The Compagnia dei Bardi was a Florentine

banking A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Becau ...

and

trading Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct excha ...

company which was started by the

Bardi family The House of Bardi was an influential Florence, Florentine family that started the powerful banking company Compagnia dei Bardi. In the 14th century the Bardis lent Edward III of England 900,000 Florin (Italian coin), gold florins, a debt which he ...

, and which became one of the major

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

“super-companies” of the 14th Century.

History

The Bardi company was one of three major Florentine banking companies (called "super-companies" by some modern scholars) that assembled large amounts of capital and established wide-ranging, diversified business networks, doing business throughout the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...

and in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The Bardi company traded oil and wine, and had close economic ties to southern

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

and

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

. Their chief product, however, was high-quality woolen cloth. The Bardi were the largest of these super-companies and seem to have been 50 percent larger than their closest rival, the

Peruzzi The Peruzzi were bankers of Florence, among the leading families of the city in the 14th century, before the rise to prominence of the Medici. Their modest antecedents stretched back to the mid 11th century, according to the family's genealogist ...

company. In 1344, at about the same time as the Peruzzi company, the Bardi company went bankrupt and the Florentine writer

Giovanni Villani Giovanni Villani (; 1276 or 1280 – 1348)Bartlett (1992), 35. was an Italian banker, official, diplomat and chronicler from Florence who wrote the ''Nuova Cronica'' (''New Chronicles'') on the history of Florence. He was a leading statesman of ...

blamed this on the repudiation of war loans by King

Edward III of England Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring ...

. However, Villani was not an independent source; his brother was a member of the Peruzzi company that also went bankrupt. Villanni said that Edward owed the Bardi 900,000 gold florins (£135,000) and the Peruzzi 600,000 (£90,000). However, the Peruzzi's records show that they never had that much capital to lend Edward III. Edward did not default on all his loans and repaid some with cash and others with royal grants of

wool Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. ...

, a principal export of the English economy at the time. At the time Florence was going through a period of internal disputes and the third largest financial company, the Acciaiuoli, also went bankrupt and they did not lend any money to Edward. What loans Edward III did default on are likely only to have contributed to the financial problems in Florence, not caused them. The bankruptcy of the Bardi and Peruzzi companies marked the decline of the medieval super-companies. The Bardi company survived bankruptcy and subsequently provided significant funding for several of the voyages of discovery to the Americas.Italian merchants funded England's discovery of North America
Eurekalert April 30, 2012 For a time, both the celebrated medieval author, Giovanni Boccaccio, and his father

Boccaccino di Chellino Giovanni Boccaccio (, , ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was some ...

, worked for the Bardi company.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Compagnia Dei Bardi 1344 disestablishments in Europe 14th-century disestablishments in the Republic of Florence Medieval banking Companies based in Florence ja:バルディ家

History

Further reading

References