CHAP. XVI. TRADE OF ITALY. 



discovery, or rather the resource, of trading in 

 money, or what afterwards obtained the name 

 of banking. Assuming the denomination of the 

 country in which it had originated, or, to speak 

 more correctly, had been revived, the Lombards of 

 Italy formed establishments in the trading cities 

 of all other countries ; and, as the channels through 

 which all the transactions in the precious metals, 

 and their substitutes, bills of exchange, were con- 

 ducted, such great profits accrued, and such great 

 fortunes were accumulated by the apparently small 

 charges for brokerage, commissions, and exchanges, 

 as made the most powerful monarchs of the age de- 

 pendent on the Lombards for pecuniary assistance. 



We are thus warranted in assuming, that as the 

 greater part of the precious metals must of ne- 

 cessity remain in the country which is the most 

 rich in its stock of general commodities, the greatest 

 portion of those metals which Europe contained 

 would be stored in the Italian peninsula. 



In the age to which we now look, the empire of 

 Germany, with the territories which have since 

 been amalgamated with it, comprehending Bohe- 

 mia, Prussia, and Hungary, furnished the little 

 gold and silver which kept up the general stock 

 of the European world. 



Those countries, under a rigid feudal system, 

 were divided into various independent and petty 

 sovereignties, all jealous of their neighbours, and 

 frequently embroiled with them. The roads and 



