Credit, banks and bankers in renaissance Tuscany

At the end of the middle ages, economic expansion created the conditions for professional and social specialization. As the monetary economy expanded, however, the currency in circulation did not grow at the same rate. Several solutions were found for this lack of liquidity. Most relevantly, money-lending shed its medieval trappings and became a remarkably advanced practice. Institutions such as the Banco dei Medici and the bank of Francesco Datini introduced operating loans and financing loans for businesses. Their system operated on the innovative current account principle, which recorded services provided to clients and (in Tuscany, at any rate) could function on the issuance of written orders, like cheques.

Angela Orlandi is a lecturer in the History of Economics, Money and Banking in the Department of Economic and Business Studies of the University of Florence. She is the Director of research at the Fondazione Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica 'F. Datini', in Prato. Her research areas cover public and private finance, business history and international trade. Recent publications: La ricchezza del debito pubblico. Secoli XII-XXI, il Mulino, Bologna 2022; 'The emergence of double-entry bookkeeping in Tuscan firms of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries', in Accounting History, 2021, Vol. 26(4), pp. 534-551.