2
2.1. Shares and Interests
2.1.1. The Loca
The loca (sg. locum, a Latin term) were the parts of a set of debts, defined as a certain number of lire. Whoever possessed loca owned “X lire of loca” (lire di luoghi). This amount was indicated in the registers of the loca, called “ledgers of columns” (cartolari delle colonne), which contained a “column” for each investor with a list of lire of loca owned by that individual. Investors received interest for each locum, which San Giorgio distributed in the form of a paga. A paga’s value could vary over time. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, four pagae were distributed annually for each locum.
The shareholders—called comperisti, from compera—acquired loca from San Giorgio and then circulated them on the secondary market. Loca could not be reclaimed, as law of San Giorgio determined that loca could not come back to the compera (loca regressum non habere).1 Not even the loca of exiles or someone who had committed a political crime could be confiscated. This, as we will see, gave San Giorgio a certain credibility and reputation. It is possible that these rules derived from the fact that in Genoa, as in many other cities, shares of public debt were originally acquired as a forced loan. While a share produced an amount of interest, citizens were forced to invest in the public debt. It may be that both characteristics—the fact that shares were not reclaimable and the obligation to provide the loan—made them untouchable by the Commune.
Many citizens and religious institutions that wanted to protect their investments acquired loca. Genoese living outside Genoa and citizens of other cities also invested in loca. Various foreigners, such as people from Asti, were interested in this type of investment. The loca could be bonded: a shareholder obtained a certain amount of money for pawning his or her loca. Loca could also be loaned from one private citizen to another. Scholars have documented the existence during the fifteenth century of companies that invested in loca in order to speculate on their value.2 Some of these had religious names and have been confused with devotional confraternities. As will be shown, when Genoa was under external domination or when an important political crisis occurred or if a local faction—a member of the Adorno or Fregoso—came to power, the value of the loca varied accordingly. These changes and transformations influenced the value of the loca more than that of the pagae, the latter depending on local contingencies.
If the Commune did not have sufficient money, it could issue new loca. This practice, however, was limited so that a given number of loca always corresponded to a given amount of money. A law in 1463 stated that from the next year, new loca (ciechi: “blind” in the vernacular) could not be issued, not for an extraordinary expense, fortifications, or a subvention.3 If money were required, the taxation on the loca (called paga floreni) of the subsequent year could be used.
2.1.2. The Pagae
The interest on the loca, as mentioned, was called pagae. They were important because they were used in Genoa not only for financial transactions related to public debt, but also for the payment of taxes or for a bank payment. People often used them to make a payment—that is, as money on account. Like loca, the value of the pagae was expressed in lire. Each lira had the value of 20 soldi, called “nominal value” (valore di numerato). Lire, soldi, and denari (12 denari made a soldo) were money of account. They did not exist as actual coins.
Pagae were accredited through a two-step process. First, scribes of San Giorgio recorded in specific ledgers the number of lire of pagae that some loca—owned by someone—was generating at that particular moment. This process was called “fare le scuse” (lit. make the excuses). Then San Giorgio paid the pagae, assigning an amount in lire according to a given percentage on the loca’s nominal value, which was 100 lire. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, this interest was around 7%; later it lessened, eventually going as low as 2%.4 Along with the variability of the interest, the time and frequency of the pagae’s distribution, which was called maturazione, the process of maturing, also changed. During the fifteenth century it shifted from a period decided in advance to a variable period—sometimes as long as several years.
Initially, San Giorgio fixed a terminus and distributed pagae in four tranches, starting in May. Later, it stopped respecting this schedule, and there were delays of years between one paga and that of the following year. For instance, San Giorgio paid the 1453 pagae in 1456, the 1454 pagae in 1457, and the 1455 pagae in 1458.5 In 1460, San Giorgio stated that it would pay in 18 months, but did not do so. Even as San Giorgio established a fine of 100 ducats for the protettori who delayed payments, in the early years of the sixteenth century the delay was as long as 50 months.6 When the pagae reached maturity, San Giorgio paid in current money, but in fact this happened more in theory than in reality, because artisans, merchants, and mostly the gabellotti (those who collected the taxes) often used pagae to pay their debts with San Giorgio (see later).
Between the registration of the pagae, the excuses (le scuse), and their maturation, the pagae were traded on the secondary market. Fifteenth-century ledgers and journals of San Giorgio contain information on thousands of transactions of pagae. Their trade was so intense that they worked as money on account. Why did so many transactions occur? Because San Giorgio’s delays in payment created a space for trading. Owners of pagae that had been attributed but were not yet mature wanted to sell them in advance. Traded pagae were indicated in lire and soldi. San Giorgio paid 20 soldi for each lira if the pagae were mature. If this rate of exchange had applied to the transactions that predated the maturation, we could know the real value of all the transactions. However, we know that the pagae sold in advance never traded at their final value. They were discounted, because it was not known when an owner would receive his or her money back from San Giorgio. The sellers needed the money sooner, and so they took a loss.
Scholars do not agree on how the market in pagae worked.7 The subject is complicated by a lack of documentary evidence, with only a few sources reporting the price of transactions. Moreover, some sources related to this subject pertain to the theological debate on usury, a complex subject in itself. Selling pagae at a discount meant that the person acquiring them was participating in usury, because he or she were getting richer not by honest labor, but by speculating on time.8 Scholars have still to clarify all the theological matters related to discounting the pagae, and the discounting in itself has not been well studied.9 What is known about the price of the pagae comes not from just the theological texts, but from other sources like political memorials, registers of the Commune of Genoa, and a few ledgers of the pagae.10 The latter document a number of pagae sold at less than 20 soldi for each lira. Since these transactions took place at the same time, this means that a market price existed. Only a few registers—related to a few years—exist that document the variation of the pagae’s price within a given year.
