of porcelain. Lorenzo il Magnifico and his successors were involved in complex gift exchanges with other monarchs that included porcelain pieces as diplomatic donations (Spallanzani, 1997, pp. 66–67). Between 1575 and 1587, Francesco I even succeeded in crafting soft paste porcelain pieces in the court manufactory directed by Bernardo Buontalenti. The so-called Medici porcelain (Cora & Fanfani, 1986) was used as gifts for powerful friends and at the Medici table. Later, at the beginning of the 18th century, the court of Cosimo III BuSINESS HISTORy 5 was among the first, in Europe, to collect and acquire Chinese porcelain not just for its value as a curiosity or an object of craftmanship, but in relation to a precise use: the drinking of the new beverages, particularly chocolate. From Tuscany, the recipes for tasty beverages based on cocoa found their way into France and the Papal States, spreading the use of beautiful porcelain services. The Continent soon experienced an unexhausted demand for the new dishware. For the whole 18th century, estimates quantify imports of porcelain in Europe from China at approximately 60 million pieces (Le Corbeiller, 1974, 9). The mania for porcelain created an entrepreneurial opportunity that moved many Europeans into the new sector, with the aim of reproducing the Chinese artefacts that had suddenly become so rare and precious.6 Adam Smith, surely, would have subscribed to this interpretation of the founding of the manufactories of Meissen, Vienna, Venice and Doccia in the first decades of the eighteenth century7. The entrepreneurial idea: the pursuit of prestige The current historiography of the Ginori manufacture, though, offers a completely different explanation for the setting up of the porcelain production in the outskirts of Florence (Mottola Molfino, 1976, p. 9). According to the vulgate, the marquis Carlo Ginori launched the new activity in Doccia following prestige expectations more than profit expectations, so that he suffered the repeated and lamented losses of the manufactory without ever thinking of closing it down (Graph 1). More than as a modern business enterprise, the Ginori manufactory should so be analysed and classified as one of the court manufactories of the Renaissance. The products of these factories were the prerogative of the kings and aristocrats who financed them and otherwise used them as gifts for vassals and potential allies (Giusti, 2006). Private commissions, if allowed, surely did not have the purpose of making such ventures profitable. The absence of the profit motive and the disregard of the market as an exit for the production distinguished these manufactories from the later mercantilist ones, similarly financed by states and kings, but construed with the intention of reaping a monetary reward by selling their products in markets (Belozerskaya, 2005, p. 31). 14000 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 1748174917501751175217531754175517561757175817591760176117621763176417651766176717681769177017711772177317741775177617771778 -2000 -4000 Revenues Expenses Net Result Graph 1. Balance of annual revenues and expenses of the Doccia manufactory from 1748 to 1778 (scudi). 6 M. POETTINGER AND M. POETTINGER According to this historiography, Carlo Ginori founded his manufactory without any economic calculation, as visible proof of his rank and to establish himself as a credible successor to the Medici government: the guardian of Tuscan independency from Vienna. In fact, the first porcelain pieces, after a couple of years of experimenting, were finally produced in Doccia in the same year, 1737, when the government of Tuscany passed in to the hands of the Lorena dynasty after the death of Gian Gastone de’ Medici. Carlo Ginori also openly acknowledged the relationship of his produce with the court manufactory of the Medici porcelain, by marking many of the first products of Doccia with the same symbol: the dome of Florence. Furthermore, one of the most friendly clients and supporters of the venture was, for all her life, Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, sister of Gian Gastone, whose claim on the Grand Duchy had been refused by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. Another peculiar aspect of the production of porcelain was the secret of the formula. In the case of porcelain, the prestige due to the beauty and preciousness of the artefacts was heightened by the difficulty and secrecy of the production process: the arcanum of the white gold (Gleeson, 2013). Already Francesco I de’ Medici had boasted with other reigning families about the alchemical knowledge that allowed him to produce porcelain (Pierson, 2013, pp. 42–44). The recipe of the Medici porcelain, though, had been lost shortly after the end of the seventeenth century. When Carlo Ginori and other alchemists experimented to rediscover the exact mixture of earth that would resist fire and become a translucent and tinkling material, such knowledge appeared to Europeans as magical as transforming rock into gold. Prestige so added up to prestige, rewarding with notoriety and respect he who invested enormous sums into a production otherwise considered uneconomical. As to this view, Doccia had been for Carlo Ginori the demonstration of his alchemical proficiency (Balleri et al., 2006, p. 27) and no profit calculation had influenced his decisions regarding the manufactory. A modern enterprise The distinction between the two aims, prestige and profit, in establishing a venture is not idle as it might appear. The passing from ancient regime to capitalism, as underlined by Max Weber, happens exactly on this turning point: when profit expectations become the goal of human economic action. An entrepreneur, then, is someone who organises production expecting an economic return for his effort and investment. If led by other motives, like prestige, even the setting up of an industry could not be considered entrepreneurial. To privilege one or the other of the two definitions of the Ginori manufactory, mercantilist venture or court production, determines all subsequent historical research. In the first case Doccia can be analysed with the instruments of the business historian, in the other, even if a business history would still be possible, the strategic decisions, the changes in production and even the choosing of ornamental motives should be studied through the interpretative tools of the political historian or the anthropologist. Despite current historiography, the survey done in the archive of the Ginori family uncovered documents that support the hypothesis that the venture of Carlo Ginori was an enterprise in the modern sense, because it followed the dictates of demand, offered its produce in the market and aimed at generating a profit, all aspects that had been neglected in the court manufactory set up by Francesco I de’ Medici. Given the secrecy connected with the formula for the earth mixture, very little documentation is available on the first steps of the production in Doccia, but nonetheless the archive BuSINESS HISTORy 7 of the family preserves many traces of the entrepreneurial spirit that Carlo Ginori and his entourage applied to the management of the family possessions. Interesting, in this regard, are some letters, dated 1747, exchanged between Carlo Ginori and Johann Russell, director of a royal manufacture located in Lorraine. Russell proposed to introduce in Tuscany the production of high-quality glass plates (Bozza di contratto, 1747). His offer was made to the marquis because the productions of glass and porcelain shared many technical characteristics (the necessity of high temperature furnaces) and chemical or alchemical knowledge (Hofmann, 1980, p. 71). The project, though, had nothing to do with amateurish chemical research, with the enjoyable pastime of an enlightened aristocrat, or with a politician bent on procuring unique gifts for future alliances and personal prestige. On one of the documents, preserved in the archive, someone wrote down in detail the ‘Costs of two trunks of plate glass in the manner of Venice, with 600 pieces per trunk, produced in 24 h’ (Nota di spese, 1747). The two-sided document included all information needed to judge the