But the 14th century spoke plainly of economic disasters by the score. The goal has been, throughout the 20th century, to try to determine whether there was something like a recession in Europe, or even in Italy; if so, how severe it was, and when the recovery began. The most common approach is to view the 14th century as calamitous and the 15th century as a century of recovery.
Hay says that both the 14th and the 15th centuries were a period of "prolonged slump." Jensen holds to the collapse and recovery scenario. Brucker does too, but with more explicit reservations than Jensen.
None of the authors go very far into the 16th century. The early 16th century was an extension of the trends of the later 15th, but in the 1530s huge silver deposits were discovered in the New World. Then began that enormous influx of bullion that was to alter forever the rhythm of European commerce. With the opening of the mines at Potosi we mark the end of this course, at least as far as economic history goes.