By Vincent Boland
The Medici family bank was founded even before the Banco di San Giorgio, in 1397, and it collapsed in 1494. But the family's lasting creation may be the myth of itself. The Medici were not just brilliant, wealthy, ruthless and powerful; they were a seriously dysfunctional family. This may explain why they offer such rich material for historians and novelists. (See especially April Blood, an account by the historian Lauro Martines of the plot, led by the Pazzi family but involving many others, including the king of Naples and Pope Sixtus IV, to wipe out the Medici family in 1478.)
The Banco di San Giorgio was not a family. It was an institution, bound by secrecy and rules, without any dominant personality. The men who ran it for almost its entire history were public figures, yet little is known of their lives. The bank is the hero of its own story. What is known is that in a short space of time, it became so entwined with the republic of Genoa that the bank and the state were indistinguishable. Machiavelli described the relationship as “a state within a state”. The Banco di San Giorgio grew so influential that it replaced the Fuggers, the German banking dynasty, as the source of financing for Europe's cash-starved, perpetually warring monarchs. A century and a half after it was created it had restored Genoese power and influence as a maritime and commercial state to such an extent that the period from 1557 to 1627 was termed the Age of Genoa by Fernand Braudel, the great French historian (Felloni was his student).
The bank was able to do this because the circumstances in which it operated were particular to Genoa. It was not the personalities who ran the Banco di San Giorgio who were dysfunctional, but the state that had called it into being. Genoa in the 1400s was a peculiar place. Although it was a republic, it was run by aristocrats, and not well, and institutionally it was weaker than Venice or Florence. The Banco di San Giorgio gradually ended this state of affairs, through a creeping takeover of the republic. This is what Machiavelli meant. It is, scholars say, why the history books tend to look askance at the bank: its corporatist modus operandi tends to cloud everything else. “History would tell us that here is a set of bankers who bled the state to death,” observes Michele Fratianni, a professor at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University who has written extensively about the history of Italian finance.
. . .
Felloni says the archival discoveries he has made will overturn this negative portrayal of the Banco di San Giorgio. Indeed, he argues that the evolution of the bank into Machiavelli's “state within a state” – to the point where it was entrusted, in the style of the East India Company (but, again, centuries before it), with managing some of Genoa's colonies, including Corsica – was the catalyst for the bank's innovations. “Before the Banco di San Giorgio, a bank was a wealthy person,” he says. “After the Banco di San Giorgio, a bank was an institution.”
The genius of the Banco di San Giorgio, alas, could not guarantee its own permanence. Though it survived many crises in its 398 years of existence – it even closed its doors to public transactions between 1445 and 1530 in order to serve exclusively as the state's banker – it folded in 1805, a few years after Napoleon invaded Italy and began to suppress independent banking activity.
Today, the office of the Casa di San Giorgio still houses the city's port authority, its magnificently frescoed facade studiously ignoring a hideous elevated motorway that almost cuts the city off from the water. But it is the legacy of the Banco di San Giorgio that is in dispute, not its historical location. Is Felloni right that it has been unfairly and, for the historical record, incorrectly ignored or diminished or downplayed? Riccardo Garrone, chief executive of the latter-day Banco di San Giorgio, which he founded in Genoa in the 1980s and named after its illustrious predecessor, has helped to pay for his friend Felloni's research. He is in no doubt about the importance of the discoveries. “The story of the Banco di San Giorgio is the story of banking in Europe,” he told me.
Michele Fratianni is a little more circumspect. Genoa, he said, was undoubtedly the most brilliant of Italy's three pre-eminent Renaissance republics. Its financial acumen was greater than that of either Venice or Florence. “Genoa was the queen of finance,” Fratianni says. But he cautions that the lack of prominence the Banco di San Giorgio receives in Anglo-Saxon chronicles is not necessarily specific to the institution and may simply be a reflection of “Anglo-Saxon egocentrism”. “The case [Felloni] is making is true of the Banco di San Giorgio and it is true for lots of other things, as well,” he says. “You have to bear in mind that the archive has only just been opened.”
