Francesco Balducci Pegolotti was a Florentine merchant that compiled information about prominent trading routes that stretched across the Eurasian steppe and deep into mainland China.
His collected observations would later become Pratica della mercatura (“Practice of Marketing”), which functioned as a reference text for centuries thereafter. His interactions with different merchants and travelers informed the majority of the text, he himself rarely traveled outside of Europe, but closely monitored mercantile routes across the continent for the Bardi family of Florence.
His success as a merchant allowed him to travel widely. He spent time in Antwerp, London, and Cyprus during his illustrious career. Despite his apparent importance to the Baldi family, and subsequently to the financial health of Florence, little of his life is ever unearthed. Any insights into his life can only be inferred from his text, which is to say very few, because of the highly objective way in which it was written.