Reffici debet! The real wages of the workers of the Dome of Florence (1326-1861)

Leonardo Ridolfi () and Michelangelo Vasta ()

Department of Economics University of Siena from Department of Economics, University of Siena

Abstract: This paper presents the first long-run homogeneous series of real wages, working days, and skill premiums for building workers in Florence from 1326 to the Italian Unification in 1861. In doing so, we build upon new archival data drawn from the archives of the Opera del Duomo in Florence and the Badia Fiesolana in Fiesole, which span more than 20,000 wage observations. By combining daily wages with annual working days, we provide a more precise estimate of labor input and living standards, while assessing the impact of the common assumption of 250 working days on real wage calculations. We also reconstruct the long-term evolution of the skill premium, shedding new light on the structure of labour markets in preindustrial Southern Europe. Our findings allow us to revisit the interaction between wages, demographic cycles, and living standards, placing Florence more firmly in both the Italian and international contexts of the Little Divergence debate.

Keywords: Real wages; labour markets; living standards; Little Divergence Jel Classification:N13; N33; N94 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-lma
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:usi:wpaper:928

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