ASTI AND MONFERRAT (1100-1400)
THE "LOMBARDS" AND THE CASANE
Dardanoni thought
of those shell
clusters drawn on the page. A counting system. “Where did the casane keep their
merchandise and
money?” he persisted.
“Most of them had towers for that. Or the lower level of their fortified houses.”
Asti - Palazzo Zoja
“Most of them had towers for that. Or the lower level of their fortified houses.”
Asti - Palazzo Zoja
“The families weren’t
positive figures,” Luigi continued. “They had begun changing
money at the fairs
throughout Europe but soon specialized in money-lending. With
the letters of
credit they issued, they made it possible for traders to move
about without
carrying with them unsafe amounts of silver and gold coins. Over
time, these casane of
Asti, who had come to be known
all over Europe from the 1200s to the 1400s as the Lombards,
evolved into
usurers, in competition with the Jews but enjoying the advantage
of full civil
and political rights. Never mind how they’d come by their
capital initially,
what’s important was that these Lombards charged interest rates
of over forty
percent and their profits were sky-high."
BONIFACE I AND THE FOURTH CRUSADE
“I am looking to
make historical
connections and physical evidence for my hypotheses. Such
evidence may be lying
behind glass in a provincial museum. Or in a castle like this
one, as I said
when we arrived, belonged to Boniface I, Marquis of
Monferrato—which includes
Asti—and Emperor of Constantinople.”
Henry Decaine - Boniface of Monferrat
Henry Decaine - Boniface of Monferrat
