<story><title>The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still the richest (2016)</title><url>https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-families-in-florence-in-1427-are-still-the-richest-families-in-florence/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>gmunu</author><text>Not surprisingly, the qz.com article distorts the meaning of the original paper and looking at the comments, they seem to follow the false, but suggested interpretation of the paper that qz gives.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s useful to note the title of the paper: What’s your (sur)name? Intergenerational mobility over six centuries. This paper is not tracking wealth, it&amp;#x27;s tracking income via tax records. It notes things like people who are lawyers or bankers now were more likely to share surnames with people in similar professions in the 15th century. It is not tracking inter-generation transfers of wealth.&lt;p&gt;In fact, qz even drops the most interesting conclusion in the article, which is their measurement of changing intergenerational income mobility overtime. They measure inelasticity at &amp;gt; .8 in Renaissance Florence and a generally static society until the industrial revolution, with inelasticity coming down starting in the 20th century.&lt;p&gt;The article isn&amp;#x27;t about secret trusts set up by the Medici, but the more prosaic fact that if you father and grandfather were lawyers, you&amp;#x27;re more likely to be one too. Still interesting, but it&amp;#x27;s not evidence that families were &amp;quot;able to maintain their wealth&amp;quot; through revolutions at all.</text></comment>
<story><title>The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still the richest (2016)</title><url>https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-families-in-florence-in-1427-are-still-the-richest-families-in-florence/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>true_religion</author><text>This only feels surprising to me because in England, aristocratic houses tend to last only 100-200 years before losing their name by being subsumed into another, renaming due to politics, or vanishing in some other way.&lt;p&gt;The House of Windsor only formally dates back to 1910.&lt;p&gt;However if you trace it via the Mountbatten line, it&amp;#x27;ll rate as being as old as 1567, since it comes from a branch of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt in the Holy Roman Empire.&lt;p&gt;I think there&amp;#x27;s 3 things that might cause this:&lt;p&gt;- I am thinking that Florencian plutocratic houses simply never rename themselves. The Medici family for example continues to exist today, holding some minor titles.&lt;p&gt;- I think it also helps that Italian aristocrats were heavily involved in trade, and other mercantile professions so could continue to hold wealth and power after being deposed from statutory privilege. English aristocrats on the other hand, often only hold value in land.&lt;p&gt;- The English have historically allowed women to inherit, so family names are lost due to inheritance, enriching others with the same bloodline but different names.</text></comment>