The world was opening up – so much so that in 1339 Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, a Florentine merchant who worked in Antwerp and London, produced an itinerary of travel, a handbook on the ‘Practice of Commerce’ from Fife in Scotland and across Europe to Asia. The handbook included a route map to Beijing, details of business practice terminology and data on the comparative value of money. For the first time in world history, Scotland and China were part of the same story.
