the world of private banking

196
Table 10.1
THE WORLD OF PRIVAtE BANKING
Property companies set up in Italy and professions declared by the
founders (1883–1913)
1883–1894 1895–1907 1908–1913
companies 5 57 81
landowners 24 57 81
aristocrats 3 11 19
engineers 11 19 20
lawyers 8 14 21
industrialists 3 24 28
bankers 11 12 12
merchants 10 6 25
MPs 1 7 3
officials – – 2
accountants 1 7 16
retail traders 1 8 7
clerks 1 – 10
architects – 5 4
master builders – 1 3
surveyors – 1 1
freelance professionals – – 3
clergy 1 8 21
women – 12 13
not indicated 18 32 50
Total 93 223 318
Source: Ministero dell’Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio, Direzione generale del credito
e della cooperazione, Bollettino Ufficiale delle società per azioni, parte I, Atti costitutivi,
Roma, 1883–1913.
The Private Bankers and the Birth of the Mixed Banks
The period that opened with the setting up of the Banca Commerciale e del Credito
Italiano did not, in general, lead to attenuation in the business of the private banks or
to their being overshadowed. Undoubtedly, however, it induced a process of selection
among the merchant banks which, nevertheless, in quantitative terms was revealed only
by a reduction of their number in the major centres of the country, while in qualitative
terms it materialised in the presence of the directors of some of the most prestigious –
though not necessarily the oldest – of the banking houses in the management bodies of
the mixed banks, in the syndicates set up to found or finance some of the most important