The year is 1515 and I am a merchant in Florence, a booming economic city. The plague has wiped out most of the population and the efforts to rebuild the society are in motion for the survivors such as myself. The efforts to rebuild mean a high demand for merchants, bankers, and tradespeople throughout the city. As of late I've been very well-off and making so much money I don't know what to do with. With my increasing wealth I've been put in a new social status know around town as the middle-class. I'm not quite sure but education is becoming more important in the city, everyone is becoming literate and reading for recreation. Also, my friend who's a banker and doing very well, was telling me about this study that he called arithmetic that he was learning and my other friend who's a tradesman is learning several different languages that i had never even heard of before. This a very odd time with so much change and advancement I guess you could say it's very overwhelming for myself, but i do know that there's money to be made and I'm making lots of it so I can't complain to much.