A centuries-old history, made of financial loans to large and small. In order to avoid the dangers of usury

by Ferdinando Toscano

PTalking about Monte di Pietà inevitably evokes memories of difficult circumstances due to the most varied reasons: loss of work, illnesses and plagues, wars and famines. A concrete and intelligent work like the Monti di Pietà tried to remedy these situations, always sad and sometimes dramatic.

Umbria, steeped in the Franciscan spirit, was the cradle of these institutions that arose around the second half of the 15th century thanks to the preaching of some Friars Minor Observant, among whom Bernardino da Siena, Michele Carcano, Bernardino da Feltre stand out. Moved by a strong desire to fight the phenomenon of usury, they began to collect money with the intention of creating a fund, a “monte” in fact, to be used to help people in difficulty. Those who needed money deposited an object, such as small furnishings and jewelry, up to real jewels, at the Monte di Pietà which took care of the appraisal and proposed a sum to the applicant. The Monte then took charge of guarding the object for a year, after which the owner could redeem it by paying a sum equal to that which had been offered to him plus a modest percentage, and thus regained possession of his object. In the event that the asset was not redeemed, the Monte had the right to resell the object; If the sale had yielded more than the loan, the remainder would still have gone to the owner.

From central Italy, the Monti soon spread to the rest of the Peninsula, so much so that in the 16th century Pope Leo X, with the papal bull Inter multiplies, dated May 4, 1515, recognized the legitimacy of the Monti di Pietà, praising their "good and necessary for society" purposes and declaring the legitimacy of the modest financial burden.

In Rome, the Sacro Monte della Pietà was founded by Giovanni Calvo (from Calvi, in Corsica), born Giovanni Maltei, also of the order of Friars Minor. The Monte soon acquired a growing reputation and at the same time took on increasingly important roles within the Papal State. It began to practice agricultural credit and low-interest loans, as well as to increase its deposits, eventually benefiting from a fixed income. The financial autonomy achieved in 1636 allowed the Monte to grant loans of up to thirty scudi free of charge.

While on the one hand it was very generous towards the Roman and foreign aristocracy, who could afford to pawn jewels and objects of great value, on the other hand it was very attentive to the least privileged. Among the privileged people was even Queen Christina of Sweden, who was granted a loan of twenty thousand scudi in exchange for eight diamonds. Following her conversion to Catholicism, in December 1655 the sovereign had arrived in exile in Rome, but after a few years, in 1660, she had to return to Sweden due to the premature death of Charles X, the cousin to whom she had entrusted the kingdom after having abdicated; knowing that she could no longer count on her subjects, she asked the Monte for a loan to face the journey and her stay in her country.

Even James Stuart, son of James II, turned to the Monte di Pietà when, in exile in Rome, he wanted to promote a new attempt to return to the throne of England and Scotland, so in 1745 he managed to send an army to Scotland. The disastrous reconquest campaign, the so-called "Jacobite insurrection" is at the origin of the enormous loan that the Monte granted him, a good one hundred thousand crowns.

However, the Monte was also provident and generous towards the less fortunate. During the recurrent floods of the Tiber, as attested by the epigraphs scattered around Rome indicating the level reached by the water, it organized various distributions of basic necessities for those who had lost everything. “Vouchers” were distributed among the people that gave the right to collect, at the Monte’s headquarters, bed sets, but also shoes and individual items of clothing, such as shirts. The topographical distribution of the vouchers, kept at the Monte di Pietà Archives, indicates which areas of the city were most subject to flooding. The record goes to the town around the church of Saints Celso and Giuliano in via del Banco di Santo Spirito, not far from Ponte Sant’Angelo. The Monte di Pietà also took care of the so-called “Israeli University”, as the Jewish community was called, and several vouchers are registered to this institution, among which a copy valid for 50 beds stands out.

Another example of intervention: when in 1725 the plague of locusts spread in the areas of Albano and Velletri – defined in contemporary documents as “crickets” or “locusts” – Benedict XIII Orsini ordered landowners to actively work to eradicate the infestation on their farms. However, the owners disregarded the provision, so it was decided to turn to the Monte, which lent four thousand scudi for the reclamation of the land. To repay the large sum, the Pope then imposed a special tax on the owners of infested land, which was maintained until the following century.

Since its origins, therefore, the Monte di Pietà of Rome and in general all similar institutions have represented a comforting story of efficiency and solidarity, which was perpetuated first through the Savings Banks; these then maintained, alongside the credit activity, a diligent attention to the emergencies of the territory where they found themselves operating. It is also worth remembering the current foundations of banking origin, heirs and continuators of the philanthropic spirit of the Monti and the Savings Banks themselves.