The Neapolitan credit model. The Banking System in Pre-unification Southern Italy

According to the historiography, in the 1840s and 1850s two types of credit systems were defined in Italy, the fruit of diverse economic structures and different positions taken by state authorities: the Piedmontese model, which provided for the constitution of a single bank of issue and discount of exchange bills, with banking customs directly inspired by French practices; and the Tuscan model, in which the powers of issuance were subdivided and granted to a plurality of institutes. As a result, no hierarchy was configured among the diverse institutes and operators of the credit market. Along-side these two types, however, the existence of a third model can be affirmed: the Neapolitan model, where a single bank controlled by the state and with its own discount house offered services of deposit, circulation and the discounting of bills of exchange. This was supplemented by a series of credit operators, private bankers and commercial firms, who granted credit without the rigidity re-quired of government discount banks. Finally, what prevailed in the provinces were credit services offered by various other institutions somewhere between those offering social services and those offering credit services tout court. In this paper, I demonstrate the operation of this particular credit model at the time of the unification of Italy.