Tommaso Portinari

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tommaso Portinari was an Italian banker for the Medici Bank in Bruges. He was the defendant in Ruffini v. Portinari[1], one of the very first legal cases (in 1455) to deal with separation of partnerships and legal liability: he was sued by the Milanese Damiano Ruffini for "defective packing of nine bales of wool bought by the plaintiff from the Medici branch in London. The defendant pointed out that the bales never belonged to the Bruges branch and that the plaintiff should sue the London branch." Portinari testified that the two branches were legally and commercially separate, apparently persuading the judge who denied Ruffini's suit, but upholding his right to sue the manager of the London branch.

Portinari was an employee in the Bruges branch for a very long time, for more than 25 years never rising higher than assistant manager and factor, apparently at the insistence of Cosimo de Medici, who did not trust him. After Cosimo's death, he became general manager and shareholder in the branch at the age of 40. When Francesco Sassetti's influence removed the long-standing ban on lending to secular officials in 1471, Portinari used his position to make very large and extremely risky and unsecured loans to Charles the Bold - loans which were never repaid and cost the bank a large sum. He initially loaned 6000 groat, more than twice that branch's total capital; the loan only grew worse, until it stood at 9500 groat in 1478. Unsurpisingly, for his good services Portinari had become a favored councilor to Charles the Bold. On his death, the loan threatened to never be paid. Further good money was thrown after bad when he loaned money to Archduke Maximilian of Austria, Charles's successor. A small portion of the loan would eventually be paid.

Financial problems with the sale of alum from the joint Papal-Medici alum cartel and bad investments like two galleys that either sank or were captured by privateers, along with the still outstanding bad loans to Charles the Bold, caused the Medici to finally give up in 1478, when they unilaterally dissolved the partnership. Portinari was essentially fired. His attempts to start his own bank failed, his past services to the government and the Hanseatic league forgotten, and he died a pauper.

[edit] References

• De Roover (1904-1972), Raymond Adrien (1948), written at New York; London, The Medici Bank: its organization, management, and decline, New York University Press; Oxford University Press (respectively) (Largely a reprint of three articles De Roover published in The Journal of Economic History.)