THE GINORI FAMILY AND PORCELAIN 1735-1896

EUROPEAN BUSINESS HISTORY ASSOCIATION (EBHA) 21ST ANNUAL CONGRESS INSTITUTE FOR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA 24-26 August 2017 FROM ARISTOCRACY TO BUSINESS AND BACK THE GINORI FAMILY AND PORCELAIN 1735-1896 Monika Poettinger (Università Bocconi-Milano) Introduction The history of the Ginori porcelain manufacture, from its foundation in 1735 to the merger with the Società Ceramica Richard i , covers exactly the timespan of the industrial revolution. Following its evolution gives a precious insight in the changes of manufacturing from the first tentative experiments of centralised production, with the introduction of chemical and technological manufacturing processes, to the goal of mass production and standardized procedures. So to say: from the Venere de' Medici, a work of art created in 1747, to fin de siècle insulators, mass produced for telegraphs and electrical lines. History, obviously, did not follow a clear and linear path, nor did the Ginori manufacture experience a constant growth or continuous expansion. The case of such a long-lived enterprise though, blessed by the conservation of a huge quantity of archival documents, represents in any case a precious occasion to ponder about the changes that industrialization caused not only to the production of porcelain but on the surrounding society and entrepreneurial culture. The present study analyses the history of the manufacture as the result of the entrepreneurial effort of the marquis Carlo Ginori, heir of a noble Florentine family (Paragraph 1). The Ginori family, at the time of Ca lo s i th, had already passed through enrichment, ennoblement to bankruptcy, migration, trade, and back to nobility and aristocratic pursuits in just a couple of centuries. Something of the merchant his father had been persisted in Carlo Ginori, but his political career for the Lorena government of Tuscany moulded his thought to a d e a tilist poli ies. All the hile, he a aged his fa il s possessio s ith excelling administrative capabilities, an experience he capitalised in the porcelain manufactory. The peculiarity of the aristocratic entrepreneurship embodied by Carlo Ginori marked the manufactory with some atypical traits that persisted for all the century and a half in which it remained in the hands of the heirs of the Ginori family (Paragraph 2). Accountancy, administration, succession and strategic decisions were heavily influenced by the aristocratic management of the firm. The early centralization of production in the premises located in villa Buondelmonti in Doccia, near Sesto Fiorentino, was just the most visible of these long-term characteristics. Seen in this light, the history of Carlo Ginori and of his porcelain manufactory provides some precious understanding of the peculiar form and management of enterprises born out of nobility, highlighting a kind of entrepreneurship usually neglected by historiography. 2 CARLO GINORI: A NOBLEMAN OR AN ENTREPRENEUR? 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 manufacture1. 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 an aristocrat as Carlo Ginori (1702-1757) fit in the definition of Cantillon? Was the Tuscan marquis an entrepreneur? 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, Grand Duke of Tuscany, was mercantilist. He made the land flourish with a multitude of manufactories that valued local resources and generated exports or substituted costly imports. Instead of merely exercising entrepreneurship, Carlo Ginori waged war with economic weapons for a wealthier and powerful Tuscany. 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 feud of Cecina and in Leghorn where he was appointed governor in 17462. Ginori drained the wetlands surrounding Cecina and then built a roman-style villa to host a multiplicity of manufactures: preservation of oily fish, processing of coral, firing of earthenware and creation of straw hats. Thanks to these activities, many families of fishers came back to the coast of Maremma, because they were now able to sustain themselves, while fishing alone could not grant survival. After a decade of activity, in 1748, the o alla i , who had arrived in Cecina from Naples and Sicily, came to employ 17 boats with a crew of 50 sailors each3. The coral manufacturing activity, then, employed 300 workers4. A veritable success of mercantilist policies. See: Monika Poettinger, Lo sviluppo economico lombardo ed i network imprenditoriali, Villa Vigo i. Mitteilu ge , vol.X, 2007, pp. 148-165. 2 Archivio Storico di Firenze (ASF), Consiglio di Reggenza, filza 710, ins. 1. See also the brief description in: Rita Balleri, Laura Casprini, Sara Pollastri, Oliva Rucellai (eds.), Documenti e Itinerari di un gentiluomo del secolo dei lumi. Album. Carlo Ginori, Firenze, Polistampa, 2006, pp. 28-29. 3 Archivio Ginori Lisci (AGL,) XI, O.f. 8, cc. 1008-1009, lettera di Anton Francesco Mari a Carlo Ginori, Livorno, 9 Ottobre 1744. 4 Biblioteca Forteguerriana (BUF), ms. 266, Relazio e delle ose più ri ar a ili i tor o alle fa ri he, ed all’opere di Scoltura, e Pittura, osservate dal Principe di Viano nella toscana, in tempo del suo viaggio, seguito nelli mesi di Agosto, Sette re, ed Otto re dell’a o . 1 3 The villa Ginori in Cecina in the middle of the eighteenth century5 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 boatyard6. Nonetheless, the porcelain manufacture set up by Carlo Ginori in Doccia, just beneath the hills in the west of Florence7, 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 o de ed de elop e t of Tus a s p odu ti e fo es 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. Giuseppe Zocchi, Veduta delle Ville, e d’altri luoghi della Tos a a, 1753, p.30. ASF, Consiglio di Reggenza, filza 654, ins. 1. 7 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 illa di Do ia de Ma hesi Gi o i di Fi e ze, o è la lo o ele e Fa i a delle Po ella e , can be found in: Thomas Salomon, Lo stato Presente di tutti i Paesi e Popoli del Mo do…, Venezia, 1757, vol. XXI. 5 6 4 An alternative explanation, for what contemporaries judged as an extravagance, is offered by Adam Smith, writing, again not per chance, in 17768. 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 import of extravagant goods from foreign countries created and inexhaustible demand and granted a level of profits that had no relation with the local economy. The same merchants, then, that imported these precious wares set up local manufactories to imitate them and exploit the demand they had created. 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 pieces9. The most striking proof of this business is the huge Chinese porcelain se i e ith the fa il s oat of a s that the fathe of Ca lo, Lo e zo Gi o i10, 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 after he had administered for some decades a complex trade network centred in Lisbon, acting also as Consul for the Grand Duchy. Among his manifold businesses, Lorenzo had supervised the orders of porcelain that the Grand Duke Cosi o III de Medi i (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 Indies11: a plan nullified by the opposition of Holland. No one better than he, so, had an accurate knowledge of the porcelain trade, of the European demand for porcelain 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, Doccia would have sprung out of the abrupt changes in the international production and demand of 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 ha e s of athed als a d to p i es Wunderkammern12, 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 8 Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Digireads Publishing, 2004, pp.238-39. See: Marco Spallanzani, Mer a ti fiore ti i ell’Asia portoghese( -1525), edizioni SPES, Firenze, 1997; Carmen Radulet, La comunità italiana in Portogallo e il commercio orientale nella prima metà del Cinquecento, in: Giovanni Motta (a cura di), Mercanti e viaggiatori per le vie del mondo, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2000; Nunziatella Alessandrini, La presenza italiana a Lisbona nella prima metà del Cinquecento, A hi io “to i o Italia o . , CLXIV, , pp. -54. 