the world of private banking

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THE WORLD OF PRIVAtE BANKING
Turin in 1840 to exploit his experience in the sector of porcelain manufacture, and
in 1847 became the owner of the firm that he had been managing for the previous
seven years. In the corporate title, alongside his own name was that of Vittorio De
Fernex, a famous Turin banker, thanks to whom Richard had managed to establish
valid contacts with the economic and banking milieu of Milan. 22
In the Kingdom of Sardinia, the two main economic and financial centres
featured a somewhat different approach. While in Turin the banking houses did not
modify their traditional strategies (backing of the silk trade, small loans backed by
collateral, operations on public debt securities etc.), in Genoa the private bankers
were much more active in the incorporation of companies operating in the sector of
public services (maritime transport, aqueducts, local railways), and even engaged
in dealings with industrial enterprises (in the footwear sector). 23
In Tuscany the free trade policy of the ruling classes had left little room for new
initiatives in the industrial sphere. Nevertheless, the very decision to introduce the
Grand Duchy into the international labour division as a supplier of raw materials
opened up interesting opportunities for investment for the private bankers in
the mining sector, which was particularly florid and evolved within the regional
panorama. The Livorno banker Pietro Bastogi, friend of Mazzini and financial
backer of Giovane Italia (the political organisation founded by Giuseppe Mazzini
to fight for national unification), was at the head of a group of capitalists which,
in the middle of the century, rented the State-owned mines of Maremma and the
Pistoia Apennines, and above all the iron mines of Elba; the mineral was extracted,
after which half of it was exported abroad, and the other half transformed into
cast-iron in the furnaces of Follonica and Piombino. 24 Another banker, Emanuele
Rosselli, a member of the Jewish community of Leghorn, in 1860 took over from
another Jewish family, the Modigliani, in exploiting the mercury mines of Monte
Amiata. In this case, too, the mineral was largely exported. Its launching on the
international markets was taken care of by the Rothschilds, who were able to fix
the price, since they had obtained from the Spanish crown exclusive rights for the
marketing of the production of the largest and richest mines in the world, situated
in Almaden (in the centre of the Kingdom, close to Ciudad Real). 25 Nevertheless,
such cases still appear to be exceptions, since – and this observation also embraces
the first three decades following unification – the local bank capital was responsible
22
G. Fiocca, ‘Credito e conoscenze: le condizioni dell’ascesa imprenditoriale’, in
G. Fiocca (ed.), Borghesi e imprenditori a Milano dall’Unità alla prima guerra mondiale
(Rome Bari, 1984), pp. 28f and 34f.
23
Castronovo, Economia e società in Piemonte, pp. 43–7; G. Doria, Investimenti e
sviluppo economico a Genova alla vigilia della prima guerra mondiale, vol. I, Le premesse
(Milan, 1969), p. 163.
24
G. Mori, L’industria del ferro in Toscana dalla Restaurazione alla fine del
Granducato (1815–1859) (Turin, 1966).
25
L. Segreto, Monte Amiata. Il mercurio italiano: Strategie internazionali e vincoli
extraeconomici (Milan, 1991), pp. 30f.