profitability of Russell’s offer: variable and fixed costs and the value on the market of a trunk of plate glass: 16 Ducati. The letter exchange between Russell and Carlo Ginori (Russell, 1747) is extensive and proves how the marquis applied a precise economic calculation in the evaluation of the proposed venture. If ever established, the glass manufactory was expected to produce profits. The aim of Ginori was economic and so the rationality applied. The Russell venture is only one of many entrepreneurial plans preserved among the documents of the family archive, all including a profitability estimate. Carlo Ginori is so unveiled as a modern entrepreneur, calculating with accuracy costs and returns for his manifold initiatives and evaluating the effective feasibility of the projects in terms of available resources and technological knowledge, markets for finished products and profit expectations. The question about the origin of the Ginori porcelain manufactory can thus be answered with some measure of certainty. Surely, Carlo Ginori expected prestige from his beloved manufactory in Doccia, but he nonetheless precisely calculated the profitability of the production and sold the resulting wares on the market, expecting to reap a profit margin. In fact, his investments, profligate as they were judged by contemporaries and family, generated, after the first years of experimentation, an increasing flow of profits (Graph 1).8 Historiography should so add to Ginori’s enlightened and scientific spirit also an entrepreneurial soul, be it his own or that of Johannon de Saint Laurent, his long-time advisor and estate administrator.9 Aristocratic entrepreneurship and economic development Historiography usually shuns or marginalises aristocracy as a relevant component of the entrepreneurial class that emerged in the process of industrialization. A noteworthy exception was the studies done in the 1950s by the Research Center in Entrepreneurial History, Harvard university, under the supervision of Fritz Redlich.10 According to the worldwide researches conducted at the time, the role of aristocrats had to be revalued, specifically in backward countries:11 an insight that fits well the case of Carlo Ginori’s Tuscany. More recent studies address specifically the question of the change in mentality toward mercantilism that in 18th century Tuscany was championed by Carlo Ginori.12 As governor of Leghorn, the marquis enacted a veritable editorial campaign for the translation and diffusion of texts on maritime trade, trade and accounting practices, the establishment of international economic orders and mercantilist policies (Alimento 2008; Alimento 2009, pp. 8 M. POETTINGER AND M. POETTINGER 77–82). He also envisioned the creation of an enlightened-style Academy dedicated to trade. Scholars would discuss there the strengthening of Tuscan industries and agriculture through the introduction of new cultivations and manufactures, but also the possibility of enlarging trade with the Near and the Far East through Alexandria (Alimento, 2009). While the Academia never became reality, in 1749 Carlo Ginori successfully championed the institution of the ‘Compagnia Orientale di Livorno’ a limited partnership among the leading merchants of Livorno dedicated to the trade with the East (Alimento 2009, pp. 74–75). There is no doubt that, after the humiliating transition of the Grand Duchy from the Medici family to that of the reigning Austrian dynasty, Carlo Ginori became the frontman of those Tuscan aristocrats and intellectuals who identified natural law (Salerno 2011) and mercantilist doctrines with the reclaiming of some autonomy from the Viennese absolutist rule.13 Ginori adhered to the dictates of mercantilism believing that the greatness of a State, specifically one of little geographical dimensions as Tuscany, lay in its commercial strength and its subsequent wealth. Austria, on the contrary, was much more interested in transforming Tuscany into a profitable source of income and consequently enacted policies at odds with the projects of the marquis.14 There was no way of opposing the new regime, even for a powerful and influential man such as Carlo Ginori.15 During the second half of the 18th century, the prevailing ideology would become a physiocratic free trade bent on the agricultural development of Tuscany. Ginori’s lasting contribution to the economy of his native country would so lie less in his political action than in his entrepreneurial effort in Doccia. While in other countries, noblemen engaged in the administration of the state would directly organize modern productions in state enterprises or favour the adoption of technological innovations through subsidies and protection, Carlo Ginori had to resort to his own resources to introduce the production of porcelain in Tuscany. Therefore, the factory would be administered as part of the family estate, in a form quite unique for the time.16 Doccia never resembled contemporary business ventures as the Wedgwood pottery or state ventures as Meissen and Nymphenburg. The rationality of the economic calculation that proceeded in its inexorable worldwide conquest derived not, in the case of Doccia, from trade but from the capable management of a feudal estate or of land possessions.17 The entrepreneurial idea behind the setting up of Doccia might have been a heritage of the Ginori family’s trade with the East Indies and the alchemical passion of Carlo surely heightened the appeal of unveiling an arcanum, but the pursuit of profit was allowed by an attentive and accurate accountancy dictated by the tradition of the family as landed proprietors and their practice in the management of public property. In 1760 Johannon de Saint Laurent, evaluating the economic management of the enterprise after the death of Carlo Ginori, concluded: ‘It is evident that a profit should emerge yearly of 15,522 Lire’ (Liverani, 1970). The result obtained by San Laurent by exactly calculating the unit costs of the production in Doccia and comparing them with an approximate value of the resulting porcelain and majolica pieces, was incredibly accurate and confirmed by later accountancy reports. In 1778, on the occasion of the hereditary dispute among the three children of Carlo Ginori, the eldest, Lorenzo (1734–1791), bought out the participations of his brothers, Giuseppe and Bartolomeo, in the manufactory (Table 1). Many estimations were then made of the value of the premises, of the value of the inventory of porcelain pieces, and of the profitability of the manufactory. One of the detailed reports consisted of a ‘Proof of the product of the Porcelain manufactory of Doccia from the year 1748 to May 1778’ based on BuSINESS HISTORy 9 Table 1. ownership and control of the Ginori manufactory (1737–1896). years 1737–1757 owner Carlo Ginori Acting for the ownership Carlo Ginori 1757–1778 Lorenzo Ginori Giuseppe Ginori Bartolomeo Ginori Lorenzo Ginori Lorenzo Ginori 1779–1791 Lorenzo Ginori 1791–1813 Carlo Leopoldo Ginori Pupillary management by Francesca Lisci Ginori and counsellors 1813–1837 Carlo Leopoldo Ginori Carlo Leopoldo Ginori 1837–1847 Lorenzo Ginori Lisci 1847–1878 Lorenzo Ginori Lisci Pupillary management by Marianna Garzoni and counsellors Lorenzo Ginori Lisci Minister (years in charge) nobili Giovan Battista (1746–1747) Jacopo Fanciullacci (1748–1792) Jacopo Fanciullacci (1748–1792) Jacopo Fanciullacci (1748–1792) Fanciullacci Anton Maria (1793–1805) Fanciullacci Giovan Battista (1806–1819) Fanciullacci Giovan Battista (1806–1819) Fanciullacci Paolo (1820–1835) Fanciullacci Giuseppe (1836–1848) Fanciullacci Giuseppe (1836–1848) no minister (1848–1853) Paolo Lorenzini (1854–1891) 1878–1896 Carlo Benedetto Carlo Benedetto Ginori Paolo Lorenzini Ginori (1854–1891) ippolito Ginori Luigi Guazzini Giulia Ginori (1892–1893) Marianna Ginori enea Giusti (1892–1893) source: Dimostrazione del prodotto della Fabbrica delle Porcellane di Doccia (1778). Accountants (years of available documentation) Johannon de saint Laurent (1760) Giuseppe Marrini (1757, 1778) Giuseppe Marrini (1757, 1778) Paolo Lorenzini (1854–1891) Paolo Lorenzini (1854-1891) the yearly comparison between revenues and expenses (Dimostrazione in Ristretto,1778). The report