Gherardo Bueri

Gherardo Bueri (* 1393 in Florence ; † 1449 in Lübeck ) was a 15th century merchant and banker who worked in the Hanseatic city of Lübeck.

biography

In the late Middle Ages, the Hanseatic cities on the Baltic Sea found it difficult to connect to the banking system that the Italians had developed through international trading centers ( Bruges , Venice , Barcelona , London , Geneva , etc.) because of the religious ban on interest . The almost complete lack of banks in Germany that were integrated into this network is what makes Gherardo di Nicola Bueris stand out for the economic history of Lübeck and the Hanseatic League .

Bueri came to Lübeck from Venice, where he is mentioned around 1407 as an employee of the Medici branch. That is why he was also called Gerhard de Wale , the Welsche. Bueri's activity in Bruges, which is claimed in the literature, is based on the confusion with a merchant named de Buur.

Bueri, a close relative of the Medici , founded a bank in Lübeck around 1410 together with Ludovico Baglioni from Perugia . Obviously, Giovanni di Bicci de 'Medici had a direct influence on this company. A little later he married the daughter of a Lübeck mayor and in 1428 also acquired Lübeck's citizenship. He was the owner of the property at Aegidienstraße 22 .

The bank is developing well due to the good business connections with the Medici banking house and the Holy See , but suffered from the changeable relations between Germany and the papacy during the schism of Felix V. In addition, goods transactions were carried out, including rosaries made of amber and Skins from Russia. Venice was the central hub for all of his business. In addition to the Italian banking and trading centers, activities extended to Basel and Bruges. Within a short period of time, the bank was therefore of not insignificant importance for the trade of the cities from Lüneburg via Lübeck to Danzig and their merchants as a paying agent and lender.

The bank was to Bueris death in 1449 by Benedict Stefani from Lucca as commissioner of Cosimo de Medici and his Banca dei Medici as a creditor liquidated . His economic activity was continued until 1472 by his former employee Francesco di Filippo Rucellai. However, he no longer worked as a correspondent for the Medici Bank in Lübeck, but worked with Tommaso Spinelli, who was active in Rome . Attempts by Lübeck citizens led by Mayor Hinrich Castorp under its own financial commitment with Godeman van Buren to install a successor failed with the insolvency van Buren 1472. After South German merchants as coming from Nuremberg led brothers Mulich these financial transactions from the square Nuremberg from continuing . From 1619 the Hamburger Bank took on this international payment and clearing function for the north-east German Hanseatic cities until the Reichsbank was founded (1875).

literature

• Jörgen Bracker (Ed.): The Hanseatic League - Reality and Myth. 2 vols., Hamburg 1989. In: Catalog of the exhibition of the Museum for Hamburg History in Hamburg August 24th - November 24th 1989. Text part in 4th edition, Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 2006.
• Philippe Dollinger : The Hanseatic League. 2nd edition Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 3520371022 .
• Gerhard Fouquet : An Italian in Lübeck: the Florentine Gherardo Bueri (d. 1449). In: ZVLGA 78, 1998, pp. 187-220.
• Kurt Weissen : Letters from Florentine merchants living in Lübeck to the Medici (1424–1491). In: ZVLGA 83, 2003, pp. 53-81.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cosimo Medici's father Giovanni di Bicci de 'Medici was married to Piccarda Bueri.
2. ↑ Baglioni (nickname: Il collettore ) had been from Lübeck since 1402 on behalf of Pope Boniface IX. as papal nuncio responsible for the transfer of collections raised in Scandinavia such as St. Peter's penny to Rome.
3. ↑ They provided a guarantee for 6,000 Marks Lübisch demanded by the council.
4. ↑ This relocation of trade and financial routes to the Frankfurt exhibition center and the southern German cities was not least the result of political uncertainty (the collapse of Burgundy ) and the economic recession in Bruges due to the Wars of the Roses and the associated bank failures, not least the Banca dei Medici itself See Michael North: Upper German competition in: The Hanseatic League - Reality and Myth, pp. 161–164