Jerome Frescobaldi

Jerome Frescobaldi (floruit 1490–1525) was an Italian financier and textile merchant in Bruges and at the Scottish court.

Jerome was a member of the internationally successful Florentine Frescobaldi family. He was described as a "Lombard" in Scotland.[1]

Jerome, Jeronimus, or Hieronymus (Italian: Girolamo) worked for James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor, and his name appears frequently in the exchequer records and the household account. Frescobaldi arranged credit for Scottish clergy travelling in Europe, and was the factor for the foreign debts of Archbishop of St Andrews.[2] He supplied fine textiles for costume, furnishing, and table linen. He was involved in imports from Bruges with a Scottish merchant and courtier, James Merchamestoun. Another Scottish merchant buying in Flanders for the king at this time was James Hommyll, who imported tapestries, and hosted a group of Africans apparently including Ellen More for the king in his house on Edinburgh's High Street.[3][4][5]

Embroidered coat of arms of James IV at Stirling Castle (modern reproduction)

In May 1503 his factor Julian Laci, also called "Julian the Lombard",[6] was paid for purchases made in Flanders, including ermine fur for the collar of the king's gown, five chairs of estate or thrones upholstered in cloth of gold, velvet for another four chairs, and ironwork for the chairs, and 16 gilded pewter balls for the chairs. The chairs were made in Bruges and taken to Middelburg for shipping.[7]

Julian Laci also appears in the exchequer rolls, exempted from the export custom duty of Melrose wool.[8]

Frescobaldi and Julian were not always present in Scotland, and a note in the royal accounts from 1504 mentions that the court embroiderer Nannik had used drawn gold thread sent by Frescobaldi to embroider a chasuble but there was no-one to ask the price.[9] Jerome seems to have mostly lived in Bruges, while his sons Filippo and Leonard Frescobaldi conducted similar business at the English court from 1511, where there were several other Italian merchants in residence. In 1516 Leonard Frescobaldi was given an annuity or pension by Henry VIII as a vendor of cloth of gold and silver.[10] Leonard had stood as a guarantor for Pietro Torrigiano when he was contracted to make the tomb of Margaret Beaufort in November 1511.[11] A Netherlandish artist involved in the tomb project, Meynnart Wewyck had been in Scotland in 1502 and 1503 painting portraits.[12]

From 1505 to 1507 Jerome Frescobaldi organised a series of purchases for James IV from a sum of Flemish money, spent in Flanders, probably in Bruges. This included a stick or length of cloth of gold, hanks of gold wire or thread, money for the purchase of great horses, books of gold leaf for illuminating manuscripts and charters, live quails and pheasants. He gave money to the king's envoys, the Carrick Pursuivant and Lyon Herald, and arranged for 1,000 gold ducats to be available in Venice for the king's son, Alexander Stewart, Archbishop of St Andrews. He arranged the payment for the Papal bulls to appoint the Archdeacon of Aberdeen.[13]

The cloth of gold was used to make a coat for James IV and the remaining 11 ells were given to Margaret Tudor. Some of the gold wire was sent to the queen while she was away on a pilgrimage to Whithorn in June 1507.[14]

The artist Ambrosius Benson was appointed to manage the affairs of Frescobaldi's daughter, Jennette

Frescobaldi was accused of a grave charge to Pope Julius II, and James IV wrote to the Pope in his favour in February 1508, mentioning that Frescobaldi had been involved in the alum trade (essential in tanning and in cloth-dyeing as a mordant), and Philip I of Castile had pressured him to import alum so that he broke a monopoly. James IV wrote to Louis XII of France hoping that he would intervene in support of Frescobaldi.[15]

In 1508 he sent more sticks of cloth of gold and arranged for the mending of some of the royal tapestries that had been burnt in a fire. The fire also damaged some of Margaret Tudor's clothes.[16]

He contributed to the cost of tackle and rigging for a ship bought in Flanders. Some of the "say" fabric he sent to Scotland was used by the king's tailor Thomas Edgar to make streamers or pennants for the king's ships, including the Margaret.[17]

Colours for painting sent from Flanders in 1508 cost the relatively large sum of £31 Scots.[18] They may have been for a painter called "Piers" in the accounts, who has been tentatively identified as Peerken Bovelant, an apprentice of an Antwerp painter Goswijn van der Weyden.[19] Piers was brought to Scotland in September 1505 by Andrew Halyburton, the trading agent or "Conservator of Scottish Privileges" in Middelburg. No details are known of his work, except his assistance in painting costumes and heraldry for tournaments including the Wild Knight and the Black Lady. Piers cut out letters or ciphers to decorate the bards of the king's horses from velvet and the cloth of gold supplied by Frescobaldi.[20] The king gave him a salary and accommodation, and it is likely that Piers made portraits for the court. A portrait of James IV wearing a collar of St George from 1507 survives at Abbotsford.[21] Piers returned to Flanders from Inverkeithing in July 1508.[22]

Other Italians at the Scottish court at this time included a stone mason called Cressent and a priest and alchemist John Damian.

In 1513, the Bishop of Caithness, who managed the royal households and fishings, sent him barrels of salmon which were exempted from custom duty.[23]

In May 1525 members of the Frescobaldi family in Bruges chose a lawyer or procurator to go to Scotland to pursue their business, so Jerome was probably retired by then.