certified the persistent but diminishing losses until the death of Carlo Ginori (Graph 1), while afterwards the venture kicked off with yearly profits that ranged exactly around the sum calculated by Saint Laurent. The account of Saint Laurent, identifying variable and fixed costs and imputing them to each produced piece of porcelain, in order to calculate the expected profits, is remarkable, considering the contemporary audit practices in Tuscany’s scarce manufactories. Similar attempts at calculating unit costs, made in the 1770s in the Wedgwood factory (McKendrick, 1970), were the result of a painstaking trial and error process and many a headache for Josiah Wedgwood himself, while in the case of Doccia resulted from the intimate knowledge of accounting practices typical of the aristocratic management of possessions. An enterprise in a family estate For more than a century and a half, the porcelain manufactory of Doccia was one of the many possessions of the Ginori family (Burresi, 1998; Biancalana, 2009), inherited by the first-born along with the title of marquis. In consequence, the enterprise developed some peculiar traits, in respect to contemporary merchant enterprises, that persisted in its long 10 M. POETTINGER AND M. POETTINGER history. These characteristics, sketched below, concern ownership and control issues, the centralization of the production, accounting practices and problematic inheritances, and clearly distinguish the Ginori manufactory from other contemporary porcelain manufactories, born as merchant ventures or state-owned enterprises. Ownership and control: the ministers of Doccia A first point concerns the relationship, ahead of its time, of ownership and control. The manufacture was never organised as a partnership or limited company but was managed as one of the many properties of the family. Consequences were manifold. until the death of Carlo Ginori, for example, the accountancy of the manufactory could not be distinguished from that of the entire estate of Doccia, with the expenses of the property eroding the profits of the porcelain production (Dimostrazione in Ristretto,1778). In fact, it might be affirmed that Carlo Ginori set up the manufactory in Doccia precisely to augment the otherwise feeble revenues of the estate. He similarly tried to introduce in Doccia the breeding of angora goats and effectively set up a manufactory of semiprecious stones artefacts. Moreover, the management of the manufactory was entrusted to an administrator as for every estate of the Ginoris (Table 1). This occurrence brought forward all agency problems that would otherwise emerge only with the diffusion of limited companies.18 The history of the manufactory was always dependent on the quality of the liaison between this administrator and the marquis. The asymmetry in information between aristocrats and the superintendents who looked after their properties was well known19 and many proverbs referred to it. It used to be said that he who administered could eat out of this work: ‘chi amministra, amminestra’, and ‘minister’ was, in fact, the name of all administrators of Doccia. Accountancy reflected this potential conflict and served the interests of the property by allowing a measure of control.20 The report of Saint Laurent with its conclusion ‘there must be a profit of…’ was a menace for the minister of Doccia in the delicate generational transfer after the death of Carlo Ginori. If the expected results would not be achieved, implying a bad management or even fraud, the minister could be fired or persecuted in court. Agency problems can be removed only recurring to external certifications, like the report of Saint Laurent, or creating relationships based on trust. For over a century, all ministers of Doccia, so, sprung out of the same local family, the Fanciullacci (Table 1). Iacopo Fanciullacci, the trustworthy ‘Iacopino’ of Carlo Ginori, became minister after Francesco Lorena had sent the marquis to Leghorn as governor. Iacopo ruled the factory until 1791,21 two sons and two grandsons followed in his steps, until the relationship broke down, with a process for fraud, in 1848. Paolo Lorenzini (1829-1891), brother to the renowned author of Pinocchio, became, from then on, the administrator of the manufactory. He surely was the most capable of all ministers of Doccia. His accounting abilities were matched by his strategic vision and understanding of markets. His was the ambitious restructuring plan of the porcelain manufactory after Italy’s unification in 1861. Some data: in 1760, Saint Laurent reported in Doccia a production of 39,000 pieces, only a third of which were really well crafted; in 1848, the production encompassed half a Million pieces of majolica and 100,000 pieces of porcelain; after the restructuring of Lorenzini the production grew to two million pieces, of which three fourths were made out of the finest porcelain (Buti, 1990).22 BuSINESS HISTORy 11 Archival documents preserve many proofs of the relationship between Paolo Lorenzini and Lorenzo Ginori (1823-1878) and the trust it entailed.23 Lorenzini had a hard time in persuading the marquis of the necessity of changes to meet the increased demand after Italy’s unification and the growing competition from the rival manufactory set up by Giulio Richard in Milan. In the end, though, bad financial results and the failed recognition of quality of the manufactory’s products at the universal Exhibition of Paris in 1867 convinced Lorenzo Ginori to leave a free hand to his manager who became the first modern manager - free of the interference of the property - of the factory. The marquis further dedicated his efforts to his political career, while Lorenzini reorganised Doccia. His management was considered vital to the functioning of the factory,24 so that soon after his death, in 1891, having found no adequate replacement, the Ginori family, torn by disputes among the heirs of Lorenzo, sold the manufacture to the son of Giulio Richard (Poettinger, 2016a). Centralization and feudal control Another peculiar characteristic of the Ginori manufacture, following from its aristocratic foundation, was the centralization of production. Here the ‘feudal’ control over the enterprise impressed his most notable stamp. While the great part of proto-industrial manufactures performed many processes through homework, so that labourers could continue to tend the fields, Doccia was organised so that all production processes were completed in specific spaces inside the premises of the manufactory. Labourers were completely dedicated to the manufacture, with working days of 12 hours (Regolamento della fabbrica, 1740). This characteristic already emerged in the description of the factory done by Saint Laurent and recurs in all later depictions and representations of Doccia. Another proof of the centralisation bias of the Ginori manufactory are the numerous internal regulations that, from the first penned down in 1740,25 precisely prescribed the division of labour, the tasks of all typologies of worker, the spaces dedicated to the production processes and the subsequent passages of the porcelain and majolica pieces from one space to another, from one worker to the next.26 This kind of meticulous guidelines, regarding cultivation methods and the processing of agricultural products, spread among Tuscan landlords in the second half of the 18th and the first half of 19th century to introduce innovations among their illiterate farmers and sharecroppers.27 Enlightenment, in form of new instruments, chemical cognitions and economic calculations, found its way into the centuries-old habits of Tuscan peasants through the enforcement of stricter controls and a new autocratic figure: the aristocratic entrepreneur (Biagioli, 2000, 119-130). Carlo Ginori,28 and his successors, (Table 1) applied the same methods to their porcelain manufactory in Doccia.29 Surely, a measure of centralisation was called for also by the importance of the artistic component in the production of porcelain and to maintain the secrecy on many production methods, but other contemporary porcelain manufactories relied on homework or sold their unfinished ware to independent producers who finished it, as in Meissen’s Hausmalerei. In