Compagnia dei Bardi
The Compagnia dei Bardi was one of the most important private banks in Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries, with its headquarters in Florence .
history
The Bardi family had a multinational company with a European branch network in the 14th century with their bank, founded around 1250 (in addition to numerous Italian cities, including Avignon , Barcelona , Bruges , Cyprus , Mallorca , Marseille , Nice , Paris and Seville as well as in Constantinople , Jerusalem and Tunis ).
The Bardi financed the kings of France and England between 1250 and 1345. Their branches acted flexibly and largely independently in granting loans, but there was a liability association. By coordinating financial and political activities, they became the leading banking house. The bank organized the financial processing of the papal tithe.
Banking was sophisticated and complex even before the Banco Medici , so modern banking began at that time. When, for example, the Armenians, besieged by the Turks, asked the Pope in Avignon for help in 1336 , the Bardi branches in Naples and Bari bought grain to the value of 10,000 Gold Florentines and shipped it to the Black Sea within two weeks .
In addition to the Bardi, the Peruzzi , Acciaiuoli and Scali were also outstanding bankers. They often financed the large loans in consortia, for the first time in 1325 to the city Signor Karl von Anjou .
In 1345 the bank went bankrupt . The support of the English King Edward III. (1327–1377) with a credit of 900,000 gold fiorentini in the Hundred Years War against France (1337–1453) turned out to be a disadvantage when the king stopped his interest and amortization payments, which he promised to settle from the vainly hoped for war profits, especially since his opponents of the war, the kings of France and Naples, also stopped their payments on Bardi credits when they heard of the British financing of the war. A papal mediation attempt failed. The Peruzzi family , which had committed 600,000 Fiorentini, was also affected . In May 1345 there was even an armed clash between the two competing families. According to the historian and Peruzzi partner Giovanni Villani, the defaulted loans "outweighed a kingdom".
After the collapse, the Bardi rebuilt their banking business but failed to match the successes of the past. They also provided funding for Columbus and Cabot's expeditions .
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Angelika Franz, Spiegel Online , Unearthed - News from Archeology: Italians Funded Discovery of North America, article from May 6, 2012
- ↑ William Berdrow, book Famous merchants , men of energy and enterprising spirit portrayed in their lives underway, p 5 ff., Springer-Verlag, 11 November 2013
- ↑ Yves Renouard, Una spedizione di cereali dalla Puglia in Armenia esequita dai Bardi per conto di Benedetto XII (PDF), in Studi Salentini, Vol. 18, Dec. 1964, pp. 242-278
- ^ Edwin S. Hunt, The Medieval Super-Companies: A Study of the Peruzzi Company of Florence , Cambridge University Press, May 9, 2002, p. 39
- ↑ Ephraim Russell, British History Online , The societies of the Bardi and the Peruzzi and their dealings with Edward III, pp. 93-135 (Eng.)
- ↑ Angelika Franz, Spiegel Online , Unearthed - News from Archeology: Italians Funded Discovery of North America, article from May 6, 2012