the world of private banking

PRIVAtE BANKERS AND ItALIAN INDUStRIALISAtION 195
of which the entire banking world of Genoa had taken part. 56 Moreover we also
find the Milan house of Zaccaria Pisa, the Leghorn bank of the Bondi family,
the Turin banking houses of Levi and Ceriana all engaged in the most important
business connected with the urban redevelopment of Naples. 57 And this is not all.
Once the storm had blown over, a number of new banking houses very adroitly
insinuated themselves into the spaces left open by those who had succumbed to
the property crisis of the late 80s, a clear sign that the sector offered interesting
new opportunities. Thus, for example, the Banca Feltrinelli, which emerged after
the most acute phase of the crisis, was able to exploit the chance of an important
investment in Rome when it entered the liquidation of the Banca Tiberina, and in
1899 purchased a hefty slice of the properties of the Esedra; in 1903, through one
of its affiliates, the Società Italiana per il Commercio degli Immobili, the same
bank secured for itself a significant block of land parcels and real estate in Naples,
Milan and Rome originating from two important liquidations administered by the
Banca d’Italia. 58
Effectively, that of the bank of the Feltrinelli family was not an isolated case.
Having overcome the major slump of the late 1880s and early 90s, property fever
began to rage again, even though this time it concerned the industrial areas and
those destined to housing projects, while the Italian economy, by now much
stronger, had developed potent antibodies that defended it against further crises
originating from the property sector. The role of the private banks was not, on
the whole, diminished, even if they were now flanked by the large commercial
banks. As we can see in Table 10.1, between 1883 and 1894 only 5 new property
companies were set up and of the 93 founder-shareholders, only 11 were bankers,
while in the period 1895–1907 the new companies numbered 57 and among the
223 shareholders the bankers recorded were 12, and in the period 1907–1913 81
new property companies were set up with 318 shareholders of whom, again, 12
were bankers. The proportionately greatest involvement of private bankers took
place in the second period, when we more frequently find the names of various
private banking houses: Del Vecchio of Florence, Belloni e Friedschien, Feltrinelli
and Zaccaria Pisa of Milan, and Ceriana of Turin.
56
Doria, Investimenti e sviluppo economico a Genova, vol. II, pp. 349–67.
57
Marmo, Speculazione edilizia e credito mobiliare a Napoli nella congiuntura degli
anni ’80, p. 668.
58
L. Segreto, ‘La formazione del patrimonio dei Feltrinelli’, in Società Italiana
degli Storici dell’economia, Tra rendita e investimenti: Formazione e gestione dei grandi
patrimoni in Italia in età moderna e contemporanea, atti del Terzo Convegno nazionale,
Torino, 22–23 novembre 1996 (Bari, 1998), p. 438. Banca Feltrinelli was set up in 1889
with the name of Banca Feltrinelli, Colombo & Co. and was renamed in 1896, when
Colombo and other shareholders who were not members of the family sold their parts
(ibid., pp. 436–8).