Jacques Heers has identified registers for the years 1463, 1464, and 1466.11 Like many other registers, these three report the nominal value; but unlike the others, they also report the real value of some transactions. It is very likely that other transactions on the same days had the same value of exchange. Among the registered transactions, some examples can be provided: Bigota Cibo on May 24, 1464, acquired from her son, Battista, some pagae at 8 lire di numerato (nominal lire) for each paga. Using only this information, it would be impossible to know how much he paid. Did he pay 20 soldi for each lira or less? In this case, however, the real value of the exchange is known, because it was recorded on the ledger of the pagae together with the nominal value. She paid 10 soldi and 6 denari for each lira de paga.12 The value of the lira varied week by week, sometimes day by day. The same ledger reports the price of the pagae at 8.1 lire on January 3, 1464; 9 lire on January 16; 10.6 on March 9; and 12.6 lire on August 14.13
The data in the three ledgers of 1464–66 are the most complete, but they are not the only ones that record transaction prices. Other information is recorded in some of the ledgers of the period 1468–77.14 Jacques Heers, looking at some of the registers of the pagae, concluded that on average they report transactions of medium cost that took place in Genoa. According to Heers, since the lire de pagae were traded only in Genoa, and since those who traded large sums of money usually invested in different businesses—like short-term loans—those interested in trading in pagae were probably merchants and artisans.15 Sometimes it is possible to know the kind of transaction, since the ledger mentions the specific role of merchants and artisans who traded pagae. This will be shown later.16 Merchants of silk were very active in trading pagae.17 Besides merchants, there were probably also those who speculated on discounting the pagae.
Heers did not conduct detailed analyses on this subject, maintaining that the time of maturation was unknown in advance and those who acquired the pagae could not know the price in the following months.18 It would have been difficult, according to him, to invest money in pagae without having an idea of the price. As it will be shown, a source exists, however, that not only provides information on the pagae’s 1464 price, but also refers to a group within San Giorgio who speculated by discounting pagae.19 Another source, the Discorso intorno alle moneta di paghe di S. Giorgio calls these speculators on pagae “paghisti” (traders of pagae).20 They bought the pagae in advance and sold them to contractors who collected farm taxes (gabelle). As will be shown, San Giorgio sold the gabelle in advance to these contractors (called gabellotti). They could pay a part of these advance payments with pagae, which they collected on the secondary market at a discounted price. The pagae came back to San Giorgio primarily through these gabellotti, and the bank was interested in progressively retiring them from the secondary market to avoid having to pay their full value once they had matured. At the end of the process, when all the pagae had matured (i.e., when they had reached their stated price), only a few pagae remained in the hands of a few investors. This is why—even though San Giorgio in theory paid 20 soldi in cash for each paga—its cash outflow at the end of the process was minimal.21 San Giorgio closed its bank in 1444; at that point the pagae were used to perform banking activities.
2.2. Loans and Taxes
2.2.1. The Gabelle
The gabelle were the indirect taxes created when a compera was founded. Since each compera—that is, a loan from private investors to the Commune—was guaranteed by a tax (gabella), compere and gabelle complemented each other. As San Giorgio progressively acquired all the compere, San Giorgio ended up managing all the gabelle. And when new gabelle were established, they also pertained to San Giorgio.22 San Giorgio took over 44 gabelle at its foundation; by 1539 there were 75. The gabelle were the most profitable of San Giorgio’s activities, with the most important gabelle levied on foreign trade and goods such as salt, grain, and wine. Jacques Heers estimated that in the second half of the fifteenth century, the gabelle amounted to a yearly sum of 300,000 lire, and he maintained that they constituted San Giorgio’s only income.23
As will be shown, the reality was different, because other sources of income existed, including the interest on loans San Giorgio provided to the duke of Milan and other princes. As noted previously, the compere did not collect the gabelle directly, but gave the right to collect them to the gabellotti, private collectors, receiving in advance a discounted sum of money. This process allowed San Giorgio to estimate the interest it could guarantee to its shareholders. Often the payment was in two installments: the first in advance and in lire de page, the money on the account of pagae; and the second in cash after the process ended. On other occasions, different payment systems were used.24 Some of the tax collectors were merchants in the same category for which they collected the gabelle—such as the merchants of silk and gold—but most traded only as gabellotti.25
2.2.2. A Tax on Capital
The tax on loca (the paga floreni) consisted of one florin (i.e., 25 soldi) on each locum, considering a locum at the nominal value of 100 lire. The tax was destined for the Commune of Genoa, which received it from San Giorgio, and its total amount varied widely each year. Table 2.1 shows the values in lire, money of account.
