Royal Insolvency: The Collapse of the First Banking Empire

Long before the Medici rose to power, the European economy was controlled by two Florentine families. The Bardi and Peruzzi superbanks funded trade, popes, and monarchs through a highly complex, unprecedented network of early credit and international ledgers. But their magnificent business model contained a fatal, irreversible flaw: lending money to absolute monarchs. To finance the brutal openi...