Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber_Marcus

Despite the Catasto's status as what Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber call "a spectacular failure," the authors nonetheless suggest some weighty and long-term social implications of the survey. These range from increasing the birthrate in Florence through generous deduction per family member to the encouragement of economic productivity through exemptions on work animals, tools, and the domicile. Furthermore, Kerlihy and Klapisch-Zuber imply that the Catasto may have encouraged the Florentine Renaissance by deeming household decorations "essential" and untaxable expenses(as part of the domicile, massarizie di casa), thereby encouraging investment in artistic production. Thus, the authors claim: "The Florentine Catasto is not only a mine of social data; it is also an early example of the manipulation of fiscal policies to achieve desired social goals" (10). Certainly the causality, or even the correlation, between Catasto rules and social realities, though believable, demands more evidence than Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber provide, but besides for that, I find their claim somewhat unconvincing. The social impact of the Catasto as it is presented in this chapter of "Tuscans and their Families" seems largely incidental and unrelated to the basic purpose of the Catasto. These phenomena seem much more like salutary side-effects than "desired social goals." Furthermore, given the brief lifespan of the Catasto yet its sustained salience as a reference for future surveys, it would be interesting to explore more concretely what kinds of social implications the Catasto model had in later permutations.