cloth in the North, to which the added costs of God's penny, the maltolts owed the king of France, transportation to Paris, the center of the dyeing industry, warehousing, and gifts, tips and bribes along the way, resulted in the vero costo, the "real cost", both of which are alluded to in the Calimala statutes. A profit of 10 to 12 per cent was allowed, representing the "just price" that exercised the Church. To be able to ensure proper measurement of the cloths they had three standard iron rods, mounted in different parts of the city, and members were obliged to measure annually their rod against the official so-called canna. History of Guild The earliest documentation of the Arte di Calimala dates circa 1182, in which the Florentine cloth traders were among the first to band together in a confraternity to control the trade that was their livelihood. Guild Members Members of the Calimala were the elite of Florence: the families of the Bardi, Cerchi, Pazzi, Peruzzi, Mozzi, Pulci, Canigiani and Spini. Only after the 1348 plague they allowed new members to join. The capital required and the credit network that activated it, meant that members of the Calimala like the Scali turned naturally to banking to complement their activities as merchants, who might turn a profit in grain or in real estate holdings, or, like the Scali in 1326, might face bankruptcy proceedings in the merchants' court of the Mercanzia. The example of the Scali shows the long range of activities of the Arte di Calimala: the Scali were active in the 1220s in England, source of the wool that was woven in Flanders and Brabant; during the reign of Henry III they served as the principal financial intermediary between the King and the papal curia; thus after the battle of Montaperti (1260) the Scali were loyal Guelf adherents of the papal cause in Italy, until their prosperity was curtailed, as Pope Boniface VIII turned to other bankers of Florence and Pistoia, and the Ricciardi of Lucca became preferred bankers in England. With better fortunes in the early fourteenth century, the Scali were procuring wool in England and Burgundy, were active in France and Germany, with factors in Perugia, Milan and Venice, and exported grain from Apulia to Ragusa across the Adriatic, until a liquidity crisis brought them before the Mercanzia and briefly shook Florentine credit abroad. Constitution and