earliest known merchant manuals, but it is possible that
Pegolotti borrowed some of his material from still earlier
manuals, just as later manuals would borrow from his.
This type of book probably functioned as an exemplar
to teach apprentices how international trade worked, not
as a reference for absolute values or information.
Further Reading
Borlandi, Antonia, ed. Il manuale di mercatura di Saminiato de’
Ricci. Genoa: Di Stefano, 1963.
Borlandi, Franco, ed. El libro di mercatantie et usanze de’ paesi.
Turin: S. Lattes, 1936.
Cessi, Roberto, and Antonio Orlandini, eds. Tarifa zoè noticia
dy pexi e mesure di luoghi e tere che s’adovra mercadantia
per el mondo. Venice, 1925.
Ciano, Cesare, ed. La pratica di mercatura datiniana. Milan:
Giuffrè, 1964.
Dotson, John, trans. and ed. Merchant Culture in Fourteenth-
Century Venice: The Zibaldone da Canal. Binghamton, N.Y.:
Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1994.
Pagnini del Ventura, Giovanni Francesco. Della decima e di varie
altre gravezze imposte dal comune di Firenze: Della moneta
e della mercatura de’ fi orentini fi no al secolo XVI, Vol. 3, La
pratica della mercatura (by Balducci Pegolotti); Vol. 4, La
pratica della mercatura (by Giovanni di Antonio da Uzzano).
Lisbon, 1765–1766. (Reprint, Bologna: Forni, 1967.)
Pegolotti, Francesco Balducci. La pratica della mercatura,
ed. Allen Evans. Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of
America, 1936.
Stussi, Alfredo, ed. Zibaldone da Canal: Manoscritto mercantile
del sec. XIV. Venice: Comitato per la Pubblicazione delle Fonti
Relative alla Storia di Venezia, 1967.
Eleanor A. Congdon
PEIRE CARDENAL
(ca. 1180–ca. 1272)
One of the most prolifi c troubadours and the longest-
lived, Peire Cardenal composed sirventes, or satires, on
moral and religious subjects. He left some ninety-six
poems. Born in Le Puy, he was employed as a clerk by
Raymond VI of Toulouse and frequented the courts of
Les Baux, Rodez, Auvergne, and (according to his vida)
of Aragon. He may have died in Montpellier.
As a satirist, Peire is distant from Marcabru but closer
to Bertran de Born, whom he imitated in a number of
compositions, sometimes equaling the sting of Bertran’s
invective, on other occasions echoing his technique of
martial description the better to express his disapproval
of Bertran’s eagerness for combat. Peire imitated the
metrical and musical form of preceding compositions in
at least 80 percent of his own songs, exploring the pos-
sibilities of an increasingly strict sense of contrafacture
with impressive technical inventiveness.
As a moralist, Peire praises good actions and blames
the bad but laments that he is understood by no one, as
though he spoke a foreign language. He tells a fable,
Una ciutatz fo, in which rain falls on a city and drives
everyone mad except one man who has been sheltered;
when he goes out into the street, he sees that everyone
else is crazy, but they think him mad and drive him away.
Thus, worldly spirits reject the man who hears the voice
of God. In a few poems, Peire criticizes the worldly love
sung by other troubadours and anticipates the dolce stil
nuovo with his claim that fi n’amors is born in a franc
cor gentil, “a noble, gentle heart.”
During the extended period of the Albigensian
Crusade (1209–29), Peire expressed vigorous anti-
clericalism at the expense of Dominican inquisitors
and severely criticized the French army led by Simon
de Montfort. He did not, however, defend the cause of
the Albigensians, regarded as heretics by the church, but
rather championed the political cause of the counts of
Toulouse, whose lands were invaded by the crusaders.
In his religious poems, he expresses an orthodox belief
in Catholic doctrine.
See also Marcabru; Simon de Montfort,
Earl of LeicesterFurther Reading
Peire Cardenal. Poésies complètes du troubadour Peire Cardenal,
ed. René Lavaud. Toulouse: Privat, 1957.
Marshall, John Henry. “Imitation of Metrical Form in Peire
Cardenal.” Romance Philology 32 (1978): 18–48.
Riquer, Martín de, ed. Los trovadores: historia literaria y textos.
3 vols. Barcelona: Planeta, 1975, Vol. 3, pp. 1478–518.
Wilhelm, James J. Seven Troubadours: The Creators of Modern
Ve r s e. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
1970, pp.173–95.
William D. PadenPEÑAFORT, RAMÓN DE
(c. 1180–1275)
Ramón de Peñafort was the greatest canon lawyer of
his century, third master general of the Dominicans, and
architect of the century’s novel program for proselytiz-
ing Muslims and Jews. Born at his father’s castle or
seignorial residence of Peñafort at Santa Margarida del
Penedes, Ramón presumably received his arts education
at the cathedral of Barcelona, where he became a cleric
and scriptor in 1204. A decade later he undertook legal
studies at the University of Bologna and subsequently
taught there. By 1223 he was back at Barcelona Ca-
thedral as provost canon of its chapter. He soon left
all to become a Dominican mendicant, presumably at
Barcelona’s Santa Caterina priory. He is thought to have
assisted Cardinal Jean d’Abbeville, the papal legate, in
his travels across Spain beginning in 1228 to reinforce
the reforms of the Fourth Lateran Council; he was
certainly at Zaragoza in 1229 to decide the annulment
of the marriage between Jaime I and Leonor of Castile.
In 1230 he was called to Rome as papal chaplain andPEGOLOTTI, FRANCESCO DI BALDUCCIO