Few studies in the scholarly literature on crime and criminal justice in early modern Europe have focused on the relationship between the effectiveness of systems of criminal justice and their costs. Chapter I described the conflict within the Florentine administration between the grand dukes, the auditore fiscale, and the Otto over this issue and the effects on the structure and independence of the tribunal. Here we delve more deeply into this problem through an analysis of the Eight's budgets.

These budgets are found in the series of documents called Partiti e Deliberazioni, which are the record of the daily business of the court. In the first volumes, beginning in 1537, these budgets appear at the end of four-month sittings and contain detailed entries. One is able to see, for example, how much two garzoni spent on a trip outside Florence from the duration of their journey and the cost of food and lodging. The stipends of most court functionaries – the judges, cancellieri, and garzoni – can also be determined. The treasurers made little attempt to organize these figures into categories. Salaries were grouped together, but other expenditures were recorded serially, until 1551, when monthly totals only were entered. By 1567 expenditures apart from salaries had become compressed and generalized, lacking the detail present in the earlier budgets. A major division has been made between salaries and all other expenditures.