Niall Ferguson, too, is guarded. Despite only one mention of the Banco di San Giorgio in The Ascent of Money, he includes ample reference to the pioneering role of Genoa. In an exchange of e-mails, Ferguson told me the Banco di San Giorgio was “a hugely important institution, there is no doubt”. The reason it was largely overlooked in the book, he said, was because the book itself is based on a television series he did for Channel 4 in Britain, and the demands of television meant that only one beautiful Italian city could be visited during filming. Genoa, handsome as it is, would seem still to be in the shadow of Florence.
Felloni shrugs. His work is largely done. But he has something to show me. We had been discussing the state of the modern banking system as it collapses all around us. For a historian, he takes a surprisingly utilitarian view of his subject. A bank, he says, is a simple creation. It merely stands between the depositor and the borrower. “Each is defined by a credit relationship,” he says. “All these elements must be in equilibrium. That's how a bank survives.”
On that rainy day in Genoa, he led me down several dark corridors in the warehouse where the bulk of the Banco di San Giorgio's archive is stored. The book he eventually pulled out was a manual from 1567 setting the rules and regulations for appointing treasurers to run the bank. “These were very strict rules, and they are why the bank lasted as long as it did,” Felloni said. “The Banco di San Giorgio was a far more sophisticated institution than any other bank. That's why people trusted it.” The first stipulation was that a candidate – they were elected by lottery – had to be at least 30 years of age. He then had to lodge 16,000 lire (worth about €275,000 in today's money) with the bank– it was raised to 40,000 lire in 1634 – and to provide the names of sponsors who would guarantee a further 90,000 lire for the duration of the treasurer's six-month tenure. It seems that in those days you had to pay the bank in order to run it, rather than the other way around.
Vincent Boland is the FT's Milan correspondent. Felloni's book can be downloaded at www.giuseppefelloni.it. A virtual tour of the archive will eventually be available at www.lacasadisangiorgio.it
世界第一家现代化银行（下）
作者：英国金融时报文森特•博兰(Vincent Boland)
