Giovanni Arnolfini belongs to the commercial record as a figure whose ventures outlasted the conditions that produced them.
The record lists Giovanni Arnolfini as 15th-century Italian merchant.
Giovanni Arnolfini was born at Lucca in 1400.
Commerce then ran on personal credit, family networks and letters that took weeks to arrive; trust was the scarcest asset.
He worked as merchant and businessperson.
Commercial success is easy to measure and hard to interpret; timing and market do much of the work.
Giovanni Arnolfini died in 1472, aged 72. What remains is the enterprise and its consequences, which is the only durable measure of a commercial life.
