Credito e Monti di Pietà tra medioevo ed età moderna. Un bilancio storiografico

Abstract

"Credit and Monti di Pietà in the Medieval and Early Modern Period: A Historiographical Assessment" Access to credit and the power relations around it were key aspects of Italian society between the late medieval and early modern period. Obtaining money (through legal, illegal, and “ambiguous” means) was deeply intertwined with broader issues concerning the economic, political, legal, and religious spheres. Tracing the history of credit therefore allows better understand the society of the time. By exploring theoretical disputes as well as concrete practices, this volume provides an overarching assessment of the historiographic debate and its main results about credit and the Monte di Pietà (an innovative form of Christian public banking). By refusing simplistic schematization, the book investigates the many protagonists of an history that involved theologians and jurists, Jewish and Christian bankers, merchants, preachers, and civic authorities. Developed along the lines of different and competing projects of society, the market of credit responded to a widespread need to access money. Then as now, a significant degree of the level of inclusion or exclusion experienced by different members of a political community was shaped by and around the demand for credit.