Francesco del Giocondo belongs to the commercial record as a figure whose ventures outlasted the conditions that produced them.
The record lists Francesco del Giocondo as Italian merchant 1460–1542.
Francesco del Giocondo was born at Florence in 1460.
Commerce then ran on personal credit, family networks and letters that took weeks to arrive; trust was the scarcest asset.
He worked as merchant.
Commercial success is easy to measure and hard to interpret; timing and market do much of the work.
Francesco del Giocondo died in 1542, aged 82. What remains is the enterprise and its consequences, which is the only durable measure of a commercial life.
