Luca Landucci (1436–1516) was an Italian

apothecary ''Apothecary'' () is a mostly archaic term for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses '' materia medica'' (medicine) to physicians, surgeons, and patients. The modern chemist (British English) or pharmacist (British and North Ameri ...

from

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

, best known as the writer of a diary which later became an important

primary source In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under ...

about the history of Florence. The older of two sons of a prosperous citizen of Florence, Landucci was trained as a bookkeeper, and became the apprentice to an apothecary at the age of sixteen."A Florentine Tradesman's Diary", ''The Saturday Review'', collected in ''The Living Age ...'', ed. Eliakim Littell and Robert S. Littell, pub. Littell, Son & Company, 1884, pp. 52-53 Six years later, he formed a partnership with a friend and opened a shop, but was forced to dissolve the partnership when the friend proved too spendthrift and exhausted all of their capital. Landucci married a woman named Salvestra at the age of thirty, and used his wife's dowry to open a new shop. The business prospered, and after fourteen more years he was able to move his shop to a better spot across from the soon-to-be-constructed Strozzi Palace.Amelang, James S. ''The flight of Icarus'', Stanford University Press, p. 307. The Landuccis had twelve children together, and Luca remained at this location until his death in 1516. In 1450, Landucci began keeping the diary that would posthumously prove his claim to fame, diligently recording events of the day until his death. Among the events documented in this manner by Landucci was the birth of the

Monster of Ravenna The Monster of Ravenna was a possibly apocryphal late Renaissance-era monstrous birth whose appearance in early 1512 near the city of Ravenna was widely reported in contemporary European pamphlets and diaries. Images of its grotesque features were ...

. The diary was continued after his death by an unknown writer until 1542. The first

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

translation, performed by Alice de Rosen Jervis, was published in 1927 as ''A Florentine diary from 1450 to 1516''. Landucci's original manuscript is preserved in the Biblioteca Comunale in

Siena Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena. The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centuri ...

. A street in modern Florence, Via Luca Landucci, is named in his honor. It connects the Via Capo di Mondo and the Cavalcavia dell'Affrico.

External links

The diary of Luca Landucci
(in Italian), via

Archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Landucci, Luca 1436 births 1516 deaths Writers from Florence Italian diarists 15th-century Italian writers 16th-century Italian writers 16th-century male writers Apothecaries 16th-century diarists