Long before modern company logos became a familiar sight, medieval merchants were using distinctive symbols to identify their businesses, establish trust and build commercial reputations. A new study of hundreds of merchant marks reveals how these early forms of visual identity helped businesses operate across the Mediterranean.
A study by researchers at the University of Barcelona has revealed how merchants in the late Middle Ages developed recognisable symbols that served some of the same purposes as modern corporate logos. By examining hundreds of examples from medieval financial records, the researchers show how these marks helped merchants establish their identities, maintain commercial relationships and project prestige across distant markets.
The research, conducted by Sari Yehuda Nassar and Gerard Marà i Brull and published in the Revista de Historia Económica – Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, examines 738 instances of merchant marks dating from 1387 to 1435. The findings suggest that some fundamental principles of corporate identity were already being practised centuries before the emergence of modern branding.
The Medieval Merchant’s Mark
Mercantile type mark—letter subtype: CA—merchant Macià Català (Catalonia), ASF.18845, non-foliated. Image from Nassar and Marà i Brull (2026), via Cambridge University Press, CC BY 4.0.
Known in Latin as signa mercatorum or signa negotiatorum, merchant marks were distinctive symbols used by individuals and trading companies. They appeared in financial documents, business correspondence, contracts and other commercial records, allowing merchants to maintain a recognisable identity across different cities and markets.
The researchers examined records compiled by Giuliano Scarsi, a notary from Pisa whose surviving books are preserved in the State Archives of Florence. His collection consists of 64 volumes covering nearly half a century, providing an unusually extensive record of commercial activity involving merchants from Italy and the Crown of Aragon.
Of the 738 documented instances examined, 704 appeared in bills of exchange, financial instruments that allowed merchants to arrange payments between distant locations. The remaining examples appeared in other documents, including letters and account records.
The marks varied considerably in appearance. Some consisted of circles, triangles, crosses or combinations of letters, while others incorporated elaborate designs borrowed from heraldry. Only 72 were classified as heraldic or heraldic-based, meaning that more than 90% used other forms of visual identification.
These symbols were not simply substitutes for signatures. Even when a merchant’s name appeared in a document, the accompanying mark provided another means of recognition, linking a transaction to an established commercial identity.
Heraldic mark of Joan Embrà (Catalonia), ASF.18841, f. 234r–v – Image from Nassar and Marà i Brull (2026), via Cambridge University Press, CC BY 4.0.
Trust was essential to medieval commerce, particularly as trading networks expanded across Europe and the Mediterranean. Merchants frequently conducted transactions through representatives in distant cities, making it difficult to verify the identities and reputations of everyone involved.
Merchant marks helped address this problem by providing a consistent visual connection between individuals, companies and their commercial activities. A familiar symbol could appear in correspondence, financial documents and other records, reinforcing the identity of the merchant responsible for a transaction.
One example comes from the correspondence of Joan de Torralba, a merchant active in Barcelona during the 15th century. Letters sent to him from Palermo in 1434, Zaragoza in 1446 and Mallorca in 1454 all included his merchant mark in the address, helping ensure that the correspondence was recognised and delivered correctly.
Another revealing example comes from a 15th-century cargo memorandum preserved in Barcelona. The document lists shipments of nutmeg, pepper, gum arabic, borax, brazilwood, cotton, copper and textiles, with distinctive symbols placed alongside entries identifying different groups of merchandise.
These marks connected written records with physical goods, helping merchants, carriers and agents establish which shipments belonged to whom. This was particularly important when the owner, financier or insurer of merchandise was not the same person who transported, stored or received it.
The study therefore distinguishes merchant marks recorded in financial documents from marks applied directly to goods. Although the two practices sometimes overlapped, documentary marks were particularly important in establishing commercial identity and maintaining trust.
How Wealthy Merchant Families Used Their Marks
Heraldic merchant marks of the Bardi and Peruzzi families. Image from Nassar and Marà i Brull (2026), via Cambridge University Press, CC BY 4.0.
