Medici Bank Founded
Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici opened the bank in Florence that would become Europe's dominant financial intermediary for the next century. Letters of credit replaced the need to ship physical gold across borders, a logistical advance that reshaped Mediterranean trade. By 1420 the bank held the papal account, the single most valuable financial relationship in Christendom. The ledgers tracked not only money but information: who owed whom, what grain sold where, which prince was solvent.
By 1450 the Medici had branches in Rome, Venice, Geneva, Bruges, London, and beyond. Their private intelligence network — bank clerks carrying letters — was better than most states'.
01 · Medici & Monarchs
Information was property of whoever owned the fastest couriers. The Medici bank, founded 1397, was the Bloomberg terminal of its era — papal accounts, royal debts, grain prices across the Mediterranean, all passing through one family's ledgers in Florence.
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