The author publishes a letter written by the Roman merchant Iacobello dei Cosciari
and addressed in Genua to the captain of a Ligurian ship carrying a cargo
of grain that could not be unloaded in the port of Rome owing to a setback.
This text, together with other related letters published here, gives an idea of the
workings of the merchants’ postal system of the late Middle Ages, ensuring the
rapid diffusion of news of commercial interest. From a linguistic and philological
perspective, Iacobello’s letter is a very rare, indeed unique, example of direct
merchant writing from 14th century Rome.
