In the history of enterprise, Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici is one of the names that keeps returning.
The record lists Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici as Italian banker, younger son of Cosimo de Medici (1421-1463).
Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici was born at Florence in 1421.
Commerce then ran on personal credit, family networks and letters that took weeks to arrive; trust was the scarcest asset.
He worked as banker and patron of the arts.
Business reputations are unusually sensitive to the decade in which they were made.
Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici died in 1463, aged 42. What remains is the enterprise and its consequences, which is the only durable measure of a commercial life.