China, also, the production process was clearly split between the modelling and firing of porcelain pieces and its decoration. The two processes were performed in different locations, even hundreds of kilometres apart from one another. In the history of Doccia, though, the necessity for an absolute control on the working environment and on the entire life of workers is a permanent characteristic. Painters and 12 M. POETTINGER AND M. POETTINGER sculptors were handsomely paid, the best among them per piece produced, but all others were subject to long working hours and continuous supervision of their handiwork and paid in kind with the agricultural produce of the estate of Doccia. Therefore, at the end of the eighteenth century, during the trust management on behalf of the underage children of Lorenzo Ginori (1734-1791), Doccia experienced first tentative labor union claims, again well ahead of other manufactories in Tuscany. Workers fought to obtain payment in money and not in kind, so that it would be possible to spend their income in whatever goods they wished, with no obligation to acquire food and other necessities from the shop set up by the family Ginori inside the manufactory (Gestione pupillare, n.d.). The legitimate claiming had an unfortunate outcome. The request was granted exactly in the years when wheat prices soared and the newly obtained money wages, as archival documents plentifully testimony, were not enough to grant sustainment to the workers of Doccia and to their families.30 In the same years, the paternalism that had characterised the management of the factory on part of the Ginori family brusquely changed toward a more autocratic style of management. This happened with the ending of the trust management in 1809, when Carlo Leopoldo Ginori came of age and reclaimed the direction of the manufactory. Imbibed with the industrialist culture he had experienced in his travels abroad and particularly in England, but also from contemporary examples of Tuscan noblemen managing their landed properties, Carlo Leopoldo became the first ‘master’ of Doccia. This noun appears for the first time in the archival documentation in relation to his name. The new master immediately nullified the salary increase of 1803 and emanated a profusion of regulations regarding every aspect of work inside the manufactory and life outside its premises (Gestione pupillare, 1803). He banned from the manufactory all people who were not related to production, including the priest of the nearby church of Colonnata. At the same time, Carlo Leopoldo introduced the sound of bells to dictate working hours and limit to a minimum the free time allowed for lunch.31 Carlo Leopoldo obtained many praises as entrepreneur for having devised and built a new furnace,32 from then on known as the ‘fornace all’italiana’ (Brongniart, 1844a, 193-194), still in use at the end of the century. Archives, though, also report his painstaking control over workers. In some letters, he aggressively menaced workers for having overheard that their daughters strolled alone in the evening. The marquis was ready to fire such inattentive fathers if they would not control their offspring.33 Only after the turbulences of 1848, Paolo Lorenzini and Lorenzo Ginori (1823-1878), son of Carlo Leopoldo, would question this long-lasting strategy of centralization and total control. The upheavals of this revolutionary year and the spreading of socialist ideas among the working class posed a threat to the centralized Doccia (Buti, 1990, 81-95). The process of Italy’s unification, then, confronted property and management with the need to rapidly adapt the production to the enlarged market. Two options were open: enlarge the traditional manufactory, incurring huge sunk costs and potentially fostering unionism, or import white porcelain pieces from France and have them painted and signed by homeworking painters in Florence and surroundings. This second possibility would have reduced the risk of trade union claims in Doccia, challenging its workers with the competition of scattered and unemployed homeworkers (Progetto di ristrutturazione, n.1990d.). The decision of Lorenzo Ginori and Paolo Lorenzini, in the end, though, went in the opposite direction. The factory of Doccia was extensively and expensively renovated, substantially increasing, as seen, its productive capacity. Centralization had won again over centrifugal alternatives, not secondarily because BuSINESS HISTORy 13 Lorenzo Ginori had in Sesto Fiorentino the electoral feudal holding that granted him a seat in Parliament until his nomination as senator in 1864. Accounting practices A third heritage of the aristocratic origin of the Ginori manufactory and another of its long-lasting characteristics concerned accounting.34 The bookkeeping that developed along with the porcelain factory derived from the administration practice exercised by the family on its landed properties. A complete reconstruction of this process of change, as has been done in the case of Wedgwood (McKendrick, 1970), is not possible, since the accounts have not been integrally preserved either in the family archive or in the archive of the manufacture. Only bits and pieces survive.35 What remains, though, clearly shows some peculiar traits in respect to the merchant accountancy methods of the time (Melis, 1950, 722). Double entry was not consistently practiced, and profits were persistently called rents as in agriculture. In this picture, the sophistication of Saint Laurent, calculating unit costs in order to bring more efficiency in the production and to control the management of the minister, represented an exception more than the norm. During the first twenty years of the manufactory’s operations, as seen, the accounting data still included the whole estate of Doccia, biasing the result toward the negative (Dimostrazione in Ristretto 1757; Dimostrazione in Ristretto 1778). Notwithstanding the lack of accounting identity of the manufactory, the data still highlight many interesting points (Graph 1). Excluding the expenses of the estate the production was always in the active. Sales grew rapidly up to 1772 when they peaked with a value of more than 12,000 scudi. Profits instead, reached their maximum already in 1766-67. From then on, soaring costs, due to the lack of control exercised by Lorenzo Ginori over the minister, and the growing competition sparked by the diffusion of the knowledge on the production process of porcelain, eroded the margins of operations. The dwindling results of the manufacture were then the cause of the disagreements among the heirs of Carlo.36 The dispute among Lorenzo, Giovanni and Bartolomeo generated the mentioned interest in the accounting practices of the manufactory. The accountant of the family was, at the time, Giuseppe Marrini. With the documents available, Marrini compiled the report on the first twenty years of existence of Doccia and then introduced an important innovation in Table 2. Consistency of the Porcelain manufactory (scudi46) compiled in 1791 by Giuseppe Marrini. ACtiVe (Assets) the assets in existence at the balance of 6837.5.18.8 this day 22 september 1791 Cash at disposition 1437.5.18.8 of the Minister Jacopo Fanciullacci outstanding credits 5400 reduced of 40% total 6837.5.18.8 the senator has taken (cash, expenses 3655.3.17.8 and payments made on his behalf ) totAL 10493.2.16.4 source: stato della Fabbrica delle Porcellane, 1791. PAssiVe (Assets of the previous year) 7651. –.12.8 the assets in existence at the balance of the 31 July 1790 Cash at disposition 911.3.12.8 of the Minister Jacopo Fanciullacci outstanding credits 6739.4 reduced of 25% total 7651. –.12.8 Profit totAL 2842.2.3.8 10493.2.16.4 14 M. POETTINGER AND M. POETTINGER the accountancy of the manufactory. unsatisfied by the simple balances calculated from the yearly sales and expenses of the estate of Doccia, Marrini compiled a ‘Stato della fabbrica dell Porcellane’. In this balance sheet profits were estimated comparing the assets of the manufactory - limited to cash and credits - from one year to the other. One example of this accountancy, preserved in the archive of the Ginori family, concerns the year 1790 (Stato della Fabbrica delle Porcellane, 