Note A3-6-2 — Chapter III

In Italy's best period, the protective system bears a specifically municipal complexion; in democracies, a guild-complexion; the former especially because of the many differential duties in favor of the capital.

A very highly-developed protective system in Florence. The exportation of the means of subsistence forbidden (Della Decima, II, 13), and so likewise the importation of finished cloths. (Stat Flor., 1415, V, p. 3; Rubr., 32, 39, 41, 43, 45.) In the streets devoted to the woolen industries, it was not permitted to give the manufacturers notice to quit their dwellings, nor to increase their rent, unless the connoisseurs in the industry had admitted a higher rate of profit. (Decima, II, 88.) In order to promote the silk industry, the importation of silk-worms and of the mulberry leaf was freed from the payment of duties in 1423, the exportation of raw silk, cocoons and of the mulberry leaf forbidden in 1443; and in 1440, every countryman was commanded to plant mulberry trees. (Decima, II, 115.) When Pisa was subdued, the Florentines reserved to themselves all the wholesale trade, and prohibited there all silk and woolen industries. (Sismondi, Gesch. der italienischen Republic, XII, 171.) It was a principle followed by Milan in its best period, to exempt manufacturers from taxation. Yearly subsidies, accorded about 1442, to Florentine silk-manufacturers, who immigrated; in 1493, a species of expropriation, in case of houses which a neighbor needed for manufacturing purposes. (Verri, Mem. Storiche, p. 62.) Bolognese prohibition of the exportation of manuscripts, because they wanted to monopolize science. (Cibrario, E. polit. del. medio. Evo., III, 166.) Even in the seventeenth century, a city like Urbino forbade the exportation of cattle, wheat, wood, wool, skins, coal, as well as the importation of cloth, with the exception of the very costliest kinds. (Constitut. Due. Urbin., I, p. 388 ff., 422 ff.)