Federigo Melis was connected with the International Institute of Economic History "Francesco Datini", of which he was one of the founders, and the vice-president of the Scientific Committee, until his death, on the 26th of December 1973. Federigo Melis was born in Florence on the 31st of August 1914, into a Roman family of Sardinian origin. He obtained his honours degree at the University in Rome and he undertook his university career, concentrating particularly on historical research. In 1949 he was named entrusted teacher of Economic History at the University of Pisa, and later on in Florence. In 1949 he came to Prato, to study all about one of most representative economic operators of the last three hundred years, the famous Pratese merchant and banker Francesco di Marco Datini. In the archive there are, amongst other things, about 153.000 letters and 600 book-keeping registers; and it is considered one of the most important sources for the study of the European and Mediterranean Economy of the late Middle Ages. At the age of fifty, Federigo Melis was considered one of the most important economy historians, especially of medieval economy. He had an "honoris causa" degree from the Universities of Loviano, Valladolid, Bilbao, Reims, Rennes, Lione, Warsaw, and from the Parisian "Sorbona". His study of the Datini archive, was followed by an exhibition in the Pretorio Palace, in 1955, opened by the president of the Italian Republic Luigi Einaudi, and Giovanni Gronchi (the recently elected new president). This exhibition showed the importance of the documents of the merchant Datini; and Melis deepened his research with several scientific publications. He contributed to the foundation of the Pratese International Institute of Economic History. In the meantime he was part of the International Committee of Historical Sciences, and of the International Marine History Commission; and became president of the Economical Sciences Committee of the National Council for Research. Melis's important studies are recorded in several of his publications; we only mention the first and the last: "History of the accounting" (1950), and "Origins and development of the assurance in Italy", printed posthumous in 1975. The illustrious French historian Fernand Braudel defined Melis as "one of the men mostly responsible for honouring the cultures of the world".