1791), and is here reproduced in Table 2. The profits calculated through this simplified asset criterion amounted to 2800 scudi. Notable that, as emerges from this document, the marquis used Doccia’s revenues to pay for his own personal expenses up to 3600 scudi. A way to cash in profits that would have been unthinkable in a merchant enterprise and marks yet another difference between the Ginori porcelain manufactory and other comparable non-aristocratic ventures of the time. In 1791 Lorenzo Ginori died, leaving an underage heir. Therefore, the manufactory and the whole patrimony of the family were managed through a ‘gestione pupillare’ made out of trustees. Among them were the wife of Lorenzo, Francesca, and his brother Giovanni. Giovanni was especially sensitive to accountancy issues and his prior claims on the management of the factory in Doccia had been justified with precise accounting reports that highlighted how profit margins had diminished from 1768 onwards. Thanks to the accountancy of his short-lived attempt at a porcelain manufactory in San Donato,37 preserved in the family archive,38 we come to know another figure of accountant: Giuseppe Sandrucci, who also acted as director of the new manufactory (Ginori Lisci, 1964, pp.84-85).39 The manufactory of San Donato, set up in 1779, closed in March 1781. The final report of Sandrucci was a simple balance of Revenues and Expenses, covering the whole period, that stated a loss of 5941 scudi (Dimostrazione dell’Incassato, 1781). The loss was levelled by diminishing accordingly the credit held by Giuseppe Ginori for his paid-in capital of 7702 scudi. This starting capital corresponded to 1/3 of the estimated value of Doccia (7392 scudi) plus 1/3 of the sale value of the inventory stock of porcelain pieces held in the Leghorn warehouse at the time of the hereditary division invoked by Giuseppe and Bartolomeo. As such it allows us to estimate the total value of the premises of Doccia in 1779: 22,176 scudi. Considering the profits earned by the factory in 1778, the return on equity would then have been almost 13%. Sandrucci did not particularly innovate the accountancy methods in use by the Ginori family. A move forward, instead, was done after the ending of the ‘gestione pupillare’. Prompted by the necessity to evaluate, again, the profitability of the manufactory before the impending management change in favour of Carlo Leopoldo, who was coming of age, an anonymous accountant calculated the profits for the year 1806, writing down a balance sheet (Dimostrazione degli utili, 1807). While Sandrucci and Marrini, though, used exclusively the data on credits and cash flows, the cited document also included the inventory and part of the fixed capital. Investments, as the new furnace and the shop set up in Florence at the Mercato Vecchio, were also accounted for (Table 3). Another interesting point emerges from this balance sheet: the persistent intermingling of the financial management of the manufactory and that of the family. While the manufactory paid to the treasury of the family 3000 scudi over the years 1806 and 1807, the same treasury had advanced payments on behalf of the manufactory for over half of that sum. Carlo Leopoldo grasping, at last, the reins of the family patrimony, introduced major changes, setting up a new accounting system made of books that reported yearly data on revenues and expenses for the manufactory and all stores and warehouses.40 Each book BuSINESS HISTORy 15 Table 3. Proof of the profits of the porcelain and majolica manufactory from the 10th August 1806 to the 31st July 1807 (scudi). 1806 Credits classified and deducted as follows Good credits deducted 30% 2808.3 2536.1 Mediocre credits deducted 107.6 112.6 60% Bad credits (2977.3 scudi) – – deducted 100% Credits to be recovered by Franco scappini classified and deducted as follows Good credits deducted 30% 94.6.6 61.—13.4 Mediocre credits deducted 74.1.12 115.5 60% Bad credits deducted 100% – – totAL 3085.2.18 2825.5.13.4 Credits of the sale shop in Florence as follows For delivered boxes of 1913.3.14 1400.3. –.8 porcelain and majolica pieces For the profits of the sale 7935.3.4.8 9480. –.19.4 shop since its opening the 1° september 1801 totAL 9858.6.18.8 10880.4 Porcelain and majolica pieces, materials, instruments and all other inventory valued as convenient Value of n. 55 woodpiles and n. 56000 wood stacks existing in 1806 and n.22 woodpiles and n. 76500 wood stacks existing in 1807 existing construction wood iron and instruments of the factory forge Mules, baskets and carts of the factory stable (1 mule less in 1807) Cash held by the Minister Gio. Battista Fanciullacci totAL Deduction of credit by the family treasury in Florence for the buying of materials in France made by it on behalf of the manufactory net resuLt For the cash sent to the family treasury in the years 1806 and 1807 from the administration of the manufactory (excluded the 400 scudi sent to the same for the payments made by it on behalf of the manufactory) in payment of 5 Moggi of embers sent by the manufactory to the family treasury last winter For the expenses in relation to the new furnace for firing porcelain on the model of the French ones (summing the expenses of last year for the same furnace and Mufflet of scudi 1036.5.14.8, the total cost amounts to scudi 2048.5.10) net profit of the sale shop in Florence deducted the expense for the setting up of the new shop in the Mercato nuovo net profit of the porcelain and majolica manufactory in the same years totAL 1807 3085.2.18 2825.5.13.4 9858.6.18.8 10880.4 10069.4.12.8 8600 2060 2710.6 – 80 233.6.6.8 2004.2.9 33071.1.13.10 1461.6.17.8 60 60 196 2483.1.4 33124. –.12.6 1061.6.17.8 31609.1.16.2 – 32062. –.14.10 3000 – 5.5 – 1011.6.15.4 1534.4.14.8 2935.5.19.4 36079.5.10.2 36079.5.10.2 source: Dimostrazione degli utili, 1807. detailed the data through registers dedicated to the different voices of revenues and expenses.41 Expenses, for example, would so be subdivided into raw materials, fuel, shipping, labourers, donations etc. The books generated a flow of information that was synthetized in a general balance sheet. While the amount of data collected and processed by the new system was infinitely superior in respect to the older systems, the profitability, synthetized 16 M. POETTINGER AND M. POETTINGER Table 4. rent of the Porcelain Manufactory of Doccia calculated by comparing yearly values of assets from 1832 to 1837 (Lire toscane). Date 30 April 1831 30 April 1832 30 June 1833 30 April 1834 30 April 1835 30 April 1836 18 March 1837 Assets 334071.15.8 3546433.16.8 375210.14.4 386996.5.4 388081.19 398102.10.4 423927.13 rent 23441.9 35972.1 29166.17.8 31759.10.4 36085.13.8 31020.11.4 32484.11.8 source: spoglio della fabbrica (1837). by a comparison of the value of assets from one year to the other, was persistently called ‘rendita’, as was the case for all landed proprieties of the family.42 The new accounting system was fully operational in the 1820s and allowed an advanced process of strategic decision making (Ristretti mensuali di porcellane e maioliche,1854).43 Of this complex system, though, only fragments survive in the archive of the manufactory and in the archive of the family (Table 4). The management had completed, at this point, the separation of the accounting system of the factory from that of the family. Paolo Lorenzini, then, brought the bookkeeping of Doccia fully into modernity (Antonelli, Boyns & Cerbioni, 2006). His reports, attached to the annual balance sheets, show an advanced management control based on accounting data on which he formulated strategic alternatives. Succession: practices and problems The aristocratic entrepreneurship that gave birth to the porcelain manufacture in Doccia imprinted the firm with a last characteristic: family ownership. As already hinted, Doccia has always been managed by the family as one of its many assets. Something different from being a family business in the sense of a partnership or limited company whose control is exercised through kinship ties. The Ginori manufactory was never incorporated, nor assumed the organizational form of a partnership or sole proprietorship. As a property, it passed through inheritance from