15 Women’s writings in late medieval Tuscan mercantile correspondence

Within the extensive mercantile documentation from late-medieval Tuscany, which attests to the level of literacy achieved by the merchant class, women's writings, although less numerous, are particularly valuable as they allow us to determine not only the socio-cultural profile of the writers but, in a broader perspective, testify to the level of literacy among lay women from the Tuscan merchant class between the 14th and 15th centuries. The two paradigmatic cases examined in this study—the correspondence of Margherita Bandini with her husband, the famous Prato merchant Francesco di Marco Datini (1384-1410), and the correspondence of Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi with her exiled children (1447-1470)—are therefore precious testimonies of the existence of a pragmatic female vernacular writing in medieval Tuscany.