Alexandre Auffredi
Encyclopedia
Alexandre Auffredi was a wealthy bourgeois of the city of La Rochelle
in France
, who in 1196 sent a fleet of seven ships to Africa to tap the riches of the continent. He went bankrupt and went into poverty as he waited for the return of his ships, but they finally returned seven years later filled with riches.
As a result of the adventure, Auffredi became extremely rich. He devoted the rest of his life to help the poor, and founded the Saint barthelemy Hospital. A central area of La Rochelle was named after him.
Alexandre Auffredi is mentioned in Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes
by Honoré de Balzac
as an example of French entrepreuneurship:
La Rochelle
La Rochelle is a city in western France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department.The city is connected to the Île de Ré by a bridge completed on 19 May 1988...
in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, who in 1196 sent a fleet of seven ships to Africa to tap the riches of the continent. He went bankrupt and went into poverty as he waited for the return of his ships, but they finally returned seven years later filled with riches.
As a result of the adventure, Auffredi became extremely rich. He devoted the rest of his life to help the poor, and founded the Saint barthelemy Hospital. A central area of La Rochelle was named after him.
Alexandre Auffredi is mentioned in Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes
Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes
Honoré de Balzac's Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes, translated either as The Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans or as A Harlot High and Low, was published in four parts from 1838-1847. It continues the story of Lucien de Rubempré, who was a main character in Illusions perdues, a preceding...
by Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
as an example of French entrepreuneurship:
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, des MédiciMediciThe House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...
, des Ango de DieppeDieppe, Seine-MaritimeDieppe is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in France. In 1999, the population of the whole Dieppe urban area was 81,419.A port on the English Channel, famous for its scallops, and with a regular ferry service from the Gare Maritime to Newhaven in England, Dieppe also has a popular pebbled...
, des Auffredi de La RochelleLa RochelleLa Rochelle is a city in western France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department.The city is connected to the Île de Ré by a bridge completed on 19 May 1988...
, des FuggerFuggerThe Fugger family was a historically prominent group of European bankers, members of the fifteenth and sixteenth-century mercantile patriciate of Augsburg, international mercantile bankers, and venture capitalists like the Welser and the Höchstetter families. This banking family replaced the de'...
, des Tiepolo, des Corner ..." Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes