The question of the payment system in seventeenth-century Europe may seem far removed from the world today, from our everyday lives and our present interests. Still, exchange rates, international currencies and the influence of the “marketplaces” on global economies continue to monopolise present public debate. Therefore, to fully understand today’s financial market it is very helpful to decipher the mechanisms that regulated the exchange fairs in the Modern Era.
To this end, ten years after "Dove il denaro fa denaro", Claudio Marsilio presents an updated version of his essay, which has now become a classic text of historiography on this subject. Here, he publishes the results of his laborious research, conducted in private archives in Genoa and using sources that have never been studied before.
The subject of analysis is a collection of letters written during the fairs of Novi Ligure when this small but strategic border town of the Republic of Genoa controlled and influenced the money market throughout Europe. In particular, the exceptional correspondence of the brothers Nicolo` and Gregorio Varese, two well-established “fair agents” who worked for over half a century in Novi as representatives of the most powerful Genoese trading houses, offers a wealth of information about the money market, the silver bullion market and the exchange of international currency.