every marquis to his heirs. Already in the first generational passage, the one that provoked the report of Saint Laurent, huge problems arose as inheritors fought over management and strategies. The younger brothers of Lorenzo, as seen, asked for the liquidation of their shares of heredity44 and founded a new manufacture in San Donato in Collina. Lorenzo elegantly solved the dispute by obtaining from the Grand Duke the renewal of the monopoly right for manufacturing porcelain that had been granted to his father. Giuseppe was obliged to close the newly erected factory, with heavy losses, and all his workers migrated to the new porcelain manufacture in Naples (Chirografo, 1778). In 1792, Lorenzo, in search for a solution to the problem of generational passage, obtained a ‘Fedecommesso Primogeniale Agnatizio’ that granted the possession of the manufactory to the firstborn of the Ginori family in derogation to the abolition of all feudal privileges enacted by the Austrian government. Thanks to this escamotage problems as those created by Giuseppe could not happen again, but there were others. One difficulty that repeatedly presented itself in the succession of the Ginori family was the absence of heirs of age so that a committee of trustees had to be entrusted with the management of the manufactory (Table 1). Such the case of the heirs of Lorenzo Ginori who BuSINESS HISTORy 17 saw the porcelain factory assigned to their rebellious uncle Giuseppe, until Carlo Leopoldo came of age. Obviously, the management through trustees was sub-optimal, as shown also by the archival documents.45 No clear strategy emerged, and administrators had free hand in the management due to the deficiency of control. This held particularly true in the case of the trusted management of the factory after the death of Carlo Leopoldo in 1837, at a time when his first-born son was still underage. The members of the Fanciullacci family who were managing the porcelain production in Doccia exploited the lack of control and smuggled and sold porcelain pieces over the counter, falsifying the manufactory’s reports. The ensuing litigation had to be solved in court. In the end, in 1896, the repeated fights among the heirs of Lorenzo Ginori, the death of Paolo Lorenzini and scarce managerial capacity obliged the family to sell the factory to the long-time rival Richard. The manufactory of Doccia so became, at last, part of a modern corporation with plants scattered all over Italy. As such, it survived up to today. Conclusions This article identifies some traits that characterised the history of the porcelain manufactory of Doccia when it was a possession of the Ginori family, from the first alchemical experiments of Carlo Ginori around 1735 to the fusion with the ‘Società Ceramica Richard’ in 1896. The origin itself of the manufacture was unusual: an entrepreneurial endeavour by a Tuscan aristocrat who practiced mercantilism in politics and alchemy in his free time. While the entrepreneurial idea to set up a porcelain manufactory might have sprouted from the trade with China managed by the Ginori family in the 17th century, or from the personal desire of Carlo Ginori to demonstrate his prestige and power, the day to day management of the enterprise mirrored the administration of extensive landed possessions, through specialised staff and dedicated ministers, typical of the time. From this peculiar beginning, the manufactory derived four characteristics that persisted while it remained in possession of the Ginori family. Firstly, being a personal property of the family without ever evolving into an autonomous firm, the factory was managed by an administrator, as every other estate in possession of the marquis. Therefore, the manufactory experienced, ahead of its time, all agency problems typical of modern corporations with separated ownership and control. Sometimes, as in the cases of Jacopo Fanciullacci and Paolo Lorenzini, the relationship of the marquis with his minister run smoothly, in other cases it ended up in court, hampering the operations of the factory and the implementation of a successful strategy. Secondly, the premises of the factory were located, from the beginning, in the villa Buondelmonti in Doccia, Sesto Fiorentino, and there they remained, confined and constrained by the pre-existing 16th century structure, for all the period here analysed. The centralisation of the production facility, quite atypical for the time, followed from the feudal administration of the factory, considered a means to control the territory of Sesto Fiorentino and its people, for economic and political purposes. In such a context, again ahead of times, the authoritarian excesses on the side of the property matched the early collective claims of the workforce: an exercise for future industrial relations. The third point regards accounting methods. Accounting was meticulously practiced inside the manufacture, from its first years of existence. The bookkeeping, though, was different from that of the merchant businesses of the time. Profitability was calculated 18 M. POETTINGER AND M. POETTINGER comparing the presumed value of assets from one year to the other. A patrimonial accountancy system that was far away from the double entry books usual in trading houses. The family was appeased by a constant influx of income from its various activities and would not pursue growth per se. Accounting, in this sense, was more an instrument of control over administrators than the base for strategic reasoning. The modernization of bookkeeping was introduced only in the nineteenth century. The last characteristic that Doccia derived from its aristocratic entrepreneurs was being part of the complex inheritance of a marquisate, an unending source of problems. Fighting among heirs, heirs still not of age, trustees with little decision power were common occurrences in each generational transition. They also increased the decision power of administrators, exacerbating agency conflicts. With these peculiar traits, the porcelain manufacture of Doccia crossed the centuries of industrialization, from the alchemical crucible to mass consumption, bearing witness of the social and cultural changes entailed in economic modernization. Often ahead of times, the Ginori manufacture experienced social conflicts, paternalism, the passage from entrepreneurship to a managed enterprise and bureaucratization. Its aristocratic origin and management, though, was not only a source of problems. Being part of the complex govern of a landed property, the manufacture of Doccia became part of the social and political development of the surrounding Sesto Fiorentino - as devised the marquis Ginori -, including in its strategy a wider variety of goals than mere profitability. In consequence, its success was not only measured in terms of profits or generated income flows, but also from a social and cultural point of view. In time, as count Fossombroni wrote in 1780 in his report on the manufacture, the manufactory came to represent an art gallery, for the beauty of its products, a social establishment for the employment it generated, a successful trade, given its sales and exports, and a stimulus for all landed proprietors to dedicate their capital and talent to industrial pursuits (Parere sulla Fabbrica, 1780). The Ginori porcelain manufactory came so to represent, for contemporaries, a call for successful aristocratic entrepreneurship, solidly based on the accounting ability of century old land ownership and the search for profit, but also bent on enlightened endeavours as the social and cultural development of a territory and its people: an early exercise of social responsibility. Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. The research could be completed thanks to the funding of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze and the generous hospitality of the current Marquis Ginori. Thanks are due to Piero Roggi and Simone Fagioli for their relentless support during the research, to Elena Mattioli, secretary and archivist of the Ginori family, for her helpfulness, and to Oliva Rucellai, director of the archive of the Doccia factory in Sesto Fiorentino, for her invaluable expertise and her limitless knowledge on porcelain. The Ginori villa in Doccia had been acquired by Lionardo di Bartolommeo Ginori in 1525. In 1737, Carlo Ginori acquired the nearby villa Buondelmonti to set up his porcelain manufacture. A beautiful landscape of the villa, ‘La villa di Doccia de’ Marchesi Ginori di Firenze, ov’è la loro celebre Fabbrica delle Porcellane’, can be found in Thomas Salmon (1757). On the Portoguese trade in porcelain, see: Varela Santos (2007-2011); Chang (1934). Before 1520, porcelain was almost completely missing from Sino-Portoguese trade. See: Da Ca’ Masser (1845). BuSINESS HISTORy 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 19 Archival documents of the VOC testimony the growing trade of imitations of Chinese porcelain from the production facilities in Kubachi, to Gombroon and then Amsterdam between 1652 and 1682. See: Ward, 2008, p.34; Ferrier, 1973, pp. 38-62. An international comparison of the European enterprises that began to produce porcelain, or refined the production of earthenware, in response to the increase in the demand during the 18th century would vastly exceed the limits of a journal article and even a partial reference to the relevant texts would unnecessarily burden the bibliography. Let me just quote the reference text: Finlay 2010. A business history of porcelain factories is still to be written. An exception, concerning the establishment in Zurich: Bösch 2003. More frequent are social studies focussed on the workforce of porcelain manufactures: Buti 1990, Siebeneicker 2002. For a history of the diffusion of porcelain production in Europe, see: Hofmann (1980); Walcha (1973) 159-167. For the case of the united States, see: Hood, G. (1972). Similar results were obtained in Meissen, where, after the first decade of ghastly losses followed increasing profits. See: Walcha (1973), 87. Johannon de Saint Laurent, who had been born and brought up in Lorraine, collaborated with the Ginori family from 1749 to 1760 when he was sent to Ferrara to act as Regio Imperial Commissario for the administration of the public properties. He was part of that inflow of precious human capital that followed the change in government from the Medici to the Lorena family in 1737. Many a capable administrator arrived in Tuscany in the following years and with them very precise accounting and managing capabilities. There is no doubt that the administration of the Doccia manufactory after 1760 bears the distinctive mark of the efficiency of the Austrian imperial government. See: Ginori Lisci (1964), 69. See: Symposium on the Aristocrat in Business (1953/54); Crandall (1960), 39-41. How important were noblemen as a substitutive factor in the industrialisation of backward countries was one of the most interesting results of the researches coordinated by Fritz Redlich. See, for example: Kellenbenz, 1953, 103-114; Habakkuk, 1953, 92-102; Redlich, 1953a, 69-96; Redlich, 1953b, 141-157; Redlich, 1953c, 231-259; Redlich and Rosovsky, 1956, 161-162; Zak, 1968. The attempt was not successful due to the opposition of the Viennese government. The mercantilism of Ginori was, in the eyes of Vienna, a suspicious try to regain political power and freedom of action on part of the Tuscan aristocracy. The economic mentality that would gain the upper hand at the end of the century would favour agriculture and free trade, shunning the protection and nurturing of local industries (Poettinger 2016b, 65-71). On the peculiar characters of Tuscany’s aristocracy, see: Litchfield 1969, Angiolini 1991, Donati 1988, Aglietti 2015. This the case of the annulment of the feud that had been granted to Carlo Ginori in the territories of Cecina, this the case of the enactment of a company for the East Indian trade with capital from Lorrain and Austria, this the case of the new taxing system, introduced in Tuscany that maintained internal barriers to trade. See: Alimento 2009, 67-75. On the institutional changes introduced in Tuscany by Francesco Lorena and the resistance of the local aristocracy, see: Verga 1990. The uniqueness of Carlo Ginori’s venture can be underlined by comparing it with the porcelain manufactory founded in 1763 by Johann Conrad Heidegger in Zurich (Bösch, 2003). Heidegger held in the local government a similar influence as that of Carlo Ginori. Similar was also the cultural background of Heidegger and the Marquis: enlightenment, mercantilism and an affection for chemistry. Nonetheless, Heidegger founded a company with two nephews to produce porcelain, while the aristocratic marquis just added a factory to his estates. On this interesting topic see Núñez, 1998. An early assessment of the question is to be found in: Buhl, 1929. The same problem encountered the Meissen manufactory were the King himself or one of his functionaries continuously confronted the arcanist, on the one side, and the director of the production on the other (Walcha, 1973: 79-80). The question has been attentively studied in the case of agricultural activities (Biagioli 2000, 235-238), less known the cases, as that of Ginori, of manufacturing enterprises. 20 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. M. POETTINGER AND M. POETTINGER On the uses of accountancy for purposes tangential to profit calculations and cost management, also in the Ginori manufactory in the 19th century, see: Antonelli V., Boyns T. and Cerbioni F. (2006), 390. All documents exchanged between Jacopo Fanciullacci and Carlo Ginori can be found in the family archive: Archivio Ginori-Lisci (137, I, 13). For a more precise analysis of the restructuring process and the management skills of Paolo Lorenzini, see: Fagioli & Poettinger (2020): 133-135. Archivio Ginori-Lisci (XV 2, 4, 1-15) Balance sheets of the factory, also drawn up by Paolo Lorenzini, are partially preserved in the Archive of the manufactory in Doccia (Archivio Manifattura Doccia, Relazione sull’Esercizio,1882; 1883; 1884; 1885; 1886; 1887; 1889; 1890; 1891; 1892; 1893). Regolamento della manifattura (1740). All the factory regulations are to be found in Archivio Ginori-Lisci (138, 222 and following). See for example the “Regolamento Agrario della Fattoria di Brolio” written down by Bettino Ricasoli in 1843 (Biagioli, 2000, 468-476). For the room of the painters, for example, the factory guidelines ordered: “Mr. Carlo Ziernfeld will direct the room and will control that at the time he will decide all painters listed in the following will be at work on the pieces that he will assign them and, when he will find their work acceptable he will pay them for every 12 hours of work as specified in the following. The workers with fixed working hours will work assiduously for 12 hours on weekdays under the supervision of their supervisors. If their work should be found lacking, their shortcomings will be deducted from the pay of the supervisors in proportion. The starting and ending of the working time will be sanctioned by Mr. Carlo by ringing a little bell and all supervisors will inspection his subordinates and will personally answer for their work” (Regolamento della manifattura, 1740). Similar precise orders regarded the room where the pieces of porcelain and majolica were moulded and modelled and the process of the preparing the earth mixes and the paints. How the strict control over workers and the routinization of working procedures represented a method to enhance the efficiency of work and at the same time exercise a measure of power over labourers, also in the Ginori manufactory in the 19th century, see: Antonelli V., Boyns T. and Cerbioni F. (2006), 390-391. The tradition of payment in kind for work or otherwise of the selling of foodstuff directly from the landlord to its farmers was again derived from contracts and habits typical of Tuscany’s agriculture of the time (Biagioli, 2000, pp. 164-177). The related documents are to be found in Archivio Ginori-Lisci (XV 2, 1800-1810, 185-297). The furnace designed by Carlo Lopoldo Ginori was depicted and described by the director of Sévres, Alexandre Brongniart, in his famous treatise on pottery (Brongniart, 1844b, planche XII). The same moral sanctions on the life of farmers were introduced by other Tuscan landed proprietors such as Lambruschini and Ricasoli. Written regulations regarded not only