10 On Lorenzo Ginori see: Antonella Viola, Lorenzo Ginori: Console della nazione fiorentina e agente del Granduca di Toscana in Portogallo (1674-1689), in Nunziatella Alessandrini, Mariagrazia Russo, Gaetano Sabatini & Antonella Viola (eds.), Di Buon affetto e commerzio Relações luso-italianas na Idade Moderna, CHAM, Lisona, 2012, pp.163-176. 11 Statuti preliminari della Compagnia delle Indie, Negoziazioni con il Portogallo, ASF, Auditore dei benefici Ecclesiastici, 5686. 12 Friedrich H. Hofmann, Das Porzellan. Der Europäischen Manufakturen im XVIII Jahrhundert, Im Propyläen-Verlag, Berlin, 1980, pp.14-15. 9 5 products13. 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 China14, from 152015 to the middle of the seventeenth century imports were limited to 30.000-60.000 pieces for every Portuguese cargo sailing home from the Indies16. From 1604 to 1657 Dutchmen, instead, imported around three Million porcelain pieces17. Small numbers, biased by the fact that porcelain was the preferred ballast for the journey back from the East Indies around the Cape of Good Hope. Two events, in the middle of the seventeenth century, abruptly changed the situation18. Firstly, the almost complete embargo of China on porcelain exports, levied in 1657, that lasted officially until 1682, in reality until 169519. Secondly, the growing diffusion in Europe of new beverages: tea, coffee and chocolate20. These new consumption goods gave, at last, a cultural significance to Chinese porcelain, stimulating its widespread use and appreciation21. An appreciation that resulted in an increased monetary value of porcelain, all the while the Japanese production and Chinese imitations crafted as earthenware in Kubachi, Dagestan, could substitute only in part the ceased Chinese imports22. 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 donations23. Between 1575 and 1587, Francesco I even succeeded in crafting soft paste porcelain pieces in the court manufactory directed by Bernardo Buontalenti. The so- 13 Marco Spallanzani, Ceramiche Orientali a Firenze nel Rinascimento, Firenze, Libreria Chiari, 1997, pp.107-128. On the Portoguese trade in porcelain, see: A. Varela Santos (ed.), Portugal in Porcelain from China. 500 Years of Trade, Artemagica, London, vols. I-IV, 2007-201 ; T ie Tsê Cha g, Sino-Potuguese Trade from 1514 to 1644, Leiden, 1934. 15 Before 1520, porcelain was almost completely missing from Sino-Portoguese trade. See: L. Da Ca Masse , Relazione alla Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia sopra il commercio dei portoghesi ell’I dia dopo la s operta del Capo di Buona Speranza (1497-1505), A hi io “to i o Italia o , Appe di e To o II, , pp. -51. 16 Ilda Arez, Maria Azevedo Coutinho Vasconcellos e Sousa, Jessie McNab, Portugal and Porcelain, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1984, pp.16-18. 17 T. Volker, Porcelain and the Dutch East India Company. A Record of the Dutch Registers between 1602 and 1682, Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1954. 18 Julie Emerson, Jennifer Chen, Mimi Gardner Gates (eds.), Porcelain stories: from China to Europe, Seattle, Seattle Art Museum in association with University of Washington Press, 2000. 19 Clare Le Corbeiller, China Trade Porcelain: Patterns of Exchange: Additions to the Helena Woolworth McCann Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1974, p.2. 20 See: Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe, The true History of Chocolate, London, Thames and Hudson, 2013, pp.12574; Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants, New York, Pantheon Books, 1992; William Gervase Clarence-Smith, Cocoa and Chocolate, 1765-1914, London, Routledge, 2003, pp. 8-10. 21 Christine A. Jones, Shapely Bodies: The Image of Porcelain in Eighteenth-Century France, Plymouth, University of Delaware, 2013. 22 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: Gerald W. R. Ward(ed.), The Grove Encyclopedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, p.34; R. W. Ferrier, The Armenians and the East India Company in Persia, Economic History Review , 2nd ser., 1, 1973, pp. 38-62. 23 Marco Spallanzani, Ceramiche Orientali a Firenze nel Rinascimento, Firenze, Libreria Chiari, 1997, pp.66-67. 14 6 called Medici porcelain24 was used as gift for powerful friends and at the Medici table. Later, at the beginning of the 18th century, the court of Cosimo III 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 with them 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 as circa 60 Million pieces25. 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. Adam Smith, surely, would have subscribed this interpretation of the founding of the manufactories of Meissen, Vienna, Venice and Doccia in the first decades of the eighteenth century. 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 Florence26. 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.). The Ginori manufactory should be analysed and classified, accordingly, as one of the court manufactories of the Renaissance more than as a modern business enterprise. The products of these factories were prerogative of the kings and aristocrats who financed them and otherwise used as gifts for vassals and potential allies27. Private commissions, if allowed, surely had not 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 from the sale of their products in markets28. Carlo Ginori, followingly, founded his manufactory, without any economic calculation, as visible proof of his rank, to establish himself as a credible successor to the Medici government and a guardian of Tuscan independency from Vienna. In fact, the first porcelain pieces were produced in Doccia in the same year, 1737, when the government of Tuscany passed in the hands of the Lorena dynasty after the death of Gian 24 See: G. Cora, A. Fanfani, La Porcellana dei Medici, Milano, 1986. Clare Le Corbeiller, China Trade Porcelain: Patterns of Exchange: Additions to the Helena Woolworth McCann Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1974, p.9. 26 See, for example: Alessandra Mottola Molfino, L’arte della por ella a i Italia. Il Ve eto e la Tos a a, Busto Arsizio, Bramante Editrice, 1976, p.9. 27 On the definition of court manufactories, see: Anna Maria Giusti (ed.), Arte e manifattura di corte a Firenze: dal tramonto dei Medici all'Impero, 1732-1815, Firenze, Sillabe, 2006. 28 Marina Belozerskaya, Luxury Arts of the Renaissance, Los Angeles, Getty Publications, 2005, p.31. 25 7 Gasto e de Medi i. Fu thermore, one of the most affectionate clients and supporters of the venture was, her life long, Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici. This historiographical interpretation is furthermore confirmed by the fact that Carlo Ginori 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 signature: the dome of Florence. Another peculiar aspect of the production of porcelain that supports the prestige motive behind the setting up of Doccia is the alchemical secret of the recipe. 