The Medici bank

Abstract

The recently published book of R. de Roover, The Medici Bank (The New York University Press, New York, 1948), offers the starting point for the present article’s re-examination of the vicissitudes of the business activities of the Medici, with special reference to their banking concern. The Medici Bank, already known in the early fifteenth century and with branches in Rome, Venice, Lyons, Bruges and London, reached its climax at the death of Cosimo the Elder (1464), declined under Lorenzo the Magnificent and fell with his son Piero (1494), thus completing its parabola within the period of a century. The author illustrates the working of the Bank in exchange and credit markets of that period, its internal organisation strictly built up around the family group, and avails himself of the experience acquired in the field of mediaeval history for interesting comparisons with the leading “Companies” of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (the Bardi and Peruzzi of Florence, the Frescobaldi and the Ricciardi of Lucca), of the fifteenth century (the Datini of Prato) and of the sixteenth century (the Affaitati of Cremona), who shared in the like fate of a rapid decline.

JEL: N24