Bank of Saint George Chartered in Genoa

1407

Genoese creditors consolidated the republic's scattered public debts into a single institution that functioned as one of the earliest state banks in all of European history. It managed colonial revenues from Corsica, administered territories, and lent to kings across the continent at rates that made lesser bankers envious. Machiavelli would later call it a state within a state. Modern public finance was being invented on a Ligurian counting table.