Letter 10027: A man who rushes to relieve taxpayers does not give away expenses — he repays them.

A man who rushes to relieve taxpayers does not give away expenses — he repays them. What could be more just than providing to the farmer what you understand he himself has labored to produce? The idle may be fed out of charity, but the cultivator of the soil will be left to face future famine unless he is helped when necessity strikes. Therefore, Liguria with its industrious people and loyal Venetia are reported to have lost their abundance from the fields. But now let it be born from the storehouses, for it is deeply wrong that granaries should be full while the growers themselves go hungry. Accordingly, your illustrious Magnitude — whose office was established precisely so that you could feed the people from stored reserves — shall arrange for one-third of the grain from the storehouses at Ticinum [Pavia] and Dertona [Tortona] to be sold to the Ligurians you know to be in need, at twenty-five modii per solidus [a subsidized price]. For the Venetians, arrange for the same one-third portion to be distributed at the defined rate from the storehouses at Tarvisium [Treviso] and Tridentum [Trento] — so that God, taking pity, may grant abundance to those among whom He sees men have already shown generosity to one another. Assign trustworthy men to these distributions, so that our relief reaches especially those who have been entirely unable to feed themselves.

XXVII. SENATORI PPO THEODAHADUS REX. [1] Non dare, sed reddere videtur expensas, quisquis tributariis aliquo remedio subvenire festinat. quid enim iustius est quam petenti conferre quod intellegitur ipse laborasse? ad misericordiam forsitan pascantur otiosi: cultor agri ad futuram famem deseritur, nisi ei, cum necesse fuerit, subvenitur. [2] Quapropter industriosae Liguriae devotisque Venetiis copia subtracta dicitur esse de campis: sed nunc nascatur in horreis, quia nimis impium est plenissimis cellis vacuos esurire cultores. atque ideo illustris magnitudo vestra, quorum dignitas ad hoc legitur instituta, ut de repositis copiis populum saturare possetis, Liguribus, quos tamen indigere cognoscitis, tertiam portionem ex horreis Ticinensibus atque Dertonensibus per solidum viginti quinque modios distrahi censitote. [3] Venetis autem ex Tarvisiano atque Tridentino horreis ad definitam superius quantitatem idem dari facite tertiam portionem, ut miserata divinitas copiam largiri possit, quam homines in se exercuisse cognoscit. et ideo tales viros his distributionibus adhibete, ut indulgentia nostra maxime ad illos perveniat qui suis viribus pasci minime potuerunt.