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. Already Francesco I de Medi i had oasted with other reigning families of the alchemical knowledge that allowed him to produce porcelain29. The recipe of the Medici porcelain, though, had been lost shortly after the setting of the seventeenth century. When Carlo Ginori and other alchemists experimented to rediscover the exact mixture of earth that would resist fire, becoming translucent and tinkling objects, such knowledge appeared to Europeans as magical as transforming a rock into gold. Prestige so added up to prestige, rewarding whom, like Carlo Ginori, invested enormous sums into a production otherwise considered uneconomical. As to this view, Doccia had been for Carlo Ginori the demonstration of his alchemical proficiency30 and no profit calculation had influenced his decisions regarding the manufactory. 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 governed by other motives, like prestige, even the setting up of an industry would 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. 29 Stacey Pierson, From Object to Concept: Global Consumption and the Transformation of Ming Porcelain, Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 2013, pp.42-44. 30 On the manifold experiments of Carlo Ginori, see: Rita Balleri, Laura Casprini, Sara Pollastri, Oliva Rucellai (eds.), Documenti e Itinerari di un gentiluomo del secolo dei lumi. Album. Carlo Ginori, Firenze, Polistampa, 2006, p.27. 8 Graph 1. Balance of annual revenues and expenses of the Doccia manufactory from 1748 to 177831 14000 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 1748174917501751175217531754175517561757175817591760176117621763176417651766176717681769177017711772177317741775177617771778 -2000 -4000 Revenues 31 Expenses Net Result Data refer to Tab 2. And Tab.3. 9 A manuscript by Carlo Ginori with the explication of many alchemical symbols32 In founding his porcelain manufactory, was Carlo Ginori a mercantilist, an alchemist or an entrepreneur? The answer to this question lies in the profusion of documents preserved in the archive of the Ginori family and in the archive of the manufactory in Sesto Fiorentino. Given the secrecy connected with the recipe for the earth mixture, very little documentation is available on the first steps of the production in Doccia. The archive of the family, though, still preserves some letters regarding a project for the introduction in Tuscany of the production of high-quality glass plates33. The two productions, glass and porcelain, shared many technical characteristics (the necessity of high temperature furnaces) and chemical or alchemical knowledge. Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, the arcanist34 of the Meissen manufactory, had experimented for a long time with glass and also Johannes Kunckel, an alchemist of great fame the publications of which Carlo Ginori had studied in his researches35, wrote many essays on 32 Carlo Ginori, Quaderno di appunti e ricette alchemiche (AGL Filza 137 I cart. 1, 332). Bozza di contratto per Giovanni Russell (AGL Filza 137, I, Cart. 1, 407-10/457). 34 O the ole of a a ists i the a ufa tu e of po elai i Eu ope f o the si tee th to the eightee th e tu , see: Friedrich H. Hofmann, Das Porzellan. Der Europäischen Manufakturen im XVIII Jahrhundert, Im Propyläen-Verlag, Berlin, 1932, p.71 35 AGL Filza 137 I cart. 4 contains the manuscript copy of many passages of the Ars Vitraria Experimentalis by Johannes Kunckel. 33 10 the production of glass. The glass production was surely less prestigious than that of porcelain, but it still held the interests of experimenters like Carlo Ginori36. The project, though, dated 1747, had nothing to do with amateurish chemical research, nor with the enjoyable pastime of an enlightened aristocrat, or with the politician bent on procuring unique gifts for future alliances and personal prestige. On one of the documents preserved among the letters exchanged between Carlo Ginori and Johann Russell 37, in fact, someone wrote down in detail the Costs of t o trunks of plate glass i the a e of Ve i e, ith pie es pe t u k, p odu ed i hou s . The osts penned down were variable ones: specialised and unspecialised work (with the indication also of gratuities distributed every month to workers); materials (wood, sand and manganese), energy procured by a horse, but also lamp oil, clean blankets fo the o ke s lodge e ts a d the osts e tailed i epai i g the damages of wear and tear. The reverse of the same document specified the fixed costs of the venture: a furnace of Murano type, a furnace for glazing, a grinder for components to be operated by a horse, instruments for the furnaces a d lastl : fo the lodge e t … so that eds ith o ke s of the anufactory it is habit to procure at asses, covers and quilts a e eeded . Finally, a short notation reported the value on the market of a trunk of plate glass like that described: 16 Ducati. The two-sided document contained all information needed to judge the profitability of the offer, made to Carlo Ginori by Johann Russell, to introduce in Tuscany the production of glass artefacts with French specialised workers from a royal manufacture located in Lorraine. The related letter exchange between Russell and Carlo Ginori38 is extensive and clearly demonstrates 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, here, was clearly economic and so the rationality applied. The Russell venture is only one of many entrepreneurial plans preserved among the documents of the family archive39. Interesting, for example, given its relationship with Doccia, the project fo the P odu tio of sodiu hlo ide o potash desig ed fo Ce i a a d fo the de a ds of the po elai a ufa to . All projects included a profitability estimate and can be considered, given the accounting practices of the time, accurate business plans. 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 his many projects in terms of available resources and technological knowledge, markets for finished products and profit 36 See all documents relating to the production of glass and relative experiments preserved in the family archive: AGL Filza 137, I, Cart. 8-9. 37 Nota di spese che occorrono per la fabbricazione di 2 casse di lastre vetri alla Veneziana, AGL Filza 137, I, Cart. 1, 455. 38 Risposta di Giovanni Russell, AGL Filza 137, I, Cart. 1, 411-12. 39 For example the project for a manufactory of inlays (AGL Filza 137, I, Cart. 23-26) 11 expectations. Histo iog aph should so add to Gi o i s enlightened and scientific spirit also an entrepreneurial soul, be it his own or that of an administrator like the Lorainnese Johannon de Saint Laurent, his long-time secretary. Thanks to the cited documents, the question about the origin of the porcelain manufactory Ginori 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 a profit margin. 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.). Historiography usually shuns or marginalises aristocracy as a relevant component of the entrepreneurial class that emerged in the process of industrialization, considering its contribution to economic development as negative40. The role of aristocrats, as exemplified by Carlo Ginori, should instead be revalued, particularly in backward countries41. The rationality of the economic calculation that proceeded in its inexorable worldwide conquest derived not, in the case of Doccia - but the same could be argued for Tuscany as a whole - , from trade but from the capable management of a feud or of land possessions42. If the entrepreneurial idea behind the setting up of Doccia was a heritage of the Gi o i fa il s t ade with the East Indies, if the alchemical passion of Carlo heightened the appeal of unveiling an arcanum, the centuries long tradition of the family as landed proprietors lent to the enterprise an attentive and accurate accountancy, allowing the pursuit of profit. 