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History of the company/bank and archive description for Banca dŽItalia / Bank of Italy |
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| History of the company/bank: |
The Bank of Italy was established in 1894 with the merger of Banca Nazionale nel Regno dŽItalia (BNRI), Banca Nazionale Toscana and Banca Toscana di credito per le industrie e il commercio dŽItalia. BNRI was in turn the product of the merger in 1849 of Banca di Genova (founded in 1844) with Banca di Torino (1847). Over the years it absorbed other banks of issue: Stabilimento Mercantile (Venice), Banca delle Quattro Legazioni and Banca degli Stati parmensi.
Since 1895 the Bank of Italy has managed the provincial operations of the Treasury. In 1926 it was charged with the supervision of credit institutions and became the sole issuer of banknotes in Italy. The 1936 Banking Law transformed the Bank of Italy into a public-law institution, with share capital divided into participation shares that could be held only
by banks, social security institutes and insurance companies. The law also prohibited the Bank of Italy from carrying
out discounting operations with counterparties other than banks. |
| Archive description | The archive contains about 5,000 shelf metres of records covering the period from 1844 to 1970, divided into 59 archive groups. It gathers documentation produced by the departments of the Head Office, while the branches maintain their own records. In addition to documents produced by the bank itself, the archive also houses the records of associated bodies (Credito Fondiario della BNRI, Consorzio per sovvenzioni su valori industriali, Ispettorato per lŽesercizio del credito e la difesa del risparmio) and the leading figures in Italian economic history (Beneduce, DeŽ Stefani, the private papers of Bonaldo Stringher). An electronic inventory of the archive materials is currently being developed. It now covers 35 archive groups, of which 22 have been completely inventoried. Other instruments for using the archive are the Guide to the Historical Archive (in Italian; published in 1993), paper-based inventories of the DeŽ Stefani and Stringher papers and paper-based indices. A photograph archive is also being prepared with the computerized cataloguing of the numerous photos of historical interest in the BankŽs possession. Among the main gaps in the records is the disappearance of the Banca Romana archive. |
| Publications |
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| Conditions of use | The archive is open to the public for scholarly purposes. Consultation of materials more than forty years old is unrestricted, except for confidential documents, which are opened for consultation after fifty years, and documents regarding strictly personal matters, which are made public after 70 years. To obtain access to the records it is necessary to submit a request specifying the subject, purpose and historical time period the research intends to cover, accompanied by a letter of presentation from a university, research institute or other accredited institution. |