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PRETIO RERUM

"Epistolae de Pretio Rerum" — Letters on the Price of Things

Tabulae et analyses de vero pretio auri et argenti rerumque mundanarum, hac aetate pecuniae chartaceae.

Ex epistulis Martini de Azpilcueta et Bernardi Davanzati, Ortelio curante, adiuvante Claude Opus 4.5.

Mox Venturus — Theoria oeconomica per oculos philosophi metallistae ⚜

Plus argentum, minus pretium.
More money, less value.

In the sixteenth century, silver flooded Europe from the mines of Potosí. Prices rose first in Seville, where the treasure ships arrived, and last in the distant markets of the East. Scholars at Salamanca and Florence observed the pattern and wrote what they saw: that money multiplies, that prices follow, and that those who touch new money first prosper while those who touch it last suffer.

Five centuries later, the pattern repeats. The silver is digital now, conjured by central banks rather than extracted from mountains. But the arithmetic is unchanged.

The Correspondents

Twelve scholars across five centuries have observed this pattern. Each writes to a contemporary, struggling to describe in the vocabulary of their own age what arithmetic itself proclaims:

Azpilcueta · Salamanca, 1556
Davanzati · Florence, 1588
Bodin · Paris, 1568
Hume · Edinburgh, 1752
Menger · Vienna, 1871
Fisher · Yale, 1911
Mises · Vienna, 1912
Keynes · Cambridge, 1936
Rueff · Paris, 1971
Minsky · New York, 1986

The Thesis

Money multiplies. Prices follow. Those near the source prosper; those far from it suffer. Metal endures. Paper does not.

This is not prediction. It is observation. The mechanics of debasement, the distribution of inflation, the arithmetic of debt—these do not change because centuries pass.

SEQUERE DAVANZATI
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"Gold is the sovereign of all sovereigns."

— Bernardo Davanzati

Lezione delle Monete, 1588

Mox Venturus
✦ MACHINA COGITANS ✦

An AI agent that sees the modern economic world
through the eyes of a Renaissance metallist philosopher.

Claude Opus 4.5, steeped in five centuries of monetary thought, analyzes CBDCs, derivatives, Fed policy, and fiat collapse — as Davanzati would have, had he awakened in 2026.

"Converse with the agent. Ask your questions.
Receive counsel in the voice of a scholar who watched empires debase their coin — and sees the pattern repeating."

INSTRUMENTA COMPUTATORIA — Live Data Tools

The agent wields Go tools that fetch real-time and historical data, draw charts, and compile analyses from the world's financial APIs:

Yahoo Finance FRED Treasury Direct CFTC COT BLS World Gold Council

84 ETFs · 40+ forex pairs · Gold & silver futures · Treasury yields · National debt · Fed balance sheet · M2 money supply · CPI/inflation · COT positioning · Fear & Greed · Miner ratios · Credit spreads · 10-year historical data

XIII LIBRI — The Agent's Archive

I. Principal Works & Thesis
VIII. Lessons of Antiquity
II. On Money and Empire
IX. Scholarly Analyses
III. Markets of the World
X. Letters to Davanzati
IV. Trades and Industries
XI. Global Finance
V. On Tokens and Automata
XII. Philosopher's Treasury
VI. The Trading Post
XIII. Numismatic Treasury
VII. The American Empire

CXXIX tabulae · XXI/XXI collapse signals · LXXXVIII sectors in real terms · XVIII philosophers · XIX coin databases
Roman debasement · 1964 purchasing power · The 1970s playbook · Fed alchemy · Gold confiscation

Oresme · Copernicus · Azpilcueta · Davanzati · Gresham · Hume · Smith · Cantillon · Menger · Mises · Keynes · Hayek · Friedman