A group of scholars converging on a common and socially relevant economic theme of research, that of households' welfare and poverty, met several times in the last two years to discuss the research progress and the opportunity to bring to­ gether for publication the research so far accomplished. They shared a research project supported by a grant from the former Italian Ministero dell'Universita e della Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica (MURST) now Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Universita e della Ricerca (MIUR): The Equiva­ lence Scales in the Measurement of Households' Welfare: Statistical, Economic and Demographic Analysis. The decisive meeting, an international seminar on the topics, was hosted by the University of Florence, siege of the national coordinator of this project. When one think of Florence, it is inevitable to think of the unfolding of Ren­ aissance, and reciprocally. th To the eyes of a traveller who had arrived to Florence in the 15 century, the city would have appeared as a sort of El Dorado, similarly to what would have occurred to the first conquerors of the South America's lands, so much astonishing were the richness of arts and the opulence of life. The flourishing of painting and sculpture had not equal all over the world and was reaching tops never made equal before. Masaccio, Brunelleschi, Donatello and later on Leonardo and Michelangelo, were the artistic and intellectual genius that enlightened beauty lovers princes.....