Peruzzi (trading company)
The Peruzzi , based in Florence , were one of the largest banking houses and one of the largest trading companies in Europe from the 13th century to 1343 . The family company had made its fortune in the wheat trade with southern Italy. Giovanni Villani claimed they went bankrupt at 600,000 florins after giving them to King Edward III of England . had given huge loans for his projects.
Around 1300 the great Florentine companies had succeeded in controlling the wheat exports from southern Italy, which had been ruled by Angevin since 1268, first under Charles I , then Charles II . There they bought up the huge amounts of grain that were in demand in the urban landscapes of northern Italy and mainly offered Tuscan cloths, which they mainly sold in Naples . They were met by the fact that, on the one hand, the Anjou were pursuing lofty plans for conquest, because they wanted to conquer Byzantium ; on the other hand, a popular uprising (the Sicilian Vespers ) overthrew the Anjou in Sicily in 1282 and called the Iberian royal house of Aragón , to which the island fell. The powers involved in these struggles needed much more money by leaps and bounds to pursue their goals, so they did everything in their power to sell the raw materials of their countries. This grain trade made the Florentine banks of the Peruzzi, but also the Bardi and Acciauoli, who divided the trade among themselves and even displaced the Venetians for a time, extraordinarily rich.
In the history of science , the Peruzzi mostly writes, by which a family business is meant, without any further differentiation. In fact, most of the companies were originally family companies, etymologically they ate the same bread (pane), so they belonged to a common household. But by the 13th century at the latest, so many shareholders who did not belong to the family had arrived that one speaks of mixed companies. On the other hand, not every member of the family had any influence, so that a limited number of Peruzzi can be peeled off who actually ran the company. Still others did not have much influence in the company, but they held political, military, or religious positions through which they could influence the situation in favor of the company.
The Peruzzi also played an important role in the political history of Florence. They provided at least ten gonfalonieri, that is, they filled the highest municipal office, plus 54 priors; some of them were made knights.
Beginnings
Thanks to the work of the Florentine genealogist Luigi Passerini , the history of the Peruzzi can be traced back to around 1150. He argued with compelling reasons against the family's claim that its name was derived from the Porta della Pera and that it went back to Roman origins. A document from San Remigio is the oldest that gives a reference to the Peruzzi. An Ubaldino di Peruzzo appears in it, which speaks in favor of Passerini's thesis that it was a diminutive of the name Piero, from which Peruzzo, later Peruzzi, became. The name would perhaps indicate the village of Ruota in the valley of the Arno (Valdarno).
Ubaldino appears in a document from the S. Salvi Monastery. The rise of the family in Florence had succeeded by 1200 at the latest, in 1203 Guido became a councilor and his name appears on a peace agreement with Siena . A mazzetto, which was accepted into the Arte della Seta , in the silk guild, one of the seven most important guilds of the city , in 1225 shows that they also rose economically . Apparently they stayed out of the fighting between Ghibellines and Guelphs , because they do not appear in Villani's list of relevant families for the year 1215. Or maybe they were too insignificant, because the Bardi already appear there. It was not until the 1260s that the Peruzzi played a role in these battles. Arnoldo was knighted on the battlefield of Montaperti .
Filippo and Arnoldo, steep climb
It was only Amideo Peruzzi's sons, Filippo and Arnoldo, who initiated the family's steep ascent. Arnoldo's descendants dominated the ranks of the men who ran the company, as they alone made up 28 of the leading figures, while the descendants of his brother Filippo made up only 9 of them. Filippo achieved political and military successes; he became a knight, like his son Guido. Another son named Chiaro became a cleric, and his grandson Simone was a very successful negotiator and diplomat. Arnoldo's sons Pacino and Giotto were both economically and politically very successful. Pacino received a pension for having 800 Ghibelline partisans locked up in his palace after the Battle of Campaldino . So the two branches of the family interlocked.
Filippo was a supporter of the Ghibellines and was there in the victory over the Guelphs in the Battle of Montaperti in 1260. But the Guelphs, including numerous Peruzzi, continued the fight. After the defeats of the successors of Emperor Frederick II , Manfred and Konradin in 1266 and 1268 against Charles of Anjou , who was fighting on the papal side , Filippo disappeared from Florence - perhaps as a mercenary leader. In 1280 he is said to have returned and co-signed the peace between the warring parties. However, it can be shown that he ran a company in Florence as early as 1274. Little is known about Arnoldo other than that he fought on the other side.
