Compagnia dei Bardi

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The Compagnia dei Bardi was a Florentine banking and trading company which was started by the Bardi family. The company went bankrupt in 1344, and the Florentine writer Giovanni Villani blamed this on the repudiation of war loans by King Edward III of England. ^[1]

However Villani was not an independent source, his brother was a member of the Peruzzi company that also went bankrupt. ^[2] Villanni said that Edward owed the Bardi 900,000 gold florins (£135,000) and the Peruzzi 600,000 (£90,000) ^[3]. 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, a principal export of the English economy at the time.

Further, at the same 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.

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