To get a sense of what these figures meant, one should consider that the entire yearly budget of the Commune of Genoa was 80,000 lire.
|
Table 2.1 The paga floreni for the period 1456–8426 |
|
|
Year |
Lire |
|
1456 |
89,603 |
|
1457 |
85,271 |
|
1458 |
95,188 |
|
1459 |
95,000 |
|
1460 |
no data |
|
1461 |
99,600 |
|
1462 |
43,156 |
|
1463 |
88,797 |
|
1464 |
88,966 |
|
1465 |
70,300 |
|
1466 |
69,800 |
|
1467 |
86,666 |
|
1468 |
87,439 |
|
1469 |
87,756 |
|
1470 |
68,632 |
|
1471 |
87,353 |
|
1472 |
87,763 |
|
1473 |
89,105 |
|
1474 |
89,154 |
|
1475 |
86,760 |
|
1476 |
77,375 |
|
1477 |
89,116 |
|
1478 |
90,766 |
|
1479 |
73,019 |
|
1480 |
73,259 |
|
1481 |
68,375 |
|
1482 |
68,575 |
|
1483 |
73,366 |
|
1484 |
54,500 |
The Officium Monetae was in charge of the economic affairs of the Commune of Genoa. During the fifteenth century, whenever the Commune needed money, San Giorgio often advanced the entire amount of the paga floreni to the Commune, obtaining the right to collect the tax on loca later. The bank provided an amount that was less than the entire value of the tax that would be collected later. The real amount of the tax would be known only when San Giorgio calculated the amount of circulating loca. Since this gap in time could be very long—sometimes years—San Giorgio required the Commune to accept a discounted sum of money. The operation of advancing the money was defined with the terms “taking the paga” (prendere la paga) or “taking the florin” (prendere il fiorino). Over time the paga floreni was used for different kinds of operations. In 1470 the Commune and San Giorgio used the paga floreni from 1483–92 to abolish the direct taxation—the avaria—starting two decades later, in 1490, meaning that from then on the Genoese paid only indirect taxes. San Giorgio, which administered these indirect taxes, raised them by 5% and provided the Commune with these monies, which the Commune then used for its expenses.
There were various ways to discount the paga floreni. At times San Giorgio advanced the paga; at other times a banker advanced it and the sum was mortgaged; and at other times the Commune put together two different pagae floreni for two or more years, obtaining from San Giorgio the paga floreni of another whole year.27 The first of these operations can be tracked in the 1440s.28 Even though the Commune used the paga floreni in many different ways, an extensive analysis shows that together with the paga floreni San Giorgio progressively acquired functions that had previously belonged to the Commune. The following section illustrates some examples. On August 7, 1446, in return for guaranteeing the loan for the Commune, San Giorgio obtained the paga floreni of 1447 and 1448.29 Sometimes obtaining money from San Giorgio was quite difficult. On June 10, 1448, because of the war against the marquis of Finale, the Commune of Genoa asked the protettori of San Giorgio to advance the paga floreni of 1450, but even though a good price had been established, San Giorgio did not present this proposal to the council.30 The Commune at that point then had to propose something that San Giorgio preferred. Another possibility was to sell the pagae on the market, but the Commune avoided this process, because the price of the pagae would have only been 12 soldi for each lira.31 At other times San Giorgio obtained the right to advance money to the Commune and then sell the paga floreni to the highest bidder. This occurred in 1450, when the Commune wanted to sell part of the 1454 paga floreni. San Giorgio gave the Commune a percentage of the entire sum and received authorization to sell the paga floreni at a discounted price.32 In the same period, San Giorgio put in place a very different process, albeit not in order to make a profit. The Commune asked for the 1453 paga floreni to pay its ordinary expenses, especially those related to the poor, and asked San Giorgio not to sell the paga floreni at a discounted price to any banker or merchant. The council of San Giorgio gathered in an assembly and had a debate that lasted seven months. During one of the most heated meetings, after the one in which the council had rejected the proposal, the owners of loca and some influential figures fiercely opposed this idea. Francesco Sacco, one of the loca owners (luogatario) recalled that when San Giorgio had taken the paga floreni for 1454, he had approved it, but in this case he thought the operation would ruin San Giorgio’s compere (“la distruzione delle compere di San Giorgio”).33
Battista de Goano—a very influential figure, as will be seen—also opposed the idea. He maintained that approving the process would result in additional requests; the Commune would request San Giorgio to acquire also the paga floreni of 1450, 1451, and 1452.34 Not until July 16, 1450, did San Giorgio decide to provide funds to the Officium Monetae of the Commune, because at that point a serious plague was underway.35 The decision, however, cost the Commune. The shareholders would keep a part of the paga floreni for themselves; their payments for the direct tax (avaria) and some indirect taxes (gabella on wine and grain) would be discounted. In July 1453 the Commune discounted the paga floreni from the payment of the taxes, lira by lira—that is, at the nominal value (20 soldi for each lira).36
At other times, instead of discounting the paga floreni, San Giorgio took it as compensation for expenses it incurred on behalf of the general interests of the Genoese. This occurred in 1456, for instance, when San Giorgio—which then owned and administered the city of Caffa and other territories in the Black Sea—asked for and obtained a special papal privilege that enabled it to use the paga floreni to protect its city and territories in Crimea from the Ottoman threat. This will be discussed in Chapter 5.37
Caffa illustrates a territorial interest of San Giorgio. At other times the paga floreni was used to protect Genoese maritime interests. On August 8, 1474, the council of San Giorgio and 256 shareholders came together to deliberate over the expenses involved in arming ships to fight against pirates threatening the coasts of Liguria, particularly Genoa and the Riviera. San Giorgio’s eight protettori received the power (ampia balia) to find the money to arm the galleys. They decided to use half of the paga floreni (medio floreni) of 1486 and 1487.38 In this case, as in the case of Caffa, it was not the Commune that used the money to put the defenses in place, but San Giorgio itself. What was usually the Commune’s prerogative—the defense of Genoese citizens—became San Giorgio’s.
