Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

Teaching with Money: Financial Literacy in Tuscan Abacus Manuals and Merchants' Notebooks, 1202-1478

Project description

Boosting financial literacy through medieval insights

Financial literacy is vital for making informed decisions in an increasingly complex financial world. However, only half of the EU’s adult population possesses a basic understanding of financial concepts. With this in mind, the MSCA-funded EduMoney project explores financial literacy through a historical lens. Specifically, it will examine the medieval ‘Commercial Revolution’ by exploring money itself, as depicted in Tuscan abacus manuals and merchants’ notebooks from 1202 to 1478. Employing interdisciplinary methods and cutting-edge digital tools for text analysis, EduMoney digitises, transcribes and translates these historical sources. It then categorises references to money into ‘typological families’, shedding light on how money served as both a heuristic and pedagogical tool.

Objective

Financial literacy is necessary to spend our money wisely and understand how financial instruments work. In an increasingly complex financial landscape, today only half of the EU adult population has an adequate understanding of basic financial concepts. EduMoney tackles this issue from a historical perspective to offer the first systematic, comprehensive, and digital analysis of the skills and knowledge underpinning financial literacy during another period of increasing financial complexity: the medieval ‘Commercial Revolution’. The focus is on money ‘itself’, and how this was deployed and represented in Tuscan abacus manuals and merchants’ notebooks, the pedagogical tools of the time. The project analyses the period between 1202, when Fibonacci completed his Liber Abaci, and 1478, when the first printed abacus manual known as Aritmetica di Treviso was published. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach that combines methods from economic history, medieval literature, and the history of economic thought, with the support of the latest digital platforms for text analysis, I will digitise, transcribe, and translate a selected corpus of abacus manuals and merchants’ notebooks. This will allow a comparative and digital study of these sources to identify (cross-)references to money that will be grouped into ‘typological families’. The resulting categorisation will form the basis for an in-depth analysis leading to an innovative treatment of money as a heuristic and pedagogical instrument, and to a more holistic understanding of how people lived, learnt, and conceptualised their lives as economic actors. The enhancement of financial literacy among different age groups through a series of didactic and outreach activities will empower people by endowing them with the right tools to make informed decisions to improve their economic wellbeing, thus tackling social and gender inequalities for the development of a more inclusive Europe.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01

See all projects funded under this call

Coordinator

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 265 099,20
Address
Via Festa Del Perdono 7
20122 Milano
Italy

See on map

Region
Nord-Ovest Lombardia Milano
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data

Partners (1)

My booklet 0 0