La Banca en Granada hasta 1515: notas para su estudio

Abstract

Dr. Felipe Ruiz Martin is the first person who has studied seriously the history of the bank in Spain. In his work "El Banco de Espafia", the author analyzes the bank of Granada beginning with the permission given to the Centurione brothers in 1518. These brothers were of those Genoeses who are everywhere. It is not strange that these Genoeses were important people of the bang of Granada if we remember that there was a house of their fellow countrymen during the Nasri 'epoch in Granada. The fact is not clear —we are talking about the importance of the Genoeses in Christian times—, because we know that Catholic Kings transformed that house into a prison for the city. Either they lost importance or they were not successful in their business in Granada. We have already pointed out how it was forbidden to those Genoeses to live in Granada. The slippery Genoeses came once again to live in the town after some years and they occupied an important area in h; in spite of the opposition of those who hated them for being competitors in the silk and wool trade. I demonstrated in this article that three bankers —either private or public moneychangers (this is not very important now), and who precisely were not Genoese—, are registered from 1492 till 1515, three years before the Centurione, and of this date we have even the documents of obligaton and guarantee which were issued by Fernando Lépez and his boundsmen. This is published in this article. It is very interesting to know that the bankin g activity of Granada was very important because of its industry of silk and wool. There was, also a place called "los cambios" (exchanges) as we said before, so that these bankers were not alone.