National and International Private Bankers and the Building of the Italian Credit and Financial System during Italian Unification

Nowadays we are used to considering public debt as a misfortune for the economic system or as a fault of the government. However, this idea should be radically revised, at least for the Italy of the Risorgimento era. As the matter of fact, the political unification of the Country came before its economic and financial integration and the urgent financial needs of the Italian government accelerated this latter step. The essay explores the way in which. From the one hand the international finance action, with its projections over the former Italian states and its connections with the financial end political local world, helped to speed up the integration of the Italian public bonds placement network. On the other hand the Piedmontese ministers and politicians, especially the Earl Camillo Cavour, exploited public debt increase to create popular consensus. By issuing public bonds the Italian government avoided increasing taxes and gave to the Italian middle classes a means to easily expand their wealth. At the same time, the creation of both the technical conditions and the relationships which had allowed the integration and emancipation of the Italian financial network jeopardized the haute banque possibilities to maintain the control of the whole system.