Dante’s Debts in their Documentary Context

Abstract

This article considers Dante’s so-called “debts”, the most sizeable of which were guaranteed by his relatives and friends. Out of these loans, those contracted for the highest amounts remained unsettled even decades after the agreed repayment date. The salient features of the Florentine notarial contracts stipulated ex causa mutui during the age of Dante will be discussed. Particular attention will be given to the difference between the sum of money which was actually given in loan and the sum declared in the document, the duration of the contract, the personal guarantees requested and the relationship between notarial records and private account books. The different uses of the notarial instrumentum mutui will be illustrated, from its implementation on the debtor’s estate to the transfer of the negotiable instrument to third parties. In certain instances, fictive debts (ad defensionem) were contracted with the aid of trusted friends and other individuals who acted as figureheads (in order to defend the assets of the bankrupt, thus damaging the mass of creditors, for example) or else constructed in such a way as to define a priority of mortgages on the assets of the debtors. Even in this latter case, possible or feared actions undertaken by third parties, which could compromise the debtor’s assets, were immediately deflected in order to avoid repercussions.