Merchant's ethos in Leon Battista Alberti's "I libro della famiglia" : return to traditions, path to modernity

Alberti's merchant ethos is an equivalent of the medieval chivalrous ethos retold in a changed form for a new bourgeois society. The one which holds new type of values and, on the one hand, can be charasterised as avaricious, highly ambitious and competitive and, on the other, as one in the desperate need for a new model that would provide a frame of reference. This new ethos is also an attempt to redefine traditional concepts, such as virtue or time. Alberti draws from well-known literary motifs and enriches them with new meanings so that the old would reflect what is innovative. Constant return to traditions, same characters and scenes from merchant's life become his path to modernity.