Family Branch Reconciliation, 1283
Apparently the rise to the Florentine city nobility began only after the reconciliation of the family branches in 1280 and especially in the 1290s. At that time they were already being referred to as “knife”, a form that was reserved only for knights and councilors. The family provided four knights alone. Filippo became one of the priors in 1284, an office that had only arisen two years earlier, and the Palazzo Peruzzi was created. In 1283, the sons of the former opponents combined the family assets, which now consisted of two equal shares. Part of the property was used to purchase land in the Contado, i.e. in the outskirts of the city, while the other part was used to purchase houses in Florence. Their account books were consistently kept separate. This institution was again independent of the Peruzzi Compagnia. Such special companies for certain tasks were often founded; they not only served the organizational separation, but above all the protection of equity.
In addition, branch offices or branches were established; one can already be found in Naples in the 1270s. There he had close contacts with the royal family of the Angevines, in particular with Charles II of Anjou . Arnold, the head of the Naples office, became the king's adviser and one of his family members. Society profited from the Anjous' extensive trade as well as from their military ventures. She sold grain from Brindisi to Greece, where Anjouf families also sat, using ships of the Templars . They also traded in salt and invested in the papal salt fleets, probably also in the Levant .
Solo tour by Filippo, 1292–1303
When Arnoldo died in 1292, Filippo ran the company alone for several years, even though his nephew Pacino took over his father's share for a short time in 1298. He died in 1299. Filippo managed to gain a foothold in Paris as well as Florence and Naples, and from 1294 with royal permission also in Aragón . Arnoldo's sons were less active in the company - perhaps they didn't even have shares - but in politics. Arnoldo's son Pacino was elected prior in 1286 and 1288, became treasurer of the commune in 1290, consul of the influential merchants' guild in 1293, and even gonfaloniere di Giustizia in 1297 . His brother Giotto was prior in 1293 and consul of the bankers' guild in 1297. When her father died in 1292, two new joint funds were created, one for the poor in the city and the other for the honor of the family. Her uncle Filippo ran the company until his death in 1303. He also steered the company through the constitutional crisis of 1292 when 150 magnate families were eliminated. The Peruzzi were not there, and in this way they were probably freed from economic and political competition. In 1295 Filippo steered the company through the time of the counter-attack of the magnates. In that year, a Signoria, favorable to the magnates, passed a law that softened the Ordinamenti of 1292, but now the greats of the city were divided into two factions. One led the Donati, who wanted to abolish the Ordinamenti, the other the Cerchi. Later these parties were called Neri (blacks) and Bianchi (whites).
Peruzzi were already working as a money changer and lender before 1300. However, their activities included more, because they were also allowed to accept and manage deposits, grant short-term loans, trade in precious metals and finance trading companies outside the city, i.e. long-distance trade. With the money that was not reinvested, land was purchased, as usual. There they in turn granted loans to the farmers. Numerous farms fell to them. This land, in turn, served a rapidly growing city by providing it with food and dye crops. Giotto di Arnoldo (from the Arnoldo branch) even owned his own house in Florence, which was mainly used to sell the wine harvested on his property.
