Jerome, Hieronimo, or Girolamo Frescobaldi (1444–1517) was an Italian financier and textile merchant based in Bruges. He supplied luxury goods to the Scottish court and was described as a "very good friend to the King of Scots".Aonghus McKechnie, 'Court and courtier architecture', Richard D. Oram & Geoffrey Stell, Lordship and Architecture in Medieval and Renaissance Scotland (Birlinn, 2005). The Frescobaldi family and company, based in Florence, were involved in artistic commissions in England and Scotland.Eleri Lynn, Tudor Textiles (Yale, 2020), p. 14. Jerome Frescobaldi was involved in the wool trade with Tommaso Portinari and his sons,Giovanni Francesco Pagnini, Della decima e di varie altre gravezze imposte dal comune di Firenze, vol. 1 (Lisbona & Lucca, 1765), pp. 297-302. and marketed spices obtained by Portuguese traders.Henry de Vocht, 'Jerome De Busleyden', Humanistica Lovaniensia (Brepols, 1950), p. 345.
In Bruges
Jerome, Jeronimus, or Hieronymus (Italian: Girolamo) Frescobaldi was a member of the internationally successful Florentine Frescobaldi family, and married to Dianora Gualterotti.Richard Ehrenburg & H. M. Lucas, Capital And Finance In The Age Of The Renaissance (New York, 1928), p. 199. He was described as a "Lombard" in Scottish records.James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer: 1500-1504, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1901), p. 227. Frescobaldi and his business partners in Bruges, the Gualterotti family, sponsored the voyage of Giovanni da Empoli from Lisbon to the Malabar Coast of India in 1503 and 1504, intending that he would be their agent in Calicut for the spice trade.Richard A. Goldthwaite, The Economy of Renaissance Florence (Johns Hopkins, 2009), p. 159: Nunziatella Alessandrini, 'The Far East in the Early 16th Century: Giovanni da Empoli’s Travels', Mary N. Harris, Global Encounters European Identities (Pisa, 2010), p. 218: Sidney R. Welch, South Africa Under King Manuel, 1495-1521 (Juta, 1946), p. 76.'Vita di Giovanni da Empoli', Archivio Storico Italiano, Appendice, vol. 3 (Florence, 1846), pp. 10-11, 25, 106
Jerome Frescobaldi seems to have mostly lived in Bruges.Francesco Guidi Bruscoli, 'Mercanti-banchieri fiorentini tra Londra e Bruges', Mercatura è arte: Uomini d'affari toscani in Europa e nel Mediterraneo (Viella, 2012), pp. 14, 30–31: Laura Galoppini, Mercanti toscani e Bruges nel tardo Medioevo (Pisa, 2009), p. 238. Records survive of his transactions on behalf of the Company of Bruges (Compagni di Bruggia) concerning the wool trade and the Portinari family from 1475 onwards.Giovanni Francesco Pagnini, Della decima e di varie altre gravezze imposte dal comune di Firenze, vol. 1 (Lisbona & Lucca, 1776), pp. 291-302. In June 1493 he and Antonio Gualterotti were involved in a property transaction with a neighbour of Tommaso Portinari, a Medici banker.Louis Gilliodts-Van Severen, Cartulaire de l'ancienne estaple de Bruges (Bruges, 1904), p. 282 no. 1272 A list of leading Italians in Bruges in August 1498 is headed by "Hieronimo Frescobaldi", followed by the banker Cornelio Altoviti, Folco Portinari (nephew of Tommaso), Jacobo Palazzoni (factor to Bernardo Rucellai), Oberto Spinola (representative of Batista Ricardini), and Baptista Spinola.Storia di Soncino con documenti opera di Francesco Galantino, vol. 3 (Milano, 1870), p. 328Federica Veratelli, À la mode italienne: Commerce du luxe et diplomatie dans les Pays-Bas meridionaux, 1477–1530 (Villeneuve d'Ascq, 2013).