For some of the wealthiest medieval merchant families, commercial identity was closely connected to family prestige. The researchers examine prominent Italian banking dynasties, including the Bardi, Peruzzi and Borromei, whose marks incorporated elements of heraldic design.
The Peruzzi family of Florence offers a particularly interesting example. Their merchant mark featured a pear branch, a visual reference to the family name. Its design may also have suggested a balance or scales, potentially communicating ideas of fairness and integrity, although the researchers caution that this interpretation cannot be established conclusively.
The Peruzzi were among Florence’s most influential merchant-banking families, and their mark helped connect their commercial activities with an already established reputation for wealth and status.
As Nassar and Marà i Brull explain:
In both the Bardi and Peruzzi cases, the transformation of heraldic arms into mercantile marks reveals the conscious construction of continuity between social distinction and commercial authority. What had once belonged primarily to the visual language of lineage was adapted to the market as an emblem of mercantile presence. The mark thus became a material expression of crafted prestige: a means of translating inherited honor into a recognizable commercial form.
However, elaborate heraldic designs were not necessary for commercial success. Francesco di Marco Datini, one of the best-documented merchants of the late Middle Ages, primarily used a non-heraldic mark despite belonging to a family with its own heraldic identity.
Merchants could also maintain several marks for different purposes. In 1406, Ranerio de Santo Savino of Pisa used distinct symbols for his enterprises in Florence, Genoa and Pisa. Other merchants employed separate marks for their personal business and their partnerships.
When Merchant Marks Were Used to Avoid Taxes
Breakdown of the merchant marks examined in the study, showing their geographical origins, document types and visual characteristics. Image from Nassar and Marà i Brull (2026), via Cambridge University Press, CC BY 4.0.
The commercial importance of these symbols also created opportunities for manipulation. The researchers highlight a particularly revealing incident from 1405 involving Datini’s trading company and a shipment of silk from Valencia.
The company initially shipped the silk under the name and merchant mark of Joan Beyona, a local merchant who benefited from tax exemptions. When the merchandise arrived in Piombino, the company attempted to substitute Beyona’s name and mark with Datini’s to avoid duties imposed on foreigners.
The case illustrates how merchant marks could be used to navigate, and sometimes exploit, the different legal and financial arrangements governing medieval trade.
The researchers note that such practices were not typical. Most merchants maintained consistent marks across their transactions, allowing their commercial identities to remain recognisable. Nevertheless, the Datini incident demonstrates that these symbols could have important consequences beyond simple identification.
The Medieval Origins of Corporate Branding?
Mark-based cargo memorandum listing merchandise by commercial signs, 15th-century Barcelona. Image from Nassar and Marà i Brull (2026), via Cambridge University Press, CC BY 4.0.
Although medieval merchant marks shared certain characteristics with modern company logos, the researchers emphasise that they were not trademarks in the modern legal sense. Their primary purpose was not mass advertising or product promotion, but establishing identity and credibility within commercial and financial networks.
Nevertheless, the study suggests that medieval merchants understood the value of a consistent visual identity. A recognisable symbol could distinguish one merchant from another, connect different branches of a business and reinforce an established commercial reputation.
The researchers conclude:
The principal historiographical contribution of this article is therefore to reposition merchant marks within the economic and business history of commercial identity. Rather than treating them primarily as objects of visual culture, heraldic ornament, or semiotic curiosity, the study interprets them as instruments through which merchants and companies projected a stable presence within dispersed markets. In this sense, the article contributes to debates on the prehistory of branding, not by projecting modern corporate categories anachronistically onto the Late Middle Ages, but by showing that certain underlying functions of commercial image-making—differentiation, recognition, and continuity of commercial presence—were already present in medieval mercantile practice.
The findings reveal another dimension of the sophistication of medieval commerce. Long before businesses developed modern branding strategies, merchants were already using visual symbols to make themselves recognisable, maintain trust and establish their reputations across international trading networks.
The study, “Crafting prestige through merchant marks, or how to create a company image in the Late Middle Ages?,” by Sari Yehuda Nassar and Gerard Marà i Brull, is published in the Revista de Historia Económica – Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History. Click here to read it.
Long before modern company logos became a familiar sight, medieval merchants were using distinctive symbols to identify their businesses, establish trust and build commercial reputations. A new study of hundreds of merchant marks reveals how these early forms of visual identity helped businesses operate across the Mediterranean.
A study by researchers at the University of Barcelona has revealed how merchants in the late Middle Ages developed recognisable symbols that served some of the same purposes as modern corporate logos. By examining hundreds of examples from medieval financial records, the researchers show how these marks helped merchants establish their identities, maintain commercial relationships and project prestige across distant markets.
The research, conducted by Sari Yehuda Nassar and Gerard Marà i Brull and published in the Revista de Historia Económica – Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, examines 738 instances of merchant marks dating from 1387 to 1435. The findings suggest that some fundamental principles of corporate identity were already being practised centuries before the emergence of modern branding.
The Medieval Merchant’s Mark
Known in Latin as signa mercatorum or signa negotiatorum, merchant marks were distinctive symbols used by individuals and trading companies. They appeared in financial documents, business correspondence, contracts and other commercial records, allowing merchants to maintain a recognisable identity across different cities and markets.
The researchers examined records compiled by Giuliano Scarsi, a notary from Pisa whose surviving books are preserved in the State Archives of Florence. His collection consists of 64 volumes covering nearly half a century, providing an unusually extensive record of commercial activity involving merchants from Italy and the Crown of Aragon.
Of the 738 documented instances examined, 704 appeared in bills of exchange, financial instruments that allowed merchants to arrange payments between distant locations. The remaining examples appeared in other documents, including letters and account records.
The marks varied considerably in appearance. Some consisted of circles, triangles, crosses or combinations of letters, while others incorporated elaborate designs borrowed from heraldry. Only 72 were classified as heraldic or heraldic-based, meaning that more than 90% used other forms of visual identification.
These symbols were not simply substitutes for signatures. Even when a merchant’s name appeared in a document, the accompanying mark provided another means of recognition, linking a transaction to an established commercial identity.
The researchers explain:
What we argue in this paper is that the merchant mark was not just a tool of identification, nor simply a substitute for a signature, but a strategic asset within the architecture of long-distance trade. It functioned as a symbolic and operational component of a broader commercial ecosystem that encompassed bills of exchange, banking partnerships, contractual arrangements, correspondence, and notarial records—mechanisms that together sustained an increasingly complex and interconnected transregional economy. The mark did not guarantee this system by itself, but it helped make the commercial actor legible within it, giving visual form to réputation marchande.
Building Trust Across the Mediterranean
Trust was essential to medieval commerce, particularly as trading networks expanded across Europe and the Mediterranean. Merchants frequently conducted transactions through representatives in distant cities, making it difficult to verify the identities and reputations of everyone involved.
Merchant marks helped address this problem by providing a consistent visual connection between individuals, companies and their commercial activities. A familiar symbol could appear in correspondence, financial documents and other records, reinforcing the identity of the merchant responsible for a transaction.
One example comes from the correspondence of Joan de Torralba, a merchant active in Barcelona during the 15th century. Letters sent to him from Palermo in 1434, Zaragoza in 1446 and Mallorca in 1454 all included his merchant mark in the address, helping ensure that the correspondence was recognised and delivered correctly.
Another revealing example comes from a 15th-century cargo memorandum preserved in Barcelona. The document lists shipments of nutmeg, pepper, gum arabic, borax, brazilwood, cotton, copper and textiles, with distinctive symbols placed alongside entries identifying different groups of merchandise.
These marks connected written records with physical goods, helping merchants, carriers and agents establish which shipments belonged to whom. This was particularly important when the owner, financier or insurer of merchandise was not the same person who transported, stored or received it.
The study therefore distinguishes merchant marks recorded in financial documents from marks applied directly to goods. Although the two practices sometimes overlapped, documentary marks were particularly important in establishing commercial identity and maintaining trust.
How Wealthy Merchant Families Used Their Marks
For some of the wealthiest medieval merchant families, commercial identity was closely connected to family prestige. The researchers examine prominent Italian banking dynasties, including the Bardi, Peruzzi and Borromei, whose marks incorporated elements of heraldic design.
The Peruzzi family of Florence offers a particularly interesting example. Their merchant mark featured a pear branch, a visual reference to the family name. Its design may also have suggested a balance or scales, potentially communicating ideas of fairness and integrity, although the researchers caution that this interpretation cannot be established conclusively.
The Peruzzi were among Florence’s most influential merchant-banking families, and their mark helped connect their commercial activities with an already established reputation for wealth and status.
As Nassar and Marà i Brull explain:
In both the Bardi and Peruzzi cases, the transformation of heraldic arms into mercantile marks reveals the conscious construction of continuity between social distinction and commercial authority. What had once belonged primarily to the visual language of lineage was adapted to the market as an emblem of mercantile presence. The mark thus became a material expression of crafted prestige: a means of translating inherited honor into a recognizable commercial form.
However, elaborate heraldic designs were not necessary for commercial success. Francesco di Marco Datini, one of the best-documented merchants of the late Middle Ages, primarily used a non-heraldic mark despite belonging to a family with its own heraldic identity.
Merchants could also maintain several marks for different purposes. In 1406, Ranerio de Santo Savino of Pisa used distinct symbols for his enterprises in Florence, Genoa and Pisa. Other merchants employed separate marks for their personal business and their partnerships.
When Merchant Marks Were Used to Avoid Taxes
The commercial importance of these symbols also created opportunities for manipulation. The researchers highlight a particularly revealing incident from 1405 involving Datini’s trading company and a shipment of silk from Valencia.
The company initially shipped the silk under the name and merchant mark of Joan Beyona, a local merchant who benefited from tax exemptions. When the merchandise arrived in Piombino, the company attempted to substitute Beyona’s name and mark with Datini’s to avoid duties imposed on foreigners.
The case illustrates how merchant marks could be used to navigate, and sometimes exploit, the different legal and financial arrangements governing medieval trade.
The researchers note that such practices were not typical. Most merchants maintained consistent marks across their transactions, allowing their commercial identities to remain recognisable. Nevertheless, the Datini incident demonstrates that these symbols could have important consequences beyond simple identification.
The Medieval Origins of Corporate Branding?
Although medieval merchant marks shared certain characteristics with modern company logos, the researchers emphasise that they were not trademarks in the modern legal sense. Their primary purpose was not mass advertising or product promotion, but establishing identity and credibility within commercial and financial networks.
Nevertheless, the study suggests that medieval merchants understood the value of a consistent visual identity. A recognisable symbol could distinguish one merchant from another, connect different branches of a business and reinforce an established commercial reputation.
The researchers conclude:
The principal historiographical contribution of this article is therefore to reposition merchant marks within the economic and business history of commercial identity. Rather than treating them primarily as objects of visual culture, heraldic ornament, or semiotic curiosity, the study interprets them as instruments through which merchants and companies projected a stable presence within dispersed markets. In this sense, the article contributes to debates on the prehistory of branding, not by projecting modern corporate categories anachronistically onto the Late Middle Ages, but by showing that certain underlying functions of commercial image-making—differentiation, recognition, and continuity of commercial presence—were already present in medieval mercantile practice.
The findings reveal another dimension of the sophistication of medieval commerce. Long before businesses developed modern branding strategies, merchants were already using visual symbols to make themselves recognisable, maintain trust and establish their reputations across international trading networks.
The study, “Crafting prestige through merchant marks, or how to create a company image in the Late Middle Ages?,” by Sari Yehuda Nassar and Gerard Marà i Brull, is published in the Revista de Historia Económica – Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History. Click here to read it.
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