If you have, I have lots of questions and things I’d like to discuss. Like why mules were more expensive than horses and why the population of Rome had sunk to only 40 000 by the mid-1500s. People who know about the Church in that time would be particularly welcome.
The book is The Cardinal’s Hat: Money, Ambition, and Everyday Life in the Court of a Borgia Prince by Mary Hollingsworth. It’s the story of Renaissance secular cleric’s campaign to become a Cardinal told through detailed perusal of his accounting documents. If you haven’t read it and that sounds odd but interesting, do grab a copy.
Yes, I’ve read it and would second the recommendation.
The mules v. horses issue - in the context of the nineteenth-century US Army - is touched on here and here.
By the 1500s the population was actually increasing, although, as Hollingsworth points out, it was still nowhere near what it had once been. Perhaps the best way to think about it is that its population had once been extraordinarily large, but that it had since declined to being merely very large. More recently, the temporary re-location of the papal court to Avignon and the Black Death hadn’t helped.
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Thanks for the links and comments APB. I’ve only skimmed half a dozen pages so far, but they look interesting. They spend a lot of time talking about why you’d want to use mules even though they are more expensive, but do mention the supposed reason for them being more expensive - that it’s harder to breed mules. That would make sense of the whole story to me. The agency stuff is a bonus.