Francesco di Marco Datini

Francesco di Marco Datini ( – 16 August 1410) was an Italian merchant born in Prato. Datini is notable for having implemented the first partnership system in business in 1383.

Biography Datini was one of four children of Marco di Datino and Monna Vermiglia, who, along with two of their children, both died as a result of the Black Death in 1348.

After his parents' death, he was raised by a woman whom he called his "substitute mother." Their relationship seems to have been a positive one. There is a letter from her signed, "Your mother in love."

Datini became an apprentice of a merchant in Florence. In 1358, he joined a group of merchants who were going to Avignon, the city to which the papacy had moved at the time. He eventually became a supplier of luxury goods and art for the wealthy cardinals residing there. The couple returned to live in Prato in 1382, where Datini's business continued to thrive.

In 1870, 500 account books and 150,000 papers relating to Datini's business were discovered in a stairwell of the couple's mansion in Prato. These papers provide insight into both Datini's business as well as the merchant class in general as it existed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Datini is buried in the church of San Francesco in Prato. His tomb's marble slab was designed by Niccolò di Piero Lamberti. As Datini had no legitimate or male heirs, he left the bulk of his fortune to a charitable foundation established in his name, the "Casa del Ceppo dei poveri di Francesco di Marco," which still exists today.