Frescobaldi was one of a chain of bankers who held a jewel mortgaged from the Burgundian Habsburg court known as il Riccho Fiordalisio di Borgogna – the rich lily or blue bottle of Burgundy.Aby Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity (Getty, 1999), p. 293. This was a reliquary holding a fragment of the cross, a nail, and fabric from a garment of the Virgin Mary.Richard Ehrenburg & H. M. Lucas, Capital And Finance In The Age Of The Renaissance (New York, 1928), pp. 197–98: Lorenzo Pignotti & John Browning, History of Tuscany, 3 (London, 1823), pp. 278–79.
He established a trading house in Antwerp in 1507 in order to raise credit. He was often in Antwerp in the previous decade, and he was the Florentine consul in Antwerp in 1500.Peter Stabel, 'Le monde financier de Wouter Ameide', Finances publiques et finances privées au bas moyen âge: Public and Private Finance in the late Middle Ages (Garant, 1996), p. 84. Business transactions in Antwerp and Bruges with the Scottish merchant and staple conservator Andrew Halyburton were recorded in Halyburton's ledger from 1497.Cosmo Innes, Ledger of Andrew Halyburton (Edinburgh, 1867), pp. 138, 144, 263.
Merchant career
Frescobaldi supplied fabrics and cloth of gold used at the coronation of Henry VII of England in October 1485. The English accounts record his name as "Jarome Frustobald". The materials included "cloth of gold tissue of purple ground", "white cloth of gold" for henchmen's gowns, and crimson and green satin for doublets and placards worn by henchmen and footmen.Leopold G. Wickham Legg, English Coronation Records (London, 1901), p. 201: William Campbell, Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII, 2 (London, 1877), pp. 6–7.
Frescobaldi subsequently worked to supply James IV of Scotland and his consort Margaret Tudor, and his name appears frequently in the published exchequer records and the manuscript household account. Frescobaldi arranged credit for Scottish clergy travelling in Europe, and was the factor for the foreign debts of Archbishop of St Andrews.Cosmo Innes, Ledger of Andrew Halyburton, 1492-1503 (Edinburgh, 1867), p. 6 He supplied fine textiles for costume, furnishing, and table linen. He was involved in imports from Bruges with a Scottish merchant and courtier, James Merchamestoun. Merchamestoun bought silverware and chairs of estate in 1503 for the king's marriage to Margaret Tudor, and Frescobaldi was involved with William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, in financing these purchases. Another Scottish merchant buying in Flanders for the king at this time was James Hommyll, who imported tapestries, and hosted a group of Africans apparently including Ellen More for the king in his house on Edinburgh's High Street.James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer: 1500-1504, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1901), p. 241-3.Morvern French & Roger Mason, 'Art, Artefacts, Artillery', in Roger Mason & Alexander Fleming, Scotland and the Flemish People (Birlinn, 2019), p. 109.George Burnett, Exchequer Rolls of Scotland: 1502-1507, vol. 12 (Edinburgh, 1889), pp. 374-5.
In May 1503 his factor Julian Laci, also called "Julian the Lombard",Thomas Thomson, 'Protocol Books of Edinburgh', PSAS (1863), p. 150. was paid for purchases made in Flanders, including ermine fur for the collar of the king's gown, five chairs of estate or thrones upholstered in cloth of gold, velvet for another four chairs, and ironwork for the chairs, and 16 gilded pewter balls for the chairs.Morvern French, 'Ostentatious by nature: Flemish Material Culture at the Marriage of James IV and Margaret Tudor', International Review of Scottish Studies, 46 (2021), p. 37John G. Dunbar, Scottish Royal Palaces: The Architecture of the Royal Residences (Tuckwell: Historic Scotland, 1999), p. 172. The chairs were made in Bruges and taken to Middelburg for shipping.James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer: 1500-1504, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1901), pp. 227-8, 236. Julian Laci also appears in the exchequer rolls, exempted from the export custom duty of Melrose wool.George Burnett, Exchequer Rolls of Scotland: 1502-1507, vol. 12 (Edinburgh, 1889), p. 262 In May 1505, Julian Laci met with Richard Lawson of High Riggs and the burgh council of Edinburgh. He signed a deed recording that a former Provost of Edinburgh, Alexander Lauder, had returned all the goods belonging to Frescobaldi which had been in his custody.Protocol Book of John Foular (Scottish Record Society, 1941), p. 28 no. 157.
