“Ànno fatto una impresa grossa per il paexe di Ghinea contro a nostra voglia”. Lorenzo de’ Medici and the voyage to Guinea, 1474-75

In a memo dated around 1479, Lorenzo de’ Medici expressed his disappointment for the losses resulting from the investment that the manager of the Bruges branch of the Medici bank, Tommaso Portinari, had made on a voyage organised by the Portuguese along the African coast. Portinari hoped to make up for it with further investments, but Lorenzo vetoed them. Unfortunately, very little is known about this voyage, which however testifies to the interest that Atlantic Africa was stimulating, not only in Lisbon, but also in other European cities. This article analyses the information available on the voyage and then discusses, more broadly, the relationship between the Florentine merchants of Lisbon and the African world in the second half of the fifteenth century (period in which the Portuguese completed the exploration of the coast, until Cape of Good Hope): they invested their resources from Lisbon, but also managed to attract capitals from compatriots established in the main financial markets of Europe, such as the Medici-Portinari. This article also discusses how much Florentine merchants knew about the travels that the Portuguese were undertaking, the profits they hoped to obtain and the circulation of information, which they actively promote even before Vasco da Gama’s voyage, which would open to Europeans the gates of Asia.