During the Renaissance there were many advances, new ideas, and other things that helped create a time period in which we still study greatly today. One of the contributing factors of the Renaissance was the merchant and financier fields. There were quite a few families that were extremely successful in their professions of trading and financing. One of the most successful families was the Fugger family of Germany. The Fugger family were one of the most prominent mercantile of the Renaissance. They mastered their competitors in such feilds as trading spices, wool clothe, jewelry, and silk. They also made much of their money in lending finances to important people and charging a high interest rate in order to profit as much as possible. However the biggest of their revenue was their near monopoly in the silver, copper and quicksilver mines. The family business was started by Hans Fugger who died in 1409. He was just a wool weaver with a big dream. The family was based in Augsburb, Germany and expanded their business throughout Renaissance Europe. The most important of the Fugger family was Jacob Fugger the second, or better known as Jacob the Rich. .
Jacob the Rich was one of the hardest working men I have ever read about. He did so .
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much for his family name. While so much of the ground work was underway on building the family business stronger, Jacob was a young man and he was to become a priest. Shortly after Jacob had taken his first orders to become a priest in 1478 his family asked him to do one of the hardest things anyone can ask of their fellow family members. They asked if Jacob could abandon his dream of being a priest and help oversee and expand the Fugger business. He was sent to Venice to learn the traits of a good merchant and business person. This sacrifice would be forever remembered by the family because now Jacob demanded that every available family do the same as he had done, drop it all for the family business.