In the Kingdom of the two Sicilies, Ferdinand I issued a law governing archives in 1818; a decree of 29th November 1819 established the General archive of all the banks, both in dissolution and currently existing, and of any other bank that may subsequently be reopened, thereby giving birth to what would eventually become the present-day Historical Archive of Banco di Napoli. The Archive contains information and documents on the economic history of Southern Italy and the structure and develop¬ment of credit institutions operating in the region. P. Aiello, the assiduous scholar and researcher to whom we owe the discovery of a fede di deposito dated 1572, acknowledged with regard to the Historical Archive that "no one [could] claim to write comprehensively about credit, banking regulations and the economic history of Italy [without having] studied and explored among its innumerable shelves, which are virgin territory for economists and students of the law". The documents, which are stored in some 300 rooms on four floors, can be divided into two main categories: those in the first category, scritture patrimoniali, relate to the management of the bank's interest-bearing assets, associated book-keeping and docu¬ments of a non-accounting nature; those in the second, scritture apodissarie, concern customers' deposits and the issue of fedi di credito (credit certificate). The turbulent political and social events of the Kingdom some¬times spilled over onto the banks, causing upheaval, the occupation of' their offices and the dispersal and loss of documents. This explains the gaps that are evident in both series of papers, but more especially in the scritture patrimoniali. Nevertheless, a large proportion has survived and is of ines¬timable value. The Archive's possessions include as many as 236 original parchments from Monte della Pietà, the oldest of the eight banks, recording royal assents, donations and contracts.
The historical archives of the Banco di Napoli: A primary resource for social and economic history in a Mediterranean view
Avallone Paola;Lombardi Giovanni
2012
Abstract
In the Kingdom of the two Sicilies, Ferdinand I issued a law governing archives in 1818; a decree of 29th November 1819 established the General archive of all the banks, both in dissolution and currently existing, and of any other bank that may subsequently be reopened, thereby giving birth to what would eventually become the present-day Historical Archive of Banco di Napoli. The Archive contains information and documents on the economic history of Southern Italy and the structure and develop¬ment of credit institutions operating in the region. P. Aiello, the assiduous scholar and researcher to whom we owe the discovery of a fede di deposito dated 1572, acknowledged with regard to the Historical Archive that "no one [could] claim to write comprehensively about credit, banking regulations and the economic history of Italy [without having] studied and explored among its innumerable shelves, which are virgin territory for economists and students of the law". The documents, which are stored in some 300 rooms on four floors, can be divided into two main categories: those in the first category, scritture patrimoniali, relate to the management of the bank's interest-bearing assets, associated book-keeping and docu¬ments of a non-accounting nature; those in the second, scritture apodissarie, concern customers' deposits and the issue of fedi di credito (credit certificate). The turbulent political and social events of the Kingdom some¬times spilled over onto the banks, causing upheaval, the occupation of' their offices and the dispersal and loss of documents. This explains the gaps that are evident in both series of papers, but more especially in the scritture patrimoniali. Nevertheless, a large proportion has survived and is of ines¬timable value. The Archive's possessions include as many as 236 original parchments from Monte della Pietà, the oldest of the eight banks, recording royal assents, donations and contracts.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
