Papal Banking in Renaissance Rome: Benvenuto Olivieri and Paul III, 1534–1549 (Studies in Banking and Financial History) - Hardcover

Bruscoli, Francesco Guidi

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0754607321 ISBN 13: 9780754607328

Publisher: Routledge, 2007

Synopsis

Benvenuto Olivieri was a Florentine banker active in Rome during the first half of the sixteenth century. A self made man without any great family patrimony, he rose to prominence during the pontificate of Pope Paul III, becoming involved with a variety of papal enterprises which allowed him to get to the heart of the mechanisms governing the papal finances. Amassing a considerable fortune along the way, Olivieri soon built himself a role as co-ordinator of the appalti (revenue farms) and became one of the most powerful players in the complex network that connected bankers and the papal revenue. This book explores the indissoluble link that had developed between the papacy and bankers, illuminating how the Apostolic Chamber, increasingly in need of money, could not meet its debts, without farming out the rights to future income. Utilising documents from a rich corpus of unpublished sources in Florence and Rome, Guidi Bruscoli unravels the web of financial connections that bound together Florentine and Genoese bankers with the papacy, and looks at how money was raised and the appalti managed.

About this title

About the Author

Francesco Guidi Bruscoli is Researcher in the Faculty of Economics at University of Florence, Italy.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0754607321
• ISBN 13: 9780754607328
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 342