On August 31, 1475, the protettori together with the Office of Scio—a special magistracy elected to address matters in Chios—asked a plenary assembly of 332 San Giorgio shareholders to save Chios from the Turks. A few days before this, a council of 450 citizens in the Commune agreed to take the pagae floreni of 1479, 1480, and 1481.39 Again, San Giorgio took care of a Genoese territory.
In all these cases, it required permission from the council of San Giorgio to advance the amount of the paga floreni to the Commune. And this decision was not straightforward or automatic, because the main purpose of San Giorgio was to pay interest to its shareholders. Usually, San Giorgio advanced the money to the Commune and took the paga floreni at a discounted price. Sometimes it did not loan any money, but instead took over the Commune’s performing an activity of general interest such as arming a flotilla or defending a territory. These dynamics show the process by which the Commune lost its rights and San Giorgio’s political role grew. In addition, however, from the financial and fiscal perspective, San Giorgio’s use of the paga floreni was important for its relationships with the Commune, especially when it used the paga floreni to abolish direct taxation.
2.2.3. The End of Direct Taxation
The end of direct taxation (the avaria) occurred in 1490. Until that time the Commune had covered its ordinary expenses with direct taxation. After that, San Giorgio covered 66% of these expenses, while the rest was paid with the avaria of the Riviera coastal areas, which remained in place.
To pay that money, San Giorgio raised the gabelle by 5%, took the entire paga floreni of 1483–92, and used other measures.40 This meant that from 1490 on, the nexus between taxation and consensus was interrupted, a link that was fundamental in the early modern period and is still important today. When citizens paid the taxes of the Commune, the Genoese government had to cultivate the people’s consensus. After 1490, with the participation of San Giorgio, a gap opened between the citizens’ resources and their ability to say how that money was used. According to Heinrich Sieveking, the end of the avaria marked a “weakening of the state of the Commune and the rising of San Giorgio’s power.”41
2.2.4. Lending to Dukes and Popes
Between 1452 and 1474 and then again in 1521, the dukes of Milan and the Genoese pope, Innocent VIII (Giovanni Battista Cybo), obtained a number of important loans from San Giorgio (Table 2.2). The most important were those made to Francesco Sforza (1452, 1453, 1455, 1457, 1465, and 1472).42 The Commune loaned money to Innocent VIII in 1486.43 Table 2.2 shows loans in lire (money of accounts, ₤) and ducats (d.).
In all these cases, San Giorgio got involved since the Commune did not have enough money. Even though the forms of the loans were different, the majority had the same mechanism: San Giorgio loaned the money and in exchange obtained sources of income. Sometimes it obtained them from the Commune of Genoa, sometimes from the dukes of Milan, and sometimes from both. In this case, to raise the money, San Giorgio called on Genoese private investors. It placed shares (loca or pagae) on sale in exchange for cash money, committing to buy them back in the following years. Two loan cases will serve as examples. In 1452, San Giorgio gave Francesco Sforza ₤55,000. The Commune guaranteed it with the paga floreni of 1456, calculated at ₤75,000. In exchange, Francesco Sforza gave San Giorgio the gains on the taxes levied on salt and gualdo (a dyeing material) at 10 soldi for each mina of salt taken from Genoa to Milan and 18 soldi for the gualdo taken from Milan to Genoa. San Giorgio did not offer its own money, instead raising it by selling 944 new loca at a value of ₤60 each.45
|
Table 2.2 Loans by San Giorgio to dukes and popes in the period 1452–152144 |
||
|
Year |
Amount |
Recipient |
|
1452 |
₤55,000 |
Duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza |
|
1453 |
₤55,000 |
Duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza |
|
1457 |
₤110,250 |
Duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza |
|
1465 |
d.20,000 |
Duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza |
|
1472 |
d.20,000 |
Duke of Milan, Galeazzo Maria Sforza |
|
1474 |
d.11,500 |
Duke of Milan, Galeazzo Maria Sforza |
|
1486 |
d.25,000 |
Pope Innocent VIII |
To guarantee the loan of ₤110,250 in 1457, Francesco Sforza offered San Giorgio the same kind of resources: the gabella on gualdo and salt. This time, however, there was no new issue of loca; to obtain the money, San Giorgio placed several thousand lire de pagae on the market. Many buyers sold them on to others, and there were thousands of transactions. In this way, San Giorgio distributed the burden of the loans over many people. As in the case of the lire de paga of the loca, the ledger related to these loans maintained a record of all transactions. A first large lender gave the pagae to someone who traded a lower volume of pagae, and this second lender traded them among various people. It is difficult to know whether people exchanged goods or services for the pagae or whether new loans were issued, nor do we know whether other investors participated in the loans. Only a quantitative analysis of the flow and exchanges of pagae on the ledgers of San Giorgio cross-checked against the entries collected from the few extant ledgers of merchant bankers could provide this information. The transactions occurred over an extended period, lasting until 1466. The market value of the pagae was different from the nominal value, and varied day by day—as did the lire de pagae of the loca of San Giorgio. Usually, there is no indication of the value of the exchange for the transactions of these pagae. In this case, however, it is possible to know the real value of the transactions by using the ledger of one of the shareholders, Giovanni Piccamiglio.46 A small group of rich investors—the merchant bankers Giovanni Piccamiglio, Niccolò e Giannotto Lercari, Geronimo de Fo, and Giacomo Grimaldi—acquired thousands of pagae and quickly sold them. Some of them made double their investment in only five months.47
Anthony Molho, who studied the history of finance in Renaissance Florence, has compared the three city-states on the Italian peninsula that had a public debt: Venice, Florence, and Genoa.48 His study of the Florentine short large loans at high interest—the so-called floating debt—made him question how the system of high interest debt worked in Genoa.49 The floating debt was different from the so-called public debt, because the latter consisted of loans by citizens to the Commune in exchange for a low interest (2%–4%). The main difference between Florence and Genoa was that the Florentine public debt was in the hands of the Commune, while San Giorgio was a sort of corporation of private shareholders. Did a floating debt exist in Genoa? If it existed, how did it work? Until now, Molho’s questions have not been answered. In Genoa, as in Florence, a large single investor sometimes loaned a large sum of money to the Commune. There are no systematic surveys of these transactions and hardly any information in the chancellery registers of the Commune. When the Commune obtained a loan from a private investor, it issued a drictus, a tax levied on goods and trade that over time would repay the loan.50 A drictus could be very costly for the people who had to repay it, and sometimes the Commune tried to reduce it.51 Through the study of these drictus issued in order to secure loans, it should be possible to study the floating loans in Genoa. As we have seen, however, drictus were not the only forms of floating debt. To answer Molho’s question, one would also have to consider San Giorgio’s role. As we saw with the loans to the duke of Milan and the pope, San Giorgio sometimes collected the money—for instance, through the selling of loca. An analysis like that presented here could also be undertaken for these specific issues of shares.
San Giorgio was a financial platform that performed complex operations to issue loans at high interest. Unlike the Florentine case, the Genoese floating debt was not detachable from the so-called public debt, controlled by San Giorgio. San Giorgio did not administer only the low-interest public debt, collecting investments from shareholders who did not want to risk their capital. On the contrary, some of the richest merchant bankers of the sixteenth century built their fortune within San Giorgio. The prominent merchant banker Bendinelli Sauli is one of the most representative. During the second half of the fifteenth century, Bendinelli was a protettore and investor in San Giorgio, while in the early years of the following century his sons became rich merchant bankers at the papal court in Rome. Paolo and Vincenzo Sauli replaced the Spannocchi at the papal court, and Julius II even defined them as “apostolic depositaries.”52
2.2.5. Locking in Capital
San Giorgio raised money in similar ways in different situations. As discussed, the pagae circulated for long periods and were exchanged as money on account. Contemporary sources and later scholarship have called the time it took San Giorgio to pay back interest a “delay” and have noted that San Giorgio tried to reduce it.53 This, however, can be seen from a different perspective. A delay might last many years, and during that time there would be thousands of transactions. A similar mechanism—issuing pagae that were traded for different numbers of years—existed for the paga floreni, which was sometimes sold to private investors in advance and sometimes to an external power such as the dukes of Milan and the pope.
In all these cases, when San Giorgio placed pagae on the market, investors bought them and over time bought and sold them in thousands of transactions. A few big traders rapidly made huge gains, but investors who traded fewer numbers of pagae could also profit.
Lire de paga was worth less than the lire on account. Just like the pagae traditionally traded by San Giorgio—that is, the interest on the loca—the pagae issued for the loans to princes and the pagae floreni were traded by private investors to pay taxes and other debts owed to San Giorgio or the Commune. The lire de paga, a written bank order, returned to San Giorgio. In all three cases—pagae as interests on loca, pagae as loans to princes, and pagae floreni—the more the pagae circulated, the more San Giorgio could make use of and invest the cash capital. The delay in the payment of the pagae permitted San Giorgio to make a profit. This was a form of locking in capital and it required investors’ trust.
2.3. San Giorgio as a Bank
San Giorgio performed banking functions from 1408 to 1444 and from 1530 to 1805. Scholars have hypothesized that it was the lack of gold at the end of the fourteenth century that influenced the bank’s formation.54 Financial exchanges had to be written on paper because of the lack of precious-metal currency. Banking activities in Genoa during the fifteenth century were unlike those elsewhere in Europe such as in the Low Countries. In Genoa, virtual finance was widespread, while in the Low Countries metal currencies circulated until the seventeenth century.55 Investors in San Giorgio and ordinary citizens could open an account at San Giorgio’s bank (usually contractors of gabelle and some merchants and small artisans had an account there),56 and through their account they could move sums of money to pay others whose accounts were recorded on San Giorgio’s ledgers.
The person who received the payment gave San Giorgio a receipt or an oral instruction. Some of the account holders had the possibility to receive credits from the bank.
There were also accounts of private bankers on San Giorgio’s ledgers. These data are important, since it is unknown how many private banks existed in Genoa in the fifteenth century, nor how large their capital was; few account books survive.57 San Giorgio was the bank for other banks and, probably, the one with the highest volume of transactions.
In 1444, the bank was closed because of the exchange rate for the florin. San Giorgio had paid 440 soldi for 10 florins and exchanged 11 florins for 440 soldi, and this poor exchange rate gradually weakened the bank.58 When San Giorgio closed, the ledgers of the pagae became the place where financial and commercial transactions took place. As Jacques Heers noted, this moment marks the shift of transactions from the bank to the public debt. The pagae were used as a bank currency, with the ledgers showing the transactions. Heers’s hypothesis has been verified by other authors. There are accounts of people who did not invest in the pagae, but who needed an account in pagae to perform bank operations.59 This proves that the pagae as money on account could replace the bank, that the pagae became a sort of virtual currency. Some scholars have hypothesized that the bank’s collapse can be correlated to the rise of Jewish traders in Genoa.60 This seems unlikely, because San Giorgio was not the only bank and many Genoese Christians continued working as bankers.
2.4. Other Aspects
2.4.1. The Moltiplichi and the Genoese Families
The moltiplico (lit. multiply) was a financial tool based on a process of accumulation of interest. An owner of loca could ask San Giorgio to leave his/her interests on deposit so they would accumulate. The fund was administered by an office called the “Office of 1444.” When the fund reached a certain amount, the interests were transformed into loca, which produced new interests, and so on. When the whole capital reached a given amount, the owner could use it for beneficent purposes such as dowries for her/his family and donations to reduce the public debt or build churches and public buildings. Moltiplichi lasted for many years, in some cases even centuries. Their founders left wills that detail these plans. When the donations had a beneficent purpose and involved not only a family but also the Commune of Genoa, one of its offices, or another Genoese territory, San Giorgio put up a commemorative statue for the funder. Some of these statues can still be found in San Giorgio’s palace. The oldest moltiplichi were set up before San Giorgio was founded. Francesco Vivaldi, for instance, founded the first moltiplico in 1371, with the goal of extinguishing the Compere Pacis. He intended to buy all the loca of the compera, thus retiring the debt. Later, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Genoese citizens created various moltiplichi, like that of Gio. Gioacchino da Passano, which aimed to cover various expenses for the town of Levanto; or that of Bendinelli Sauli, used to rebuild the church of Carignano in Genoa.61 Around the middle of the sixteenth century, an anonymous text criticized the moltiplichi as a tool that celebrated the donor more than it helped the Genoese.62 A study of the moltiplichi would provide useful information on the way the memory of the families was preserved and how the projects helped the donors’ descendants, their beloved native city, and public institutions.63
2.4.2. Salt
From the fourteenth century on, the trade in and taxation on salt in Genoa was connected with a compera called the Compera Salis (Compera of the Salt), and with a salt office (Officium Salis). Like other compere—those that originated from the trading of a particular good or which were linked to the maone (Chios)—the income of the taxes (gabelle) on salt became the interests of the loca of that compera. The Officium Salis administered the selling of salt and its trade. Importation of salt was free, but the compera controlled its sale. Studies of the Compera Salis and the Officium Salis have established that the salt was imported from outside Genoa (from Ibiza, Cyprus, Alexandria in Egypt, and Romania) and that it was consistently exported to what corresponds to present-day Lombardy, Piedmont, Tuscany, and Lazio.64 From 1431 on, San Giorgio appointed the officers of the Officium Salis and the members of small local offices.65 In 1454, the salt’s loca were placed under San Giorgio’s administration.66 From then on, the administration of the Compera Salis and its trade were controlled by San Giorgio; importation remained free for a number of decades. The rules regulating the office’s structure are known only for the late sixteenth century.67 In 1510, San Giorgio obtained the monopoly on salt.68 Only certain incomes of the Officium Salis remained under the control of San Giorgio, not the entire set. It is not yet clear whether sources are sufficient to study the history of the office, already studied for the fourteenth century.69
The contractors who collected taxes on salt—for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries during the administration of the Compera Salis and of San Giorgio—had an important role. As the gabellotti dealt with the collection of gabelle for other goods, merchants dealt with the trade in salt. The compera tried to stop the activities of interlopers on the sea, but this was quite difficult.
The salt trade, the contracting of gabelle, and the administration of the monopoly on the importation of salt were related to Genoese territories and trade routes. Salt, more than other commodities, was connected with borders, local populations, and conflicts within certain territories. This was the case with Lunigiana, where San Giorgio acquired several territories so that it could administer the salt trade.70
Notes
1. In 1381, see ASG, Membranacei VII, fol. 61.
2. This practice was studied by Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 185 and commented on by Edoardo Grendi, In altri termini (Milano: Feltrinelli, 2004), 120.
3. ASG, Membranacei XIV, fol. 132r, 1463, December 13.
4. From 1409 until 1420, San Giorgio provided 7% interest, until the 1440s around 5%, then 4% until 1463, when it dropped to 3%. See Marengo, Manfroni and Pessagno, Il Banco di San Giorgio, 253–254.
5. Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 165.
6. For the 18 months of maximum delay and the relative fine, see ASG, Manoscritti Membranacei, XXV, fol. 12r. On the delays and their examples, see Felloni, website, www.lacasadisangiorgio.eu/main.php?do=node&tag=4_4 (accessed February 11, 2022).
7. Carlo Maria Cipolla, “Note sulla storia del saggio d’interesse, corso dividendi e sconto dei dividendi del Banco di S. Giorgio nel Sec. XVI,” Economia Internazionale 2 (1952): 255–274, considered the discount of pagae as a fixed rate applied by San Giorgio. Jacques Heers has rightly noted that it was the market that determined it. See Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 170. Felloni, even though he considered the possibility that pagae could be sold at less than 20 soldi per lira, did not consider the possibility of a homogeneous market value.
8. On the selling of discounted pagae, the papal bulls, and the role of theologians, see here Part II § 5.2.
9. Part II § 5.2.
10. ASG, AS 564, Diversorum Comunis Januae, cited by Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 170 and note. For the secret memorial of 1465–66, see here Part III § 7.2; for some ledgers of the pagae, see the following paragraphs.
11. Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 171, 670.
12. ASG, Banco di San Giorgio, sala 17, 4484, lire de paga 1463, M.1 C.2 [17,04484], on the date. November 16, 1464, Costantino de Goano acquired from Adam de Bongiovanni 4 lire de paghe and one 1 soldo at the price of 13 soldi and 2 denari for each lira de paga. Ivi.
13. Ivi, on the date.
14. See the ledgers related to 1468, 1471, and 1484. There are no prices of pagae in the ledgers 1454, 1455, and 1456.
15. Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 168.
16. Heers defined this kind of document as being very important, only notarial deeds being more important; Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 168. This idea is probably too optimistic, since the ledgers do not contain information on the goods exchanged for the pagae.
17. Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 168.
18. Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 170–171.
19. Part III § 7.3.
20. ASG, MS. 790, fol. 440v. Also in BAV, Patetta 1496, fol. 22v. This manuscript has many documents of San Giorgio. The rule was originally contained in a volume titled “Book of contracts of the years 1545–1588” (librum contractum anni 1545 in 1588), fol. 91, which is not present in the Genoese archives.
21. Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 169.
22. For a loan the Commune could not repay, in 1459 San Giorgio took the gabella of a soldo for each mina of wheat. Sieveking, “Studio sulle finanze genovesi,” vol. 2: 99.
23. Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 166.
24. In 1463 San Giorgio and the Commune agreed that from then on, all the gabelle would be paid half in advance with money on account and half in cash (“cioe la meitate sive dimidia de le paghe de quello anno per tuto lo meise de septembre de quello anno. Et l’altra dimidia de quelle paghe de quello anno. Et de tute quatro infra calede de febbrario immediate sequente a lo anno”). Those who did not pay on time would pay the gabelle at the price of “numerato” (cash) could not pay in pagae, as the Office accepted only cash. ASG, Membranacei XIV, fol. 132r, 1463, December 13.
25. Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 131.
26. Sources: ASG, San Giorgio, Floreni pagarum 1457 [185,09022], fol. 323r; IE 1458, fol. 218r; IE 1459 [185,02067], fol. 229v; Floreni pagarum 1462 [185,09027], fol. 51r; IE 1463, fol. 246; IE 1464 fol. 201; Floreni pagarum 1465 [185,09030], fol. 3v; IE 1467, fol. 194r; IE 1468, fol. 211r; Floreni pagarum 1469 [185,09033], fol. 3; Floreni pagarum 1470–72 [185,09038], fol. 78v; IE 1473, fol. 94r; IE 1474, fol. 97v; IE 1475, fol. 99r; IE 1476 fol. 141r, IE 1477 (senza carta); IE 1478, fol. 162r; IE 1479, fol. 165; IE 1480, fol. 173r, IE 1481, fol. 176r; IE 1482, fol. 163r; IE 1483, fol. 6v; IE 1484, fol. 3v; Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 165, note 2 (1466), 1456, 1461.
27. Felloni’s website, http://lacasadisangiorgio.eu/main.php?do=node&tag=5_113_869.
28. Heers dated these operations only from the 1450s; Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 103.
29. ASG, AS 538, fol. 89v.
30. “Lo dicto officio non solamente non a voluto acceptare, ma etiam dio non a volsudo meterlo denanci al suo conseglio.” ASG, AS 539, fol. 94r.
31. ASG, AS 539, fol. 94r.
32. ASG, Banco di San Giorgio, Sala 34, 607, 2240, fol. 50.
33. ASG, Banco di San Giorgio, Sala 34, 607, fol. 11v.
34. ASG, Banco di San Giorgio, Sala 34, 607, fol. 11v.
35. ASG, AS 547, fol. 92, and Sala 34, 607, 2240, fol. 49v–50v.
36. ASG, AS 552, fol. 214, July 28, 1453. The paga’s value was ₤30,000.
37. Part II § 5.1–5.2.
38. ASG, Banco di San Giorgio, Ms. 38, fol. 101v–102r: “The half florins which had to be given to the Officium Monetae, but which were not given as everyone knows because of the order of His Excellence, should be converted in this armament,” fol. 102.
39. ASG, AS 539, June 10, 1448, fol. 93v–94r.
40. Sieveking, “Studio sulle finanze genovesi,” 2, 149: “The reformed tax on the business transactions (gabella censarie); a) a general surcharge of 5% on all the Genoese gabelle; b) the tax on the interests of San Giorgio’s loca.”
41. Sieveking, “Studio sulle finanze genovesi,” 2: 149. On the abolition of the avaria, see also Mario Buongiorno, Il bilancio di uno stato medievale: Genova 1340–1529 (Genova: Istituto di Paleografia e Storia medievale, 1973), 334–335.
42. In 1452 ₤55,000 and later ₤20,000; in 1453, 50,000 ducats; in 1457 again 50,000 ducats.
43. 25,000 ducats.
44. Sources: Felloni’s website, www.lacasadisangiorgio.eu/main.php?do=genere_elenco&genere=844 (accessed February 11, 2022).
45. Giuseppe Felloni, “La Casa di San Giorgio ed i prestiti a Francesco Sforza,” Scritti di Storia Economica, 1: 312.
46. Jacques Heers, Le livre de comptes de Giovanni Piccamiglio, homme d’affaires génois; 1456–1459 (Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1959).
47. Piccamiglio invested ₤1,000 of “moneta corrente” and acquired ₤4,000 de paghe at the value of 5 soldi each. He sold them when they rose to 10 soldi in February of 1458, ASG, San Giorgio, Floreni pagarum, 1457 C [185,00239], fol. 188. Geronimo de Fo did the same; he sold his pagae to Antonio de Casana February 4, 1458, ASG, San Giorgio, Floreni pagarum, 1457 C [185,00239], fol. 187v. Giannotto Lercari on March 4, fol. 188v.
48. Molho, “Le città-stato e i loro debiti pubblici.”
49. Molho, “Le città-stato e i loro debiti pubblici,” 12.
50. On the drictus, see Mario Buongiorno, L’amministrazione Genovese nella “Romania”: Legislazione—Magistrature—Fisco (Genova: Bozzi, 1977), 199–207.
51. See ASG, AS 3044, January 22, 1460, when the Commune attempted to reduce some expenses for some drictus (Tunisi, Malice, Chii, denarius unius pro libra, ripe).
52. Felix Gilbert, The Pope, His Banker, and Venice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 75; Helen Hyde, Cardinal Bendinello Sauli and Church Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Italy (Woodbridge and Rochester: Royal Historical Society-Boydell Press, 2009); Andrea Fara, “Banca, credito e cittadinanza: I Sauli di Genova tra Roma e Perugia nella prima metà del Cinquecento,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome—Moyen Âge 125, 2 (2013): 71–104.
53. See for instance that of 1751, Part II § 5.1.
54. Aerts Erik, “The Casa di San Giorgio and the ‘Monetary Famine’ of the Late Middle Ages,” in La Casa di San Giorgio: il potere del credito, ed. Giuseppe Felloni (Genova: Società Ligure di Storia Patria, 2006), 27–62.
55. Oscar Gelderblom and Joost Jonker, Enter the Ghost: Cashless Payments in the Early Modern Low Countries, 1500–1800 (Utrecht: Utrecht University and University of Amsterdam, September 2015), Working paper no. 74.
56. Sieveking did not think that this happened, but on this see the conclusion of Alfonso Assini, “L’importanza della contabilità nell’inventariazione di registri bancari medioevali: Il Banco di San Giorgio nel’400,” in Gli archivi degli istituti e delle aziende di credito e le fonti d’archivio per la storia delle banche tutela, gestione, valorizzazione (Roma: Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato, 1995), 263–283, at 269–270.
57. Only some account books remained. See for instance the ledgers of the companies, such as those of the families Lomellini Sorba, Lomellini, Spinola, Centurione, Strata Lomellini, Bonavei, and de Marini. See www.lacasadisangiorgio.eu/main.php?do=node&tag=8_99 (accessed February 11, 2022).
58. Giuseppe Felloni, “I primi banchi pubblici della Casa di San Giorgio (1408–45’),” in Banchi pubblici, banchi privati e monti di pietà nell’Europa pre-industriale: amministrazione, tecniche operative e ruoli economici. Atti del convegno: Genova, 1–6 ottobre 1990 (Genova: Società Ligure di Storia Patria, 1991), 225–246, at 242 and note 24.
59. Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 166; but also Assini, “L’importanza della contabilità,” 282.
60. Rossana Urbani and Guido Nathan Zazzu, The Jews in Genoa, vol. 1 (Leiden, Boston and Köln: Brill), xvii–xix.
61. See Part II § 5.2.
62. Sogno sopra la Republica di Genova veduto nella morte di Agostino Pinello ridotto in dialogo BCB, ms. VII.5.50, fol. 6r.
63. Particularly useful is the manuscript ASG, San Giorgio, n. 185,00302, mentioned by Giuseppe Felloni, “Utopia versus Realtà: I moltiplici di Gio. Gioacchino da Passano,” in I Signori da Passano. Identità territoriale, grande politica e cultura europea nella storia di un’antica stirpe del Levante ligure, ed. Andrea Lercari, Giornale Storico della Lunigiana e del Territorio Lucense 60–62 (2009–2011): 645–657, at 646, note 2. A summary is on Felloni’s website, http://lacasadisangiorgio.eu/main.php?do=scheda&ricerca=0&idscheda=99687&page= (accessed February 11, 2022).
64. Domenico Gioffrè, “Il commercio genovese del sale e il monopolio fiscale nel secolo XIV,” Bollettino Ligustico (1958): 3–32, at 10–12, 27.
65. Marengo, Manfroni and Pessagno, Il Banco di San Giorgio, 182.
66. Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 136.
67. Marengo, Manfroni and Pessagno, Il Banco di San Giorgio, 182.
68. Marengo, Manfroni and Pessagno, Il Banco di San Giorgio, 184 and note 294, quoting Sieveking, “Studio sulle finanze genovesi,” vol. 2: 23–24, 169, and ASG, ms. 675, Magistrati della Repubblica, fol. 215.
69. This series is described on Felloni’s website, http://lacasadisangiorgio.eu/main.php?do=genere_elenco&genere=420 (accessed February 11, 2022). The ledger of 1483–84 (Sala 34, 607 2318 [18,60700 23172]) is very useful for the end of fifteenth century. On the trade in and monopoly on salt in the fifteenth century, see Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle, 136–140. On the salt trade in the fourteenth century, Gioffrè, “Il commercio genovese del sale,” 3–32.
70. Part II § 6.2.