The Bank or Company of Saint George (Italian: Banco or Ufficio di San Giorgio, officially Casa delle Compere di San Giorgio) was a financial institution of the Republic of Genoa. Founded in 1407,[1] it was one of the oldest chartered banks in Europe, if not the world. The bank's headquarters were at the Palazzo San Giorgio, which was built in the 13th century by order of Guglielmo Boccanegra, uncle of Simone Boccanegra, the first Doge of Genoa.
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A number of prominent Genoese families were involved in the establishment and governance of the Bank, including the Houses of Grimaldi & Serra. Unusually for its time, the Bank made use of a number of Jewish agents, including the Ghisolfi clan that managed certain possessions around the Black Sea.
The Bank was governed by four consuls who administered its finances and directed investments.[2] Because the Republic's ruling oligarchs were normally prominent in Bank politics, it is often difficult to determine where the Bank's influence ended and the Republic's began.[3]
Many of Genoa's overseas territories were governed either directly or indirectly by the Bank. In 1453 the Republic handed over governance of Corsica, Gazaria, and a number of other possessions to Bank officials, though over the course of the fifteenth century the Republic gradually reclaimed many of its territories from Bank control.[4] The Taman peninsula remained in the control of the de Ghisolfi family, but the princes of that clan now reported to the Bank.
The Bank lent considerable sums of money to many rulers throughout Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, gaining widespread influence. Ferdinand and Isabella maintained accounts there, as did Christopher Columbus. Charles V was heavily in debt to the Bank during much of his reign. Niccolò Machiavelli maintained that the Bank's dominion over Genoa made possible the creation of a "republic more worthy of memory than the Venetian."[5]
In the seventeenth century the Bank became heavily involved in maritime trade, and for a time competed with such concerns as the Dutch East India Company and the English East India Company.
After Napoleon invaded Italy, he suppressed independent banks, and this led to the Bank's closure in 1805.[6]