ABSTRACT
At the end of the fifteenth and during the sixteenth century, Italy started to witness the withering away of its leadership. Much has been written on this event and many authoritative interpretations have been put forward: but to what extent did the behaviour of guilds affect the loss of that leadership? Why did Italy begin to undergo a long deep depression at a moment when elsewhere the business cycle was, conversely, calming down again? What was the role played by the guilds, those mediaeval associations which had been the leading economic factor in the centuries of growth? What happened in Italy when elsewhere manufacturing began to settle down with its hundreds and then thousands of employees in a structure which extolled free labour as opposed to bound labour?
