In the history of enterprise, Ulrich Fugger the Elder is one of the names that keeps returning.
The record lists Ulrich Fugger the Elder as businessman (1441-1510).
Ulrich Fugger the Elder was born at Augsburg in 1441. His recorded nationality is Germany.
Commerce then ran on personal credit, family networks and letters that took weeks to arrive; trust was the scarcest asset.
He worked as merchant, banker and panel.
Business reputations are unusually sensitive to the decade in which they were made.
That the business was built from Germany shaped it: capital, regulation and market size differ by country, and they decide what is even attemptable.
Ulrich Fugger the Elder died in 1510, aged 69. What remains is the enterprise and its consequences, which is the only durable measure of a commercial life.
