Abstract

This article reconstructs the clientele of Taddeo di Chello, a "rigattiere" operating in the used cloth market in Prato between the fourteenth and the fifteenth century (1390-1408). It sheds lights on the phenomenon of consumption, seen primarily through the eyes of the common man, and helps to deepen our understanding of the uses that both consumers and traders made of clothing in late medieval Tuscany. The article outlines the clothing and accessories sold as well as their value and diffusion, primarily as an attempt to establish their destination and use; it demonstrates that different individual financial capacities, social status, gender, and reputation determined different patterns of consumption, but that the latter also depended on the individual's access to different payment facilities and credit.