It was Filippo who converted the family company into a corporation. As early as 1292 he brought in three investors, namely Banco Raugi, Gianni Ponci and Bandino Spiglati. This overly simple structure soon no longer met the requirements of the growing company. In 1300 a structure was created that lasted until the end of the company. Their capital now amounted to 124,000 lire, a pure arithmetic currency , which at that time corresponded to around 85,000 gold florins. The Peruzzi contributed 60%, of which three fifths were Arnoldo's sons and two fifths were Filippo's sons. The remaining 40% came from wealthy families such as the Baroncelli, Bentacorde, Folchi, Infanghani, Raugi, Silimani and Villani. While the Infanghani belonged to the magnates, the Folchi, Raugi and Silimani belonged to the once opposing Popolans, as well as Baroncelli and Bentacorde. Villani was an ambitious young entrepreneur. Filippo succeeded in building up a company that went beyond all class, political and social factions, but which still remained in Peruzzi hands. He was able to defuse conflicts like the one with the Adimari in good time through an agreement. Conflicts within the family, which could arise because the shareholders were unable to come to an agreement, could be avoided by allowing relatives to invest and therefore also gaining influence by acquiring a branch, for example, but they were not called upon to vote on key decisions. Such relatives, such as Simone, held deposits and supported the company on the political and diplomatic level, such as on legation trips to the Pope. He was also present when Johanna , the heiress of Anjous, married the King of Hungary; In 1335 he led the embassy to Mastino II della Scala of Verona. In 1341 and 1344 he also became prior in Florence, in 1347 he went as ambassador to Hungary before falling victim to the plague in 1348 . His family branch even survived the collapse of the company almost unscathed.
Successor, climax and bankruptcy
The outstanding leaders, however, were Giotto di Arnolfo and his brother Tommaso. Tommaso headed the company from 1303. When King Robert of Naples stayed in Florence in 1310 , he was a guest of the Peruzzi for 24 days. The company's capital that year was around 100,000 gold florins. There were branches in London and Bruges , in Paris and Avignon , on Cyprus and on Rhodes , on Mallorca and in Tunis , but above all in all commercial and financial centers of Italy, i.e. in Venice , Genoa , Pisa , Naples, Palermo , Barletta , Girgenti and in Cagliari in Sardinia . At its peak there were 16 affiliates. Department stores existed in Ragusa , in Constantinople , in Cologne .
The Peruzzi had invested exactly 102,758 florins in 1310. If the decline in value is included, they were twice as high as the entire Medici conglomerate in 1450, which, together with all depositors, had invested 90,687 florins. At the height of his company, Francesco Datini worked with an invested capital of 45,500 florins.
The financially strong Florentine companies increasingly acted as financiers of larger warlike companies. When the Hospitallers conquered Rhodes in 1309 , the Peruzzi alone had 164 debtors on their books. In addition, they acted on behalf of the English crown as collectors of taxes, in particular the port duties. Similar to the Anjou in southern Italy, they were given access to coin production and its introduction into the still poorly developed money cycle. However, this was already well developed in southern Italy, so that the market mediation of the exchange of goods was already further advanced.
Giotto was prior eight times between 1293 and 1335, and in 1333 he succeeded Tommaso in management. He was also head of the bankers ' guild , Gonfaloniere di Giustizia (an office he helped create to limit the power of the magnates) and Capitano of Orsanmichele, and three times consul of the merchants' guild. As head of the mint, he arranged the coinage. Although extremely rich, his books show that he often suffered from a lack of hard cash. His two marriages brought him into the important families of the Cavalcanti and the Donati. However, he got into the dispute of aristocratic factions, especially the Adimari. In May 1313, however, he was able to make peace with them.
Giotto was managed by Bonifacio di Tommaso in 1336, who wanted to strengthen the English wool trade, which Giotto had already written off as a loss. For this purpose he wanted to subsidize the English king in league with the Bardi , more precisely his war against France. Bonifacio also traveled to England, where he stayed from March 1338. However, he died in October 1340.
His brother Pacino was to continue the business in Florence from 1340. To this end, he was elected head of the family business just three weeks after Bonifacio's death. First of all, he tried to bring order to the books. In 1343 the company had to declare its bankruptcy when the payments from England failed to materialize.
Owned in Florence
The Peruzzi owned many houses on the west side of Via de 'Benci. There were also houses in Borgo de 'Greci, but also in Via dell'Anguillara, Via de'Rusticu, etc.
After the bankruptcy of 1343
In November 1343, part of the family had to flee Florence, while Simone Peruzzi, for example, remained in office and dignity. In 1344 no fewer than five Peruzzi were elected to the office of appraiser or auditor. At least the Filippo branch of the family was able to maintain its position even after the catastrophic collapse.
The Black Death of 1348 hit the Peruzzi, but only a few family members fell victim to it. It appears that only 7 of them died, which was 7% of the family. Many families, including wealthy ones, were hit much harder, such as the Donati, of whose 31 male family members 19 died.
