Between Conflict and Negotiation. The Loan on Pawn in the Kingdom of Naples: Birth, Evolution and Establishment

The objective of the chapter will be to highlight a less-known economic model which saw the service of loans on pawn as a forerunner of micro-credit concentrated in a few institutions. From the birth of the Monte di Pietà in Naples and its evolution into public bank alongside other welfare institutions which had the real privilege of being allowed to open banks, we will try to understand why at a certain point all the banks in the city were authorized to lend on pawn. We will then focus on a case-study, analyzing the accounts of the pawnshops opened in the public banks in order to understand the trend of “poverty” in an important moment for Southern Italy, when the Kingdom of Naples, after more than two centuries of domination (first Spanish, then Austrian), finally became autonomous with its own King, Charles of Bourbon.