美第奇家族银行始建于1397年，甚至比圣乔治银行的创立还要早，1494年倒闭。但家族永恒的作品是它本身的神话。美第奇家族成员不只是聪明、有钱、冷酷、势力强大，而且是个功能严重紊乱的家族。这就可以解释，为什么他们为历史学家和小说家提供了如此丰富的材料。（尤其要看看历史学家劳洛•马丁内斯(Lauro Martines)写的《April Blood》(四月之血)一书。此书讲述了一个在1478年策划的一起消灭美第奇家族的阴谋，由帕齐(Pazzi)家族牵头，但还涉及其他许多人，包括那不勒斯国王和西克斯图斯四世教皇。）
圣乔治银行不是一个家族。它是一个机构，受到机密和规章的约束，没有任何占绝对支配地位的人。在其整个历史过程中，管理银行的人士都是公众人物，但目前对这些人的了解甚少。圣乔治银行抒写了一段传奇历史，而这段历史的主角就是它自己。我们所知道的是，在很短的一段时间内，它与热那亚共和国有着千丝万缕的联系，一时无法把两者区分开来。马基雅维里将这层关系描述为“国中之国”。圣乔治银行变得非常有势力，取代了德国银行业皇朝家族富格家族(Fuggers)，成为欧洲那些对金钱如饥似渴、永远都在交战的君主融资的源头。创立一个半世纪后，它恢复了热那亚共和国作为海上商业国家的实力和影响力，伟大的法国历史学家费尔南德•布罗岱尔(Fernand Braudel)(费罗尼的老师)把1577至1627年这段时间称为“热那亚时期”。
圣乔治银行之所以有能力这么做，是因为它所处的环境对热那亚来说很特别。让圣乔治银行倒闭的并不是那些失职的名人管理者，而是要求创建银行的国家。15世纪的热那亚是个不寻常的地方。尽管它是一个共和国，但由贵族掌管，在制度上比威尼斯或佛罗伦萨更加薄弱。圣乔治银行渐进性地接管国家，逐渐结束了这种事态。这就是马基雅维里想要说的。有学者表示，这就是为什么历史书籍对圣乔治银行另眼相待：其社团主义运作方法一般会使所有东西都蒙上阴影。“历史告诉我们，这里有一伙银行家，是他们让国家灭亡的。”米歇尔•弗拉蒂亚尼(Michele Fratianni)评论道。他是印第安纳大学凯利商学院教授，写过大量有关意大利金融史的文章。
…
费罗尼表示，他在档案中的发现将推翻圣乔治银行的负面形象。的确，他表示，圣乔治银行转变为马基雅维利所谓的“国中之国”，像东印度公司一样获得国家委托（但比东印度公司还要早几个世纪），并掌管着热那亚的几个殖民地，包括科西嘉，此举成了该银行改革的催化剂。“在圣乔治银行诞生之前，银行就是一个富裕的个人，”他说。“而在它出现之后，银行则成了一个机构。”
唉！圣乔治银行的天才也无法保证银行的持久经营。尽管它在398年的历程中度过了多次危机——它甚至在1445年至1530年间关闭了其公共交易的窗口，专门为国家服务——但它还是在拿破仑入侵意大利并开始镇压独立银行之后，于1805年破产。
如今，圣乔治大楼的办公室里仍然驻扎着该市的港口管理局，装饰着壁画大楼的立面，金碧辉煌，似乎在竭力忘却几乎将大海与城市隔绝的丑陋的高架车道。但引起争论的是圣乔治银行的遗产，而不是其过去的处所。费罗尼认为，圣乔治银行被不公平地忽略了，而且根据史料记载，也被错误地忽略了，弱化了，低估了。那么，他的这个观点是否正确呢？20世纪80年代，里卡多•加罗内(Riccardo Garrone)在热那亚建立了一家银行，并以它著名的前辈命名，这家银行就是当今的圣乔治银行。作为银行的首席执行官，他协助支付了他朋友费罗尼的研究费用。他坚信，这些发现很重要。“圣乔治银行的故事就是欧洲银行史，”他告诉我说。
米歇尔•弗拉蒂亚尼则显得稍微谨慎一些。他说，热那亚无疑是意大利文艺复兴时期最著名的三个共和国之一。比起威尼斯或者佛罗伦萨，它的金融嗅觉更敏锐。“热那亚是金融界的皇后，”弗拉蒂亚尼说。但他提醒道，在盎格鲁-撒克逊史上，圣乔治银行没有得到显著的地位，并不一定是要刻意去针对这家银行，而可能是“盎格鲁-撒克逊中心主义”的一种反映。“[费罗尼]研究的这种情况符合圣乔治银行的情况，但对其他事情来说也是如此，。”他说。“你必须记住：档案才刚刚打开。”
尼尔·弗格森也持谨慎态度。尽管在《金钱的崛起》一书中仅一次提到圣乔治银行，但他提出了充分的证据以证明热那亚开拓性的作用。在同弗格森的一次电邮交流中，他告诉我，圣乔治银行“是一个非常重要的机构，这一点毫无疑问”。他说，它在书中被大大忽略，原因是该书是以他为英国第四频道制作的电视系列节目为依据的，而电视的要求是，在拍摄过程中，你只能访问一座美丽的意大利城市。尽管热那亚非常美丽，但总是在佛罗伦萨的阴影下。
费罗尼耸了耸肩。他的工作已基本完成。但他有东西要给我看。随着当代银行体系崩溃，我们一直在讨论它的状况。对于一个历史学家来说，他令人惊讶地提出了一个功利主义观点。他说，银行只是一个简单的产物。它仅仅是一座架在借方和贷方之间的桥梁。“信贷关系给银行下了定义，”他说。“所有这些元素必须得到平衡。这就是银行生存的方式。”
热那亚的那个雨天，他把我带入了仓库的几个黑暗走道中，这里收藏着圣乔治银行的大部分档案。他最终抽出的一本书是1567年写的手册，手册制定了选举司库管理银行的规章制度。“这些规章非常严格，这就是这家银行能维系如此之久的原因，”费罗尼说。“比起其他银行，圣乔治银行要复杂得多。这也是人们信任它的原因。”第一条规定是：通过抽签选出的候选人至少要在30岁以上。之后，他必须向银行提交1.6万里拉（现在合约27.5万欧元）——1634年，这笔钱提高至4万里拉——同时，他还要提供赞助人的姓名，这些赞助人将担保他在当选司库的半年任期内再次向银行提交9万里拉。在那个年代，要获得管理权，你似乎得付银行钱，而不是银行付给你钱。
文森特•博兰是《金融时报》驻米兰记者。费罗尼的著作可在www.giuseppefelloni.it上下载。你可以在www.lacasadisangiorgio.it上展开一次档案馆虚拟之旅。
译者/红岭
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