working procedures but also life habits of workers and of their families (Biagioli, 2000, 295-297). Historiographic evaluations of the accounting practices of the 18th century in Tuscany are mixed. While the traditional interpretation opts for a negative judgement, more recent studies point toward the spreading of a scientific approach of accounting that aimed at controlling costs. See: Antonelli, D’Alessio (2011), 107-109. See also: De Roover, R. (1955); Coronella (2010). Most balance sheets are to be found in Archivio Ginori-Lisci (Registri Singoli). For example: Entrata e Uscita Porcellane dal 1752 al 1764 (1764); Spoglio della fabbrica (1799); Spoglio della fabbrica (1791). A comprehensive evaluation of the little that is preserved in the Archive of the manufactory in Doccia is in: Antonelli, Boyns and Cerbioni (2006). Historiography ignored up to know the accounting data and curiously assumed that the entire period of the ownership of Lorenzo Ginori was highly positive for the manufacture (Ginori Lisci 1964, 69-87). Excluded from the management of Doccia by Lorenzo Ginori, his brothers Giuseppe and Bartolomeo asked for the division of the inheritance and with their share of capital founded a BuSINESS HISTORy 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 21 factory of porcelain in San Donato that would compete with Doccia. Enraged by their attempt, Lorenzo asked and obtained from the Gran Duke to grant him the exclusive privilege to produce porcelain in Tuscany. His brothers were then obliged to close down the factory in San Donato, selling materials and machines to the newly founded porcelain manufactory in Neaples. All documents on the management of the manufactory in san Donato are to be found in Archivio Ginori-Lisci (36, San Donato). For the factory in San Donato, Sandrucci constructed an accountancy system based on the books reporting cash flows and debts/credits (including paid-in capital). Such data allowed to write down synthetic balance sheets for the manufactory as those made by Giuseppe Marrini for Doccia. Sandrucci also compiled a “Giornale di Cassa”, registering all cash movements. Another set of accounting books regarded the flagship store opened in via de’ Servi in the centre of Florence. Documents on these changes are to be found in Archivio Ginori-Lisci (XV 2, Carteggi, 474-590). An example of this bookkeeping for the year 1811 is to be found in: Antonelli, Boyns and Cerbioni (2006), 380. Assets included: the museum of the manufactory (collecting statues and models of products to present to potential customers); buildings, machines, instruments and furniture; inventory of porcelain pieces held in Doccia and in Florence; semi-finished products, paints and raw materials; timber, woodpiles and wood stacks; mules, baskets and carts of the factory stable; cash and credits (Spoglio della fabbrica,1837; Quaderno Conti di Spese,1837; Spoglio della fabbrica,1830). The strategic decisions regarded the quotas of porcelain, soft porcelain and majolica pieces on the total production. These proportions changed considerably between 1816 and 1836. See: Fagioli, Poettinger (2020): 126. Documents about the litigation are to be found in Archivio Ginori-Lisci (Giuseppe 1752-1808, Corrispondenza varia 1780-1806, 1). See for example the documents in: Archivio Ginori-Lisci (XV 2, 1 Manifattura di Doccia Carlo Leopoldo, gestione pupillare). The scudo was a monetary measure used for accounting. It was subdivided in 7 lire/20 soldi/240 denari. The measure 6837.5.18.8 would so be read: 6837 scudi, 5 lire, 18 soldi and 8 denari. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. Notes on contributor Monika Poettinger teaches economic history and history of economic thought in università Luigi Bocconi and the university of Florence. Her research comprises foreign entrepreneurship in Milan and the working of international merchant networks between the 18th and the 20th century. She also studied liberal economic thought in Tuscany, the economist Otto Neurath and the historical philosophy of Amintore Fanfani. Recent researches include the experience of Florence as capital of the Kingdom of Italy and the relationship of Italian with German and Austrian economic thought. Main publications include: Economic Thought and History: An unresolved Relationship, (with Gianfranco Tusset) Routledge, 2016; Florence Capital of the Kingdom of Italy (1865-1871), (with Piero Roggi) Bloomsbury, London, 2018; Business Cycles in Economic Thought: A History, (with Alain Alcouffe and Bertram Schefold), Routledge, 2017. 22 M. POETTINGER AND M. POETTINGER References Aglietti, M. (2015). La nobiltà feudale nel granducato di Toscana tra Sette e Ottocento: norme, caratteri, rappresentazione. In R. Cancila & Musi, A. (eds.), Feudalesimi nel Mediterraneo moderno. Associazione Mediterranea. 165–184. Alessandrini, N. (2006). La presenza italiana a Lisbona nella prima metà del Cinquecento. Archivio Storico Italiano, CLXIV, (607), 37–54. Alimento, A. (2008). Tra Bristol ed Amsterdam: discussioni livornesi su commercio, marina ed impero negli anni cinquanta del Settecento. In D. Balani, D. Carpanetto, & M. Roggero, (Eds.), Dall'Origine dei Lumi alla Rivoluzione (pp. 25–45). 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(1778). n. 42 persone dei Fabbricanti e Ministri della Fabbrica delle Porcellane di Doccia si dichiara espressamente di non voler prestar altrimenti l’opera loro ai Signori Bartolommeo e Cav. Giuseppe Ginori, ma di prestarla da quel tempo in avvenire al solo Sig. Senator Lorenzo Ginori loro Fratello. 10 Settembre 1778 Archivio Ginori-Lisci (39, 14). Dimostrazione degli utili. (1807). della Fabbrica delle Porcellane e Maioliche di Doccia dal dì 10 Agosto 1806 a tutto 31 Luglio 1807. Archivio Ginori-Lisci (38, 2). Dimostrazione del prodotto. (1778). della Fabbrica delle Porcellane di Doccia dall’Anno 1748 inclusivo allo Maggio 1778. Archivio Ginori-Lisci (38,8). Dimostrazione dell’Incassato. (1781). e speso del Conto dell’incominciata, e soppressa Fabbrica delle Porcellane eretta a San Donato in Polverosa dal Nobile Sig. Marchese Cav. Giuseppe Ginori nell’Anno 1779 e soppressa ne 31 Marzo 1781, stante la privativa accordata con B. R. di S. A. R. Pietro Leopoldo al Sig. 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(1747). occorrono per la fabbricazione di 2 casse di lastre vetri alla Veneziana. Archivio Ginori-Lisci (137, I) 1, 455. Parere sulla Fabbrica. (1780). delle Porcellane di Doccia in Toscana del fu Cav Conte Vittorio Fossombroni. Archivio Ginori-Lisci (39, 20). Progetto di ristrutturazione. (n.d). Archivio Manifattura Doccia (1999). Quaderno Conti di Spese. (1837). della Fabbrica delle Porcellane e Majoliche di Doccia dal dì p.mo Maggio1832 a tutto il dì 18 Marzo 1837. Archivio Ginori-Lisci (Paolo Lorenzini). Regolamento della manifattura. (1740). Archivio Ginori-Lisci (137 II, 11, 671). Relazione delle cose. (1754). più rimarcabili intorno alle fabbriche, ed all’opere di Scoltura, e Pittura, osservate dal Principe di Viano nella toscana, in tempo del suo viaggio, seguito nelli mesi di Agosto, Settembre, ed Ottobre dell’anno 1754. unpublished manuscript, Pistoia: Biblioteca Forteguerriana (msc. 266). Ristretti mensuali. (1854). di porcellane e maioliche della Fabbrica di Doccia dal primo maggio 1853 al 30 aprile 1854. Archivio Ginori-Lisci (XV 2, 4). Russell, G. (1747). Risposta di Giovanni Russell, Archivio Ginori-Lisci (137, I, 1, 411-12). 26 M. POETTINGER AND M. POETTINGER Spoglio della fabbrica. (1799). delle Porcellane di Doccia cominciato il dì 23 novembre e termina il 31 luglio 1799. Archivio Ginori-Lisci (Registri Singoli). Spoglio della fabbrica. (1791). delle Porcellane di Doccia dal primo agosto 1788 a tutto il dì 22 novembre 1791. Archivio Ginori-Lisci (Registri Singoli). Spoglio della fabbrica. (1837). delle Porcellane di Doccia dal primo maggio 1830 a tutto il dì 18 Marzo 1837. Archivio Ginori-Lisci (Paolo Lorenzini). Spoglio della fabbrica. (1830). delle Porcellane di Doccia dal primo maggio 1821 a tutto il dì 30 Aprile 1830. Archivio Ginori-Lisci (Paolo Lorenzini). Stato della Fabbrica. (1791). delle Porcellane di Giuseppe Marrini, scritturale della Fabbrica di Porcellane di Doccia. Archivio Ginori-Lisci (38, 4).