34^ A. D. 1171. 



It is prefumable (for no authentic documents, capable of afcertaining 

 the fa<fts with indifputable certainty, are, I beheve, anywhere to be 

 found) that the creditors, after continuing for fome time no other way 

 conneded than by the fimilarity of their fituation with refped to the 

 repubHc, were incorporated as a company, in order to manage their 

 joint concerns, and that fucceflive improvements upon their fyflem of 

 management, and new ideas fuggefted by the vaft increafe of the Ve- 

 netian commerce, gradually produced the bank of Venice, which is 

 generally acknowleged to be the moll antient eflablifhment of the kind 

 in the world *, and to have been, in a greater or lefs degree, the model 

 of all the banks, which were fet up, firfl in fome other commercial ci- 

 ties on the coafl of the Mediterranean fea, and in procefs of time in al- 

 molt every city and town in Europe. This bank was eftablifhed on 

 fuch judicious principles, and has been conduded through the revolu- 

 tion of many centuries with fuch prudence, that, though the govern- 

 ment have twice, fince its ellablifhment, made free with its funds, its 

 credit has remained inviolate and unimpeached. Payments are made 

 in it by transfers, or writing off the fum to be paid from the account 

 of the payer to that of the receiver, without having the trouble of 

 weighing gold or filver. If I miflake not, this bank is alfo the moft 

 antient eflablifhment of a permanent national debt, or the funding fyf- 

 tem, which is now carried to fuch a height in almofl every country of 

 Europe. 



1 172 — ThePifans fent ambafladors to the emperor of Conilantinople, 

 who renewed the alliance made with the emperor's father, and obtained 

 from him the reftoration of the wharfs or landing places f they had for- 

 merly pofTefl'ed in Conilantinople, permiflion for the Pifans, whom he 

 liad banifhed, to return, and payment of the arrears for fifteen years of 

 the annual fum of 500 byzants and two palls (rich robes or cloaks) due 

 to the I'epublic, and 50 byzants and one pall to the archbifliop, the 

 whole being 8,040 byzanis and 45 palls. Three ambaffadors from the 

 emperor, with three imperial galUes, went to Pifa, where the treaty was 

 confirmed in full parliament (' in publico parlamento'). [Brev. Hijl. 

 Pif. ap. Muratori Script. V. vi, col. 186.] Thus was the humiliation of 

 the Greek empire difplayed in tranfadions with each of the three prin- 

 cipal commercial Hates of Italy. 



King Henry revived a law of his grandfather's, abolifhing the right, 

 formerly afl'umed by fovcreigns and proprietors of the land, of feizing 

 the property of vellels wrecked upon their fhores, and declaring, that, 



• Uiuier llic year 1401 we fliall fee that Bar- nations bordering on the Mediterranean, give the 



-celona claims tlic honour of having tllabhihcd tlie name of efchfllc or fiala to any port in the Levant 



firft bank of cxeliangc and dcpofil. where a coniul is ellabhihed. But fueh a meaning 



•j- ' Scalas.' — •! am not certain of having right- cannot be applied here, tfpccially as the word i» 



Vj irar.flatcd the word, 'i'he Trench, aud other in tire phrial. 



