The merchant of Prato rewrote his will five weeks before he died and left 100,000 florins to the poor, under the town's control

Francesco di Marco Datini was born in Prato about 1335. In 1348 the Black Death killed his parents and two brothers. He made his fortune in Avignon, the papal city, then traded and banked from Prato and Florence. In 1376 he married Margherita Bandini, about 25 years younger. They had no children. His only acknowledged child, Ginevra, was born to an enslaved woman. Margherita took her into the household, and Ginevra married Leonardo di ser Tommaso di Giunta in 1407. On 27 June 1410 Datini made a will leaving half his estate to the Opera del Ceppo of Prato and half to the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. On 31 July 1410 he changed it. Almost everything went to a new foundation, the Ceppo dei poveri di Francesco di Marco, to be run by the commune of Prato and not by the Church. He died on 16 August 1410. The Ceppo received about 100,000 florins, including 73 properties. Margherita died in Florence in 1423. In 1870 about 150,000 papers and 500 account books were found in a stairwell of his Prato house. The Ceppo still exists as the Casa Pia dei Ceppi, which runs a museum in his palace. His archive is in the State Archive of Prato.