For the family, the double collapse of bankruptcy and plague seems to have only had a lasting effect for a few years, although not only the main partners, but also the silent partners, were liable with their full assets. This was not changed in Florence until 1408. As early as 1347, most of the family members were back in Florence and doing business. In 1352 all family members belonged to the upper fortune quarter of the population, some belonged to the top ten percent. Simone di Rinieri, grandson of Pacino di Arnoldo, even became one of the richest men in town again between the 1350s and 70s. The rest of the family, however, no longer lived as the owner of a company, but sat in the country and lived as reindeer. Some of them held political offices, such as the priory or that of the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia, until the 16th century.
They also continued to live mainly around the Florentine Piazza de 'Peruzzi in San Piero Scheraggio. However, since the bankruptcy they no longer owned any joint family assets. The cadastre of 1427 lists 28 single families with an average wealth of around 3000 florins.
Displacement by the Medici (from 1434)
Ridolfo Peruzzi, who opposed the return of Cosimo de 'Medici in 1434 , had to go into exile. He died in Aquila in 1440 . The Peruzzi were kept away from any political power by the Medici, and many left the city. Among them was Antonio, who went to Volterra , where he married in 1482. One of his sons was the painter Baldassare Peruzzi .
Luigi Peruzzi also had to go into exile in Avignon in 1458. There he became first consul in 1470. He left a work on Petrarch , which was published in Bologna in 1866.
Research history
Like the other two big banks from Florence, the Peruzzi were mentioned in numerous historical works on Florence, Italy and the Mediterranean, but more detailed investigations were only made later. One of the first works was done in 1918 by Ephraim Russell, followed eight years later by a study by Armando Sapori .
It was not until 1994 that Edwin S. Hunt succeeded in writing a history of the Peruzzi that shed light on its origins and internal structure, its interrelationships and capital movements, and its credit and financial techniques. He described the Peruzzi company as a “super company”, on the one hand to distinguish it from misleading terms such as 'multinational', and on the other hand to denote its outstanding position and size, which never appeared again in the Middle Ages.
The company went bankrupt five years before the first great plague wave of the late Middle Ages, on the other hand it had not only survived the severe crises, which are collectively referred to as the "crisis of the late Middle Ages", but on the contrary had been enormously strengthened. During this crisis they were less affected by the famines rampant in northern Europe from 1315 to 1317 than where they were primarily active, namely in the Mediterranean region. Therefore, the waves of price increases hit them much harder from the late 1320s.
See also
literature
- Edwin S. Hunt: The Medieval Super-Companies: A Study of the Peruzzi Company of Florence , 1994, Cambridge University Press 1997.
- Armando Sapori : La crisi delle compagnie mercantili dei Bardi e dei Peruzzi , Florence: Olschki 1926.
- Armando Sapori: I libri di commercio dei Peruzzi , Milan 1934 (with numerous transcriptions).
- Armando Sapori: Storia interna della compagnia mercantile dei Peruzzi , Studi di Storia economica, s. XIII-XIV-XV, 1982, pp. 653-694.
Remarks
- ↑ The local Via di Burella (prison, actually cage) reminds of this. He is said to have held the prisoners in the cages of the former amphitheater (Janet Ross, p. 175).
- ^ Richard A. Goldthwaite: The Economy of Renaissance Florence , The Johns Hopkins University Press 2009, pp. 78f.
- ^ Richard A. Goldthwaite: The Economy of Renaissance Florence , The Johns Hopkins University Press 2009, p. 177.
- ^ John Day: The Medieval Market Economy , Oxford / New York 1987, p. 171.
- ↑ Gaetano Romagnoli (ed.): Ricordi sulla cita di messer F. Petrarca e di madonna Laura - scritti da Luigi Peruzzi , Bologna 1866.
- ^ Ephraim Russell: The Societies of the Bardi and Peruzzi and their Dealings with Edward III, 1327-1345 , in: Finance and Trade under Edward III , London 1918, pp. 93-115.
- ↑ Armando Sapori: La crisi delle compagnie mercantili dei Bardi e dei Peruzzi , Florence 1926.