Note 9 — AUTHOR’S PREFACE (1851)

By an elaborate process, founded upon very complex facts, Cibrario concludes that, with reference to the value of wheat in Piedmont, the florin is now worth only about double what it was in the fourteenth century; but this does not seem a fair test to the relative power of money even in Italy; and in a work intended for English readers, it appears necessary to bring out an estimate applicable to present prices in this country, not in Southern Europe, where money still goes much further than with us.