Among the more considerable duties and excises assigned to the bank were those of grain, wine, flax, iron, wood, olive-oil, and salt, together with certain specific taxes, as caratti, or tax on all merchandise in transitu for the duchy by sea or land; censarie, or tax on real estate, ships, etc.; embolo, or tax upon bankers, etc.; grascia, tax on provisions; and pedaggio, a tax upon all beasts of burden laden with merchandise. New emergencies, however, necessitated additional subsidies. Whenever the republic was in danger St. George always came to the rescue, until it had granted to the government more than sixty different loans. When the latter had ceded to the bank all its revenues in payment of the principal and interest of the money it had borrowed, it then surrendered its territorial possessions, investing the protectors with civil and criminal jurisdiction, and whatever power and authority appertained to the government itself. Among the more important of these cessions was the island of Corsica, with "all its cities, lands, castles, fortresses, villas, forests, ports, rivers, fishing-grounds, hunting-grounds, taxes, customs, tolls," etc., which was governed by the protectors of St. George, or their representatives, from 1453 to 1562, a period of more than one hundred years. Besides Corsica, the republic ceded to the bank, in like manner, Sarzana, Castelnuovo, Ventimiglia, together with other territories, cities, and neighboring castles, and finally her possessions in the Levant, or Black Sea. To such a pitch did this arrive that St. George, having absorbed the revenues and colonial possessions of the republic, seemed about to realize the prophecy of Macchiavelli by absorbing the republic itself, when the bank, at the suggestion of Andrea Doria, who was fearful of the growing power of the Fieschi party in Corsica, not only made a voluntary retrocession of the colonies, but also added a large annual grant of money to defend and maintain them in the future. The gabelle, or duties, were of two kinds: those that were inalienable and perpetual, and those that were alienable and for a limited period. The latter were sold at public auction to the highest responsible bidder for a term of from one to five years, public notice having previously been given of the time, place, and conditions of the sale. The purchasers or contractors were required to give ample security, and to pay over the whole amount of their contract, in three installments, within a year from the day of the sale. The stockholders of St. George ordained among themselves a form of administration, creating a general council of four hundred and eighty, selected from their own number, who exercised general legislative control, with supreme power to make new or change existing regulations, and the exclusive right, with the concurrent approval of seven of the eight protectors, to deliberate upon a demand on the part of the government for a subsidy or loan. It was presided over by the senior member, with the title of prior. Thirty-two electors were chosen from the shareholders, who proceeded, on the same day of their election, to nominate eight protectors. The protectors, who were required to be stockholders to the amount of one hundred shares, exercised supreme administrative control, especially over every thing that related to the compere