ABSTRACT
During this time, banks of issue were being built in other Italian states. The Cassa di Sconto di Livorno (Discount Bank of Leghorn) had had a stormy history in the Revolution of 1848 and later defeat of the city by the Austrian army. In the emergencies, it made substantial loans to the municipality, then to the state government in Florence, and strained its financial capacity to the limit. The years from 1853 to 1856 were active in trade, partly as a consequence of the Crimean War, and the bank had to be helped out by the government. It was closed for a month, and infused with government funds in exchange for trade bills. In 1857 it and the Cassa di Sconto di Firenze (Discount Bank of Florence) were forcibly merged into a new Banca Nazionale Toscana to the disgruntlement of many of the Leghorn stockholders who felt their city had been humiliated (Lo Romer, 1980, p. 213). A second smaller bank of issue was started in Florence in 1860, the Banca Toscana di Credito per Ie Industrie e il Commercio. In the early years of unification, the Banca Nazionale Toscana proceeded to absorb small discount banks in other cities of the province, some with ancient banking tradition-Siena, Arezzo, Pisa and Lucca. When unification extended to the Pontifical States in 1870, the Banca degli Stati Pontifici (Bank of the Pontifical States), founded in 1850, was converted into the Banca Romana. Other banks of issue were the substantial Banco di Napoli and the much smaller Banco di Sicilia.
