The Medici Bank: Its Organization, Management, Operations, and Decline

Prof. Raymond de Roover

jul 2017 · Pickle Partners Publishing

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Professor Raymond de Roover received his MBA from Harvard University in June 1938, and it was during that summer that he, together with his wife, Florence Edler, an American scholar studying European economic history, photographed the records that would form the basis for this Medici Bank study.

First published in 1948, this publication examines the structural organization and eventual fall of the Medici Bank, the largest and most respected bank in Europe during its prime in the 15th century (1397-1494). The book includes in-depth chapters covering the Florentine banking system; the structure of the Medici firm; the central administration and the branches; the management of the branches; the management of the industrial establishments in Florence; banking and exchange transactions; commercial transactions; the alum cartel; the sources of invested funds; and, finally, the causes of the decline.

An important addition to the historical analysis of banking during the formative period of modern institutions.

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RAYMOND ADRIEN DE ROOVER (1904-1972) was a noted economic historian of medieval Europe.

Born in Belgium in 1904, he graduated from the Institut Supérieur de Commerce in Antwerp in 1924. He completed his military training and worked in a bank, before joining the Agence Maritime Internationale, one of the world’s largest steamship operators, where he remained until 1936. During this time he developed an interest in the history of economics and accounting, working in the archives of Antwerp and Bruges in his spare time. His first book, Jan Ympyn, on the first Flemish accounting treaty, was published in 1928.

He received his Master in Business Administration from Harvard University in 1938 and went on to teach at Harvard University, University of Chicago, Boston College, and Brooklyn College in The City University of New York, in addition to various European universities. He was also a Guggenheim Fellow in 1949.

His published works include Money, Banking and Credit in Medieval Bruges (1948); The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397-1494 (1963); and Business, Banking, and Economic Thought in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (1974).

He died in 1972.