The Historical Archive of the Banco di Napoli houses the centuries-old documentation concerning the activity of the city's ancient public counters. It is the most important historical banking archive in the world, which can boast very rare original documents dating back to the second half of the 16th century. Credit faiths, ancestors of modern bank drafts, large major books, timely registers of movements made on different accounts, and customer lists of counters, draw a not only economic fresco of ancient Naples and offer an impressive temporal panorama of the city , a lively and constantly evolving image from its troubled existence under the Spanish Viceroy to the most recent events in contemporary history.
The absolute peculiarity of this boundless economic documentation lies in the clarity and completeness of what today would be called "payment motives". The latter, noted on the credit lines, had the task of specifying in detail the reason for the payment. In this way, unpublished news of works created by illustrious artists, unusual aspects of the daily economy and hundreds of thousands of personal stories, famous or unknown, have come down to us through the centuries. Five hundred years and about seventeen million names are told, for the most diverse purposes, on the sidelines of each payment, intertwining suggestively with the ancient handwriting of the employees involved in the reporting.
The information heritage of the archive is a unique historical and cultural wealth that allows a profound enhancement of the various treasures present in Naples and, thanks to the quality and quantity of its documents, allows an original disclosure.
Museum, Historical Archive of the Banco di Napoli
Address: Via dei Tribunali, 214, 80139
Phone: 081 449400
Site:
http://www.ilcartastorie.itLocation inserted by
Culturalword Abco