40 A noteworthy exception were the studies done in the 1950s by the Research Center in Entrepreneurial History, Harvard University, under the supervision of Fritz Redlich. See: Symposium on the Aristocrat in Business, Explorations in Entrepreneurial History , , 1953/54, monographic issue; Ruth Crandall, The Research Center in Entrepreneurial History at Harvard University 1948-1958 a historical sketch, Harvard University, Cambridge, 1960, pp.39-41. 41 See: Jan Zak, The Role of Aristocratic Entrepreneurship in the Industrial Development of the Czech Lands, 1750-1850, in Miloslav Rechcigl, Jr. (ed.), Czechoslovakia Past and Present, vol. 2, Mouton, The Hague and Paris, 1968; Hermann Kellenbenz, German Aristocratic Entrepreneurship: Economic Activities of the Holstein Nobility in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, E plo atio s i E t ep e eu ial Histo , , , pp. -114; Fritz Redlich, Henry Rosovsky, Notes on a Case of Aristocratic Entrepreneurship in Eighteenth Century Poland, Explorations in Entrepreneurial History , , , 161-162; Fritz Redlich, A German Eighteenth-Century Iron Works during Its First Hundred Years: Notes Contributing to the Unwritten History of European Aristocratic Business Leadership Bulletin of the Business Historical Society , , , , pp. 69-96; Fritz Redlich, A German Eighteenth-Century Iron Works during Its First Hundred Years: Notes Contributing to the Unwritten History of European Aristocratic Business Leadership-II, Bulletin of the Business Historical Society , , , , pp. 141-157; Fritz Redlich, A German Eighteenth-Century Iron Works during Its First Hundred Years: Notes Contributing to the Unwritten History of European Aristocratic Business Leadership-III, Bulletin of the Business Historical Society , , , , pp. 231-259; John Habakkuk, Economic functions of English landowners in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Explorations in Entrepreneurial History , 6, 1953, pp. 92-102. 42 On this interesting topic see: Clara Eugenia Núñez (ed.), Aristocracy, Patrimonial Management Strategies and Economic Development, 1450-1800, Madrid, Universidad de Sevilla, 1998. An early assessment of the question is to be found in: Herbert Buhl, Anfänge der kameralistischen Buchhaltung, )eits h ift für Handelswissenschaft und Handelspraxis , XXII, , pp. 111-116. 12 In 1760 Johannon de Saint Laurent, evaluating the economic management of the enterprise after the death of Carlo Ginori, so o luded: It is e ide t that a p ofit should e e ge ea l of . Li e 43 . The result obtained by San Laurent by exactly calculating the 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 the later accountancy reports. In 1778, on 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. Many estimations were then made of the value of the premises, of the value of the inventory of porcelain pie es, a d of the p ofita ilit of the a ufa to . O e of the detailed epo ts o sisted i a Proof of the product of the Porcelain manufactory of Doccia from the year 1748 to May 1778 (Tab. 1) based on the yearly comparison between revenues (sales of the manufactory itself, sales made by the warehouse in Leghorn and sales to the House in Florence), and expenses (of the entire estate of Doccia, of the manufactory, of the warehouse in Leghorn and of the House in Florence)44 (Tabs. 2-3). The report certifies the persistent but diminishing losses until the death of Carlo Ginori, while afterwards the venture kicked off with yearly profits that ranged exactly around the sum calculated by Saint Laurent (15.522 Lire corresponded to 2.217 scudi). 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 in itself a little masterpiece of management audit ahead of its time, certifying how rational calculus and profit expectations could be the consequence of an administrative tradition that had less to do with trade but everything to do with the aristocratic management of possessions. Giuseppe Liverani, La manifattura di Doccia nel 1760. Secondo una relazione inedita di J. De St. Laurent, L a te della Stampa, Firenze, 1970. 44 AGL Filza 38, cart.38, Di ostrazio e i Ristretto delle So e i assate dalla ve dita delle Por ella e dall’a o a tutto 1778 e delle spese state fatte in detto tempo a servizio della fabbrica delle medesime. 43 13 Tab. 1 Proof of the product of the Porcelain manufactory of Doccia (scudi45) from the year 1748 to May 177846 Year 1748 1749 1750 1751 1752 1753 1754 1755 1756 1757 1758 1759 1760 1761 1762 1763 1764 1765 1766 1767 1768 1769 1770 1771 1772 1773 1774 1775 1776 1777 1778 TOTAL Expenses net of revenues Revenues net of expenses 1361.1.7.8 1090.-.7.8 540.6.4 517.5.16.4 275.4.7.6 1399.1.12.7 1033.5.18.4 568.-.2.5 592.6.-.8 250.-.3. 2391.3.12.8 955.6.11.5 1672.-.13.2 1898.3.14.4 2466.2.13.10 2403.-.16.4 2168.3.8 3655.2.17.8 4090.3.-.4 4192.1.1.4 3126.3.6 3479.3.14.4 2580.4.14.8 3401.4.-.8 3619.-.17.4 1495.-.18. 2453.6.3.4 2211.1.13.4 2491.4.17.4 2500.1.7.4 2841.5.3.4 56155.2.4.7 45 The scudo was a monetary measure used for accounting. It was not subdivided in decimals and cents but in 7 lire/20 soldi/240 denari. 46 AGL Filza 38, cart.8, Dimostrazione del prodotto della Fabbrica delle Porcellane di Doccia dall’A o i lusivo allo Maggio 1778. 14 AN ENTERPRISE AS A PERSONAL POSSESSION For more than a century and a half, the porcelain manufactory of Doccia was one of the many possessions of the Ginori family47, inherited by the first-born along with the title of marquis. In consequence, the enterprise developed some peculiar traits that persisted in its long history. A first point concerns the relationship, ahead of its time, of ownership and control. The entrepreneurial idea behind the foundation of the Ginori manufactory, as seen, followed both from the knowledge accumulated by the family in a century long merchant activity with the East Indies and from the administrative skills entailed in managing extensive landed properties. 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 cannot be distinguished from that of the entire estate of Doccia with the expenses of the property eroding the profits of the porcelain production (Tab.2). Moreover, the management of the manufactory was entrusted to an administrator as for every estate of the Ginoris. The history of the manufactory so was always dependent from the quality of the liaison between this administrator and the marquis. This occurrence brought forward all agency problems that the great part of developed economies would know only much later with the diffusion of limited companies. The asymmetry in information between aristocrats and the superintendents who looked after their properties was well known48 and many proverbs referred to it. It used to be said that he ho ad i iste ed ould eat out of this o k: a i ist a, a hi i est a , 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. The epo t of “ai t Lau e t ith its o lusio the e ust e a p ofit of… as 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 more or less a century, all ministers of Doccia, so, sprung out of the sa e lo al fa il , the Fa iulla i. Ia opo Fa iulla i, the t ust o th Ia opi o of Ca lo Gi o i, became the first minister, after Francesco Lorena had sent the marquis to Leghorn as governor. Iacopo 47 On this period of the history of the manufactory in Doccia, see: Mariagiulia Burresi, Manifattura toscana dei Ginori: Doccia 1737-1791, Pisa, Pacini, 1998; Alessandro Biancalana, Porcellane e maioliche a Doccia. La fabbrica dei marchesi Ginori. I primi cento anni, Firenze, Polistampa, 2009. 48 The question has been attentively studied in the case of agricultural activities, less known the cases, as that of Ginori, of manufacturing enterprises. See: Giuliana Biagioli, Il modello del proprietario imprenditore nella Toscana dell'Ottocento--Bettino Ricasoli: il patrimonio, le fattorie, L.S. Olschki, Firenze, 2000, pp. 235-238. 15 ruled the factory until 179149, 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 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. Already tested in the management of the satirical journal Il Lampione and of the wool manufactory of Stia50, his abilities flourished in the restructuring of porcelain manufactory between Italy s Unification and the years when Florence was capital of the Kingdom of Italy, roughly the decade 1861 to 1871. 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 finest porcelain51. Archival documents preserve many proofs of the relationship between Paolo Lorenzini and Lorenzo Ginori (1823-1878) and the trust it entailed52. Lorenzini had a hard time in persuading the marquis of the necessity of change to meet the increased demand generated by the Italian unification and the growing competition from the rival Giulio Richard in Milan. In the end, though, bad financial results and the failed recognition of ualit of the a ufa to s p odu ts at the U i e sal E hi itio of Pa is in 1867, convinced Lorenzo Ginori to leave free hand to his minister. The marquis further dedicated his efforts to his political career, while Lorenzini reorganised Doccia. His management was considered vital to the functioning of factory53, so that soon after his death, in 1891, having found no replacement, the Ginori family, thorn by disputes among the heirs of Lorenzo, sold the manufacture to the son of Giulio Richard54. 49 On the relationship between Iacopo Fanciullacci and Carlo Ginori, see: AGL, Filza 137, I, cart.13. AGL Filza Paolo Lorenzini. 51 For the history of the manufactory in the nineteenth century, the most complete and recent publication is: Sandra Buti, La manifattura Ginori, Trasformazioni produttive e condizione operaia (1860-1915), Leo S. Olschki, Firenze, 1990. 52 AGL XV 2, Filza 4 Manifattura Di Doccia Carlo Leopoldo, doc. 1-15. 53 Balance sheets of the factory, drawn up by Paolo Lorenzini are preserved in the Archives of the manufactory in Doccia (AMD) for the years 1874, 1881-1885. Lorenzini also drafted yearly reports that summarised the financial results of the factory and gave precise indications in regard to strategic decisions (AMD, Relazio e sull’Eser izio del 1882; 1883; 1884; 1885; 1886; 1887; 1889; 1890; 1891; 1892; 1893). 54 See: Monika Poettinger, Richard, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , vol. LCCCVII, Treccani, Roma, 2016, pp. 404408. 50 16 Tab. 2 Outline of factory guidelines (1740) 55 Following the desire to set down the guidelines for the new porcelain and majolica manufactory, in the future the following orders should be obeyed For the room of the painters Mr. Carlo Tieres in Feld 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. To Gio. Mohr (il Moro) 24 To Fiaschi 12 To Ant. Baldassini 10 To Gius. Nincheri 10 Sum 56 For the room of the models, the moulds and the Mr. Gaspero Bruschi will direct the room and will control works done on the wheel 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. Gaspero by ringing a little bell and all supervisors will inspection his subordinates and will personally answer for their work. To Giov. Gori 24 To Pietro Orlandini 12 To Pietro Baldassini 10 To Ant. Terini 10 For the preparation of the earth mixes and of the paints 55 The same Mr. Bruschi will supervise all working on the wheels and he will have the task to pay to the Fattore the tiny clay sticks 12 for 100; vases of clay 20 for 100; pots of clay 10 for 100, little dishes of clay 10 for 100; paying attention to pass on only those pieces that are well made and can be put into the furnace. At that point, the responsibility will be of Gio Gori. The same will be done for the porcelain and the glaze. Jacopo Fanciullacci will direct the operations and supervise the work To Michele Bencini To Giovanni Bianchini To Tommaso Corsi The same Fanciullacci will be responsible for the continuous presence of a sufficient quantity of earths, paints, mixes and other materials so that nothing will ever be missing AGL Filza 137 II, cart. 11, 671. 17 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 maintained many processes as homework, so that labourers could continue to tend the fields of their landlord, 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 (Tab.2). 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 written down in 1740 (Tab.2), 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 next56. 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 illiterate farmers and sharecroppers57. Enlightenment, in form of new instruments, chemical cognitions and economic calculations, found so its way into the centuries old habits of Tuscan peasants through the enforcement of stricter controls and a new autocratic figure: the aristocratic entrepreneur58. Carlo Ginori and his successors, particularly his nephew Carlo Leopoldo Ginori (1792-1837), applied the same methods to their manufactory, Doccia. 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 many other contemporary porcelain manufactories, Meissen among them, resorted to a diffused 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 completed in different locations, even hundreds of kilometres apart from one another. In the history of Doccia, though, the necessity of an absolute control on the working environment and on the entire life of workers is a permanent characteristic. Painters and sculptors were handsomely paid, the best among them per piece produced, but all others were salaried employees subject to long working hours 56 AGL, Filza 138, 222 and following. “ee fo e a ple the ‘egola e to Ag a io della Fatto ia di B olio itte do Betti o ‘i asoli i (Giuliana Biagioli, Il modello del proprietario imprenditore nella Toscana dell'Ottocento--Bettino Ricasoli: il patrimonio, le fattorie, L.S. Olschki, Firenze, 2000, pp. 468-476). 58 See: Giuliana Biagioli, Il modello del proprietario imprenditore nella Toscana dell'Ottocento--Bettino Ricasoli: il patrimonio, le fattorie, L.S. Olschki, Firenze, 2000, pp. 119-130. 57 18 and continuous supervision of their handiwork. Therefore, at the end of the eighteenth century, during the trust management on behalf of the underage children of Lorenzo Ginori (1734-1791)59, 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 manufactory60. 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 families61. 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 in the management of their landed properties, Ca lo Leopoldo e a e the fi st aste 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 premises62. 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 lunch63. 59 AGL XV 2, Filza 1 Manifattura di Doccia Carlo Leopoldo, gestione pupillare. 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 t pi al of Tus a s ag i ultu e of the ti e. See: Giuliana Biagioli, Il modello del proprietario imprenditore nella Toscana dell'Ottocento--Bettino Ricasoli: il patrimonio, le fattorie, L.S. Olschki, Firenze, 2000, pp. 164-177 61 AGL XV 2, Filza 1 Manifattura di Doccia Carlo Leopoldo, gestione pupillare, Sessione del 29 Ottobre 1803. 62 AGL XV 2, Filza 1800-1810, 185-297. 63 Ibid. 60 19 Fig. 1 Four stories kiln developed by Carlo Leopoldo Ginori and built in Doccia in 1822, depicted by the director of Sévres, Alexandre Brongniart, in his treatise on pottery64. Carlo Leopoldo obtained many praises as entrepreneur for having devised and built a new furnace, from then on kno as the fo a e all italia a 65 , still working at the end of the century66 (Fig. 1). Archives, though, also report his painstaking control over workers. In some letters, he aggressively menaced workers 64 Alexandre Brongniart, Traité des arts céramiques: ou des poteries, considérées dans leur histoire, leur pratique et leur théorie, Volume 3 Atlas, Béchet jeune, Paris, 1844, planche XII. 65 Alexandre Brongniart, Traité des arts céramiques: ou des poteries, considérées dans leur histoire, leur pratique et leur théorie, Volume 1, Béchet jeune, Paris, 1844, pp. 193-194. 66 AGL XV 2, Filza 1 Manifattura di Doccia Carlo Leopoldo, 31-60. 20 for having overheard that their daughters strolled alone in the evening. The marquis was ready to fire such inattentive fathers if they would not better control their offspring67. 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. The upheavals of this revolutionary year and the spreading of pernicious socialist ideas among the working class posed a threat to the centralized Doccia68. The process of Unification, then, confronted property and management with the need to rapidly adapt the production to the enlarged market. Two options were open: increase the dimension of the traditional manufactory, incurring in huge sunk costs and fostering union claims, or import white porcelain pieces from France and had them painted and signed by homeworking painters in Florence and surroundings. This second possibility would have reduced the risk of trade unionism in Doccia, challenging its workers with the competition of scattered and unemployed homeworkers69. The decision of Lorenzo Ginori and Paolo Lorenzini, in the end, though, went in the opposite direction. The villa of Doccia went through an extensive and costly renovation that, as seen, multiplied the productive capacity of the factory. Centralization had won again over centrifugal alternatives, not secondarily because Lorenzo Ginori had in Sesto Fiorentino the electoral feud that granted him a seat in Parliament until his nomination as senator in 1864. A third heritage of the aristocratic origin of the Ginori manufactory and another of its long-lasting characteristics concerns accounting. The meticulous bookkeeping that was born together with the porcelain factory derived from the administration practice exercised by the family on its landed properties. Such precise accounts have not been integrally preserved either in the family archive or in the archive of the manufacture. Only bits and pieces survive70. What remains, though, clearly shows some peculiar traits in respect to merchant accountancy methods of the time71. Accountancy revolved around stock, flows and inventories, while modern balance sheets and double entries were virtually absent. During the first twenty ea s of the a ufa to s ope atio s, as seen, the accounting data (tabs.3-4) still included the whole estate of Doccia, biasing the result toward the negative. All the while the balances also reported as sales the value of embers- fuo o - sent yearly to the House in Florence. Notwithstanding the 67 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. See: Giuliana Biagioli, Il modello del proprietario imprenditore nella Toscana dell'Ottocento-Bettino Ricasoli: il patrimonio, le fattorie, L.S. Olschki, Firenze, 2000, pp. 295-297. 68 For a detailed description of trade unionism in Docci between 1848 and 1861, see: Sandra Buti, La manifattura Ginori, Trasformazioni produttive e condizione operaia (1860-1915), Leo S. Olschki, Firenze, 1990, pp. 81-95. 69 AMD, 1999. 70 See: AGL, Registri Singoli. For example: Entrata e Uscita Porcellane dal 1752 al 1764, con ristretti; Spoglio della fabbrica delle Porcellane di Doccia cominciato il dì 23 novembre e termina il 31 luglio 1799; Spoglio della fabbrica delle Porcellane di Doccia dal primo agosto 1788 a tutto il dì 22 novembre 1791. 71 See: Federigo Melis, Storia della regioneria: contributo alla conoscenza e interpretazione delle fonti più significative della storia economica, C. Zuffi, Bologna, 1950, p. 722. 21 lack of accounting identity of the manufactory, the data still highlight many interesting points. Excluding the expenses of the estate the production was always in the active. Sales grew rapidly, accounting for the growing profits, 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 about the production process, eroded the margins of operations. The dwindling results of the manufacture were then the cause of the dispute among the heirs of Carlo. 22 Tab.3 Proof in synthesis of the revenues and expenses of the last years until April 1757 of the Porcelain and Majolica Manufactory in Doccia of the marquises Ginori, compiled by Giuseppe Marrini accountant of the same Marquises Ginori72 Revenues From the manufactory From the warehouse in Leghorn In Florence Total Expenses Of the House in Florence Of the Marquis Carlo Ginori in Leghorn Of the Manufactory Of the estate in Doccia Total Net result 1748 1749 1750 1751 1752 1753 1754 1755 1756 1757 1309.6.14 396.2.19 598.2.17.8 2304.5.10.8 2303.3.4 529.4.10 198 3031.-.14 2471.3.11.4 458.5 67.5.16.8 2998.-.8 2518.3.-.8 387.4.15.8 2736.2.18.8 402.-.1.4 2826.6.13.4 241.5.17.8 3930.5.15 79.-.1.8 3138.3 3008.5.11 2641.1.13.4 232.1.1.4 19.5.13.4 2893.1.8 3533.5.13.4 177.1.10.8 2906.-.16.4 2501.1.11 1095.5.-.4 4.-.16.8 3601.-.8 3711.-.4 4009.5.16.8 508.2.6.8 459.-.1 1177.2.7 1521.2.3.8 3665.6.18.4 -1361.1.7.8 209.1.14.8 376.5.13 1896.5.8.8 1638.2.5.4 4121.1.1.8 -1090.-.7.8 124.6.5.8 56.-.14.8 1953.5.15.8 1404.-.16 3538.6.12 -540.6.4 197.6.2 34.-.11 1524.3.10.8 1667.3.9 3423.6.12.8 -517.5.16.4 214.2.11.4 242.4.5.8 1736.1.15.8 1683.3.2.10 3876.4.15.6 -2754.7.6 313.2.11 124.1.15.4 1709.6.5.4 2390.1.-.6 4537.4.12.2 -1399.1.12.2 365.1.5.4 32.2.16.4 2002.3.14.8 1702.3.13 4162.4.9.4 -1033.5.18.4 29.-.9 302.6.3.4 1521.2 1607.6.18.1 3461.1.10.5 -568.-2.5 93.3.6.8 385.4.9.4 2081.6.15 1742.5.13.8 4303.6.4.8 -592.-.6.8 8.-.5.4 36.-.8.4 2584.6.8 1630.5.18 4259.5.19.8 -250.-.3 AGL Filza 38, cart.8 Di ostrazio e i Ristretto dell’i asso e speso egli ulti i passati a Illustrissimi Sig.ri Marchesi Ginori. 72 i a tutto Aprile presso la Fa ri a delle Por ellane e Maioliche di Doccia degli 23 Tab.4 Proof in synthesis of the revenues from the sale of porcelain pieces from the year 1757 to 1778 and of the expenses in the same period for the production of porcelain pieces73 1758 1759 1760 1761 1762 1763 1764 1765 1766 1767 1768 4370.6.17.4 1763.6.6 4595.4.16.4 1476.5.8.4 5203.6.19.4 1182.1.9 5318.-.3.4 1517.5.2.8 5998.2.12.8 1713.2.3.6 6102.3.9.8 1829.6.16 7308.-.2.8 1207.6.-.8 7381.2.15 1663.1.18.8 9238.-.16 1202.2.10 8234.-.11.4 1469.4.18.4 7946.3.15 1735.-.10 31.3 20 30.5 32.6 42.4 34.2 43.4 59.2 35.5 58.4 51.3 6166.2.3,4 6092.3.4.8 6416.6.8.4 6868.4.6 7754.1.16.2 7966.5.5.8 8559.3.3.4 9103.6.13.8 10476.1.6 9762.2.9.8 9733.-.5 1641.1.6.4 1765.5.17.4 2225.6.14.8 2725.4.14.8 1948.5.17 2599.5.5.8 2098.-.6 2484.3.15.4 2217.1.7.8 2548.3.11.8 2643.3.13.8 3495.6.7 2368.2.12.4 2719.2.17.8 2651.1.19.4 3418.