Book description
This is the first English translation of Benedetto Cotrugli's The Book of the Art of Trade, a lively account of the life of a Mediterranean merchant in the Early Renaissance, written in 1458. The book is an impassioned defense of the legitimacy of mercantile practices, and includes the first scholarly…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Book of the Art of Trade as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
The first “how to” business book, and what surprised me about it was how, for Cotrugli, being a good merchant was as much about being morally upright as about being profitable.
He spends as much time telling merchants how to pray as he does how to handle their ledgers (the book is historically famous for being the first European work to explain double-entry bookkeeping).
What I found fascinating about this book is how modern Cotrguli sounds; maybe it’s the work of the translators, but he comes across as somebody you could talk to today. And he is impassioned with his…
From Paul's list on showing how greed became good.
If you love The Book of the Art of Trade...
December on 5C4
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Want books like The Book of the Art of Trade?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like The Book of the Art of Trade.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,299
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like The Book of the Art of Trade, you might also like...
Raggedyland
An auctioned storage locker comes with a box of Raggedy Ann books and a dresser drawer stuffed with grisly momentos. A small college town in Georgia is now ground zero for a mind-bending cold case.
Local journalist James Murphy wishes he had never bought the storage unit which either contains…
Selkie Moon
We are all surrounded by darkness. And we are all drawn to the light.
The Orkney Islands north of Scotland are steeped in stories of selkies, seal folk who swim in cold ocean waters and shed their skins to sing and dance on land.
One young girl named Isla uses…