From 1505 to 1507 Jerome Frescobaldi organised a series of purchases for James IV from a sum of Flemish money, spent in Flanders, probably in Bruges. This included a stick or length of cloth of gold, hanks of gold wire or thread, money for the purchase of great horses, books of gold leaf for illuminating manuscripts and charters, live quails and pheasants. He gave money to the king's envoys, the Carrick Pursuivant and Lyon Herald, and arranged for 1,000 gold ducats to be available in Venice for the king's son, Alexander Stewart, Archbishop of St Andrews. He arranged the payment for the Papal bulls to appoint the Archdeacon of Aberdeen,James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer: 1506-1507, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1901), pp. 55, 277-9. and later made payments for the controversial promotion of Gavin Douglas to the see of Dunkeld in 1516.John Small, The poetical works of Gavin Douglas, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1874), p. lviiRobert Kerr Hannay, Acts of the Lords of Council, 1501 to 1554 (Edinburgh, 1932), pp. 44-45.
The cloth of gold was used to make a coat for James IV and the remaining 11 ells were given to Margaret Tudor. The gold fabric was used with expensive velvet to make an important gown in March 1507. The historian Michelle Beer argues that this gown was made for Margaret's "churching" after her first pregnancy, a ceremony which marked her return to full participation in court life.Michelle Beer, Queenship at the Renaissance Courts of Britain (Woodbridge, 2018), p. 54. Some of the gold wire was sent to Margaret Tudor while she was away on a pilgrimage to Whithorn in June 1507.James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer: 1506-1507, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1901), pp. 268-71.
Frescobaldi and his steward Julian Laci were not always resident in Scotland, and a note in the royal accounts from 1504 mentions that the court embroiderer Nannik, or Nanynek Dierxsoun,M. Livingstone, Register of the Privy Seal of Scotland, 1488-1529, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1908), p. 87 no. 606. had used drawn gold thread sent by Frescobaldi to embroider a chasuble but there was no one to ask the price.James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer: 1500-1504, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1901), pp. 293.
Frescobaldi did business with an Edinburgh merchant William Todrik. After Todrik died, Frescobaldi delivered 60 great or Flemish pounds to his executors.Protocol Book of John Foular (Scottish Record Society, 1941), p. 63 no. 345. Todrick exported wool to Flanders.Cosmo Innes, Ledger of Andrew Halyburton (Edinburgh, 1867), pp. 111, 175.
The Frescobaldi family at the English court Jerome Frescobaldi supplied some textiles for the coronation of Henry VII of England in 1485.William Campbell, Materials for a history of the reign of Henry VII, vol. 2 (London, 1887), p. 6 His sons Filippo and Leonardo Frescobaldi conducted similar business at the English court from 1511, where there were several other Italian merchants in residence. In 1516 Leonardo Frescobaldi was given an annuity or pension by Henry VIII as a vendor of cloth of gold and silver, and he was made an usher of the king's chamber.Maria Hayward, The Great Wardrobe Accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII (Boydell, 2012), p. xliii, xlix, 153.J. S. Brewer, Letters and Papers Henry VIII, 1 (London, 1862), p. 479 no. 3679 Leonardo had stood as a guarantor for Pietro Torrigiano when he was contracted to make the tomb of Margaret Beaufort in November 1511.Thomas P. Campbell, Henry VIII and the Art of Majesty: Tapestries at the Tudor Court (Yale, 2007), p. 114: Elizabeth Cleland, The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England (New York, 2022), p. 204. A Netherlandish artist involved in the tomb project, Meynnart Wewyck had been in Scotland in 1502 and 1503 painting portraits.Charlotte Bolland & Andrew Chen, 'Meynnart Wewyck and the portrait of Lady Margaret Beaufort in the Master's Lodge, St John's College, Cambridge', Burlington Magazine, 161 (April 2019), pp. 314–319.