-.5 2609.3.2 2820.6.14.4 2762.4.17.8 3377.2.-.4 By the Minister in Leghorn 334.-.12.8 104.4.18.8 951.17.8 316.5.-.4 389.4.4 2294.4.-.4 2315.1.1.4 115.4.9.8 329.3.17.4 225.4.2.8 234.-.2 68.3.16.4 385.6.11.4 By the House in Florence Total Net result 33.4.14.4 3774.5.10.8 2391.3.12.8 80.1.5.3 5136.3.13.3 955.6.11.5 75.4.15 4744.5.15.2 1672.-.13.2 70.5.10 4970.-.11.5 1898.3.14.4 132.3.19 5287.6.2.4 2466.2.13.10 199.5.16 14.3.1.8 37.1.17 6390.6.15.4 2168.3.8 135.1.3.4 5448.3.16 3655.2.17.8 82.2.19.4 6385.5.5.8 4090.3.-.4 71.1.15.8 5570.1.8.4 4192.1.1.4 80.4.15.8 6606.3.19 3126.3.6 1769 1770 1771 1772 1773 1774 1775 1776 9239.3.3 878.3.6 39.2 10157.1.9 9246.3.15.8 1548.1 44.2 10838.6.15.8 9863.6.-.8 1165.4.5 45.5 11075.1.5.8 11403.4.4 1550.5.7 42.3.10 12996.6.1 10200.4.10 1335.2.18.4 44.3.5 11580.3.6.4 10620.6.1.8 798.3.13 46.5.10 11466.1.4.8 11110.2.15 850.5.7 5 11966.1.2 10339.5.3 687.4.4.4 2827.-.-.4 3366.2.19.8 456.5.19.8 27.2.15 6677.4.14.8 3479.3.14.4 3212.-.14.8 4647.6.5.8 256.-.5.4 142.-.15.4 8258.2.1 2580.4.14.8 3265.-.1 4053.6.1.4 302.-.17 52.4.5.8 7673.4.5 3401.4.-.8 3690.2.16.8 5037.4.13.8 341.3.18 248.-.15.4 9317.5.3.8 3679.-.17.4 104.3.6.4 9255.2.5.8 615.-.7.8 110.-.11.8 10085.2.8.4 1495.-.18 78.2.11.8 8658.6.-.4 240.5.18.4 34.1.11 9012.2.1.4 2453.6.3.4 79.5.17 9620.6.5 53.2.6.8 -.6 9754.6.8.8 2211.1.13.4 9 8462.2.10.8 58.2.19.4 -.6 8535.4.10 2491.4.17.4 Revenues Sales made from the factory Sales from the warehouse in Leghorn Sales of fire embers to the House in Florence Total Expenses By the estate in Doccia By the Minister Fanciullacci Revenues Sales made from the factory Sales from the warehouse in Leghorn Sales of fire embers to the House in Florence Total Expenses By the estate in Doccia By the Minister Fanciullacci By the Minister in Leghorn By the House in Florence Total Net result Payments to the House in Florence by The porcelain manufactory The Minister in Leghorn AGL Filza 38, cart.8 Di ostrazio e i Ristretto delle So servizio della fabbrica delle medesime. 73 508.5.-.8 5563.4.9.4 2403..16.4 e i assate dalla ve dita delle Por ella e dall’a o a tutto 1777 1778 2500.1.7.4 1892 2841.5.3.4 2394.5.11.4 608.1.7.4 446.6.12 11027.2.7.4 e delle spese state fatte in detto tempo a 24 The dispute among Lorenzo, Giovanni and Bartolomeo, as explained, generated a renewed interest in the accounting practices related to the manufactory. The accountant of the family was, at the time, Giuseppe Marrini. His was the compilation of the reports on the first twenty years of existence of Doccia, on the base of the documents available, his also the most important innovation in the accountancy of the manufactory to be witnessed before the end of the 18th century. Marrini, unsatisfied by the simple balances calculated from yearly sales and expenses, compiled a “tato della fa i a dell Po ella e that used a o pletel different inspiration principle, regarding assets and not cash flows. The profits were so estimated comparing the assets of the manufactory (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. The profits so estimated were almost 3000 scudi. The marquis had taken more than this share of profits in advance for his personal expenses. In 1791 Lorenzo Ginori died, leaving an underage heir. As a consequence, the manufactory as the whole patrimony of the family was managed through a gestio e pupilla e ade out of t ustees. A o g the were the wife of Lorenzo, Francesca, and his brother Giovanni. Tab. 5 Consistency of the Porcelain manufactory in 1791 (scudi) compiled by Giuseppe Marrini, accountant of the Porcelain manufactory in Doccia74 ACTIVE (Assets) The assets remained in existence 6837.5.18.8 at the balance of this day 22 September 1791 are as follows Cash at 1437.5.18.8 disposition of the Minister Jacopo Fanciullacci Outstanding 5400 debts deduced of 40% Total 6837.5.18.8 The Senator has taken in cash 3655.3.17.8 and expenses and payments made on his behalf TOTAL 10493.2.16.4 74 PASSIVE (Assets of the previous year) The assets remained in existence 7651.-.12.8 at the balance of the 31 July 1790, were, as follows Cash at 911.3.12.8 disposition of the Minister Jacopo Fanciullacci Outstanding 6739.4 debts deduced of 25% Total 7651.-.12.8 Profit 2842.2.3.8 TOTAL 10493.2.16.4 AGL Filza 38, cart. 4, Stato della Fabbrica delle Porcellane di Giuseppe Marrini, scritturale della Fabbrica di Porcellane di Doccia. Monika Poettinger Giovanni was especially sensitive to accountancy issues. His claims on the management of the factory in Doccia had been based on precise accounting reports that highlighted how profit margins had dwindled from 1768 onwards. The accountancy of his short-lived attempt at a porcelain manufactory in San Donato is perfectly preserved in the family archive75. Thanks to this archival material we come to know another figure of accountant: Giuseppe Sandrucci, who also acted as director of the new manufactory76. For the factory in San Donato, Sandrucci constructed an accountancy system based on the books reporting cash flows (Entrate/Uscite) and debts/credits (including paid-in capital). Such data allowed to write down synthetic profit calculations for the manufactory as those made by Giuseppe Marrini for Doccia. Sandrucci also wrote down a Gio ale di Cassa , registering all cash movements. Another set of accounting books regarded the sale shop opened i ia de “e i i the e t e of Florence. 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 scudi77. The loss was levelled by diminishing accordingly the credit held by Giuseppe Ginori for his paid-in capital of 7702 scudi. Interesting to know that the 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 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, as seen, did not particularly innovate the accountancy methods in use by the Ginori family. A o e fo a d, i stead, is do e ith the e d of the gestio e pupilla e . “pu ed the e essit to evaluate, again, the operations 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 on the base of a patrimonial principle (Tab. 6). While Sandrucci and Marrini, though, used exclusively the data on credits and cash flows, the cited document also included inventory and part of the fixed capital. Even investments are listed, as the new furnace and the shop set up in Florence at the Mercato Vecchio. 75 AGL Filza 36, San Donato. On Sandrucci see: Leonardo Ginori Lisci, La porcellana di Doccia, Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, Firenze, 1964, pp.8485. 77 AGL Filza 36, cart. 6, Di ostrazio e dell’I assato, e speso del Co to dell’i o i iata, e soppressa Fa ri a delle Por ella e eretta a Sa Do ato i Polverosa dal No ile Sig. Mar hese Cav. Giuseppe Gi ori ell’A o e soppressa ne 31 Marzo 1781, stante la privativa accordata con B. R. di S. A. R. Pietro Leopoldo al Sig. Sen Lorenzo Ginori. 76 26 Monika Poettinger Tab. 6 Proof of the profits of the porcelain and majolica manufactory from the 10th August 1806 to the 31st July 180778 Debts toward the manufactory classified and deducted as follows Good debts deducted 2808.3 2536.1 30% Mediocre debts 107.6 112.6 deducted 60% Bad debts (2977.3 scudi) deducted 100% Debts to be recovered by Franco Scappini classified and deducted as follows Good debts deducted 94.6.6 61.—13.4 30% Mediocre debts 74.1.12 115.5 deducted 60% Bad debts deducted 100% TOTAL 3085.2.18 2825.5.13.4 Debts of the sale shop in Florence for the manufactory as follows For delivered boxes of 1913.3.14 1400.3.-.8 porcelain and majolica pieces For the profits of the 7935.3.4.8 9480.-.19.4 same 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 1806 3085.2.18 1807 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 78 AGL Filza 38, cart. 2, Dimostrazione degli utili della Fabbrica delle Porcellane e Maioliche di Doccia dal dì 10 Agosto 1806 a tutto 31 Luglio 1807. 27 Monika Poettinger Carlo Leopoldo grasping, at last, the reins of the family patrimony, introduced major changes, setting up a complete and new accounting system through books that reported yearly data on revenues and expenses for the manufactory and all stores and warehouses79. Each book detailed the data through many registers dedicated to the different voices of revenues and expenses. The latter would so be subdivided, for example, into raw materials, fuel, shipping, labourers, donations etc. The books generated a flow of information that was synthetized in a general balance sheet for the manufacturing activity. The general p i iple fo al ulati g the p ofita ilit f o the o alled e t i the ooks , though, e ai ed the same: a comparison of the data on assets from one year to the other. 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; semifinished products, paints and raw materials; timber, woodpiles and wood stacks; mules, baskets and carts of the factory stable; cash and credits80. Already in the 1820s this accounting system was fully operational and allowed an advanced process of strategic decision making81. Of this complex system, though, only some parts survive in the archive of the manufactory and in the archive of the family (Tab.7). Tab.7 Rent of the Porcelain Manufactory of Doccia calculated through yearly assets comparison from 1832 to 1837 (Lire)82 Date Assets Rent 30 April 1831 334071.15.8 23441.9 30 April 1832 3546433.16.8 35972.1 30 June 1833 375210.14.4 29166.17.8 30 April 1834 386996.5.4 31759.10.4 30 April 1835 388081.19 36085.13.8 30 April 1836 398102.10.4 31020.11.4 18 March 1837 423927.13 32484.11.8 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. His 79 AGL Filza XV 2, Carteggi, 474-590. See: AGL Filza Paolo Lorenzini. For example: Spoglio della fabbrica delle Porcellane di Doccia dal primo maggio 1830 a tutto il dì 18 Marzo 1837; Quaderno Conti di Spese della Fabbrica delle Porcellane e Majoliche di Doccia dal dì p.mo Maggio1832 a tutto il dì 18 Marzo 1837; Spoglio della fabbrica delle Porcellane di Doccia dal primo maggio 1821 a tutto il dì 30 Aprile 1830. 81 See: AGL Filza XV 2, cart. 4 Manifattura Di Doccia Carlo Leopoldo. For example: Ristretti mensuali di porcellane e maioliche della Fabbrica di Doccia dal primo maggio 1853 al 30 aprile 1854. 82 Data taken from: AGL Filza Paolo Lorenzini, Spoglio della fabbrica delle Porcellane di Doccia dal primo maggio 1830 a tutto il dì 18 Marzo 1837. 80 28 Monika Poettinger relations to the annual balance sheets show an advanced management control based on accounting data on which he formulated strategic alternatives. One last point must be underlined. The aristocratic entrepreneurship that gave birth to the porcelain manufacture in Doccia imprinted the firm with another long-lasting trait: family ownership. As already hinted, Doccia has always been managed by the family as a personal property. Something quite different from being a family business in the sense of a partnership or limited company whose control was exercised by a family. 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 heirs fought over management and strategies. The younger brothers of Lorenzo, as seen, asked for the liquidation of their shares of heredity83 and founded a new manufacture in San Donato in Collina84. Laborers, shocked by the litigation, wrote letters over letters to the marquis, asking his permission to stay in Doccia85. Only a few followed the rebellious Giuseppe, who soon lost the support of Bartolomeo. Lorenzo elegantly solved the dispute by obtaining from the Grand Duke the renewal of the monopoly right his father had received for manufacturing porcelain in Tuscany. Giuseppe was obliged to close down the newly erected factory, with heavy losses, and all his workers migrated to Naples86. In 1792, Lorenzo, in search for a solution to the problem of generational passage, obtained a Fedecommesso Primogeniale Agnatizio, in derogation to the abolition of all feudal privileges, that granted the possession of the manufactory to the firstborn of the Ginori family. 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. Such the case of the heirs of Lorenzo Ginori who 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 documents87. 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 managing the porcelain production in Doccia 83 AGL Ginori Giuseppe (1752-1808), Corrispondenza varia 1780-1806, 1. AGL Filza 36, San Donato. 85 AGL Filza 39, cart. 14, 10 Settembre 1778 Chirografo col quale n. 42 persone dei Fabbricanti e Ministri della Fabbrica delle Porcellane di Doccia si di hiara espressa e te di o voler prestar altri e ti l’opera loro ai Sig ori Bartolo eo e Cav. Giuseppe Ginori, ma di prestarla da quel tempo in avvenire al solo Sig. Senator Lorenzo Ginori loro Fratello. 86 AGL Filza 36, cart. 5. 87 AGL XV 2, Filza 1 Manifattura di Doccia Carlo Leopoldo, gestione pupillare. 84 29 Monika Poettinger exploited the lack of control exercised by the property to smuggle and sell pieces over the counter and falsify reports. The ensuing litigation had to be solved in court. In the end, in 1896, the repeated fighting among the heirs of Lorenzo Ginori, the death of Paolo Lorenzini and scarce managerial capacity, constrained the family to sell the factory to the long-time rival Richard. Doccia became, so, part of a modern corporation with plants scattered all over Italy. As such, it survived up to today. CONCLUSIONS This paper identifies some traits that characterised the history of the porcelain manufacture of Doccia when it was a possession of the Ginori family, from the foundation in 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 by the trade with China exercised by the Ginori family in the 17th century, or by 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 a firm or a corporation with its own personality, the factory was managed by an administrator, the minister, as every extensive estate in possession of the marquis. Therefore, the manufactory experienced, ahead of its time, all agency problems typical of modern corporations with separation of ownership and control. Sometimes, as in the case of Johannon de Saint Laurent, Jacopo Fanciullacci and Paolo Lorenzini, the relationship of the marquis with his minister and accountants 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 in 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. 30 Monika Poettinger A third point regards accounting methods. Accounting was meticulously practiced inside the manufacture, from its first years of existence. The bookkeeping, though, was different from the usual merchant one. Considering unsold stocks as present values, the manufactory at times managed inventories with presumed values higher than that of the entire villa and its equipment. Active sale strategies were adopted only at the end of the eighteenth century. 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 first half of 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, bureaucratization and the relationship with the surrounding territory. It did so with a success that should not only be 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. A call for successful aristocratic entrepreneurship. The Ginori manufacture in the villa of Doccia in the second half of the nineteenth century 31