The price of wheat in this period has long intrigued economic historians because of the ‘ price revolution’ of the sixteenth century and the subsequent collapse of prices in the seventeenth. In the economy of Altopascio, since production costs and productivity did not vary much over time, the price of wheat and other farm commodities was crucial to the wellbeing of the estate members. Prices also altered the absolute and relative distribution of costs and benefits; the depression of commodity prices penalized those who owed debts, fixed money rents or other obligations, to the advantage of those who collected those items.

A study of wheat prices for the Tuscan city of Siena permits us to situate the most rapid rise in prices in the second half of the sixteenth century, with the greatest gains coming after 1575 and reaching a high point around 1595. After that date there are more relevant price data for Altopascio collected from the communal archive of Montecarlo.

The movement of prices at Montecarlo yields the following observations. From 1601 to 1655 wheat prices stabilized at a relatively high level. From 1656 to 1671 there is a gap in the registers of Montecarlo, but when the data resume in 1672, a sharp fall in prices is recorded. In the course of the entire century through 1770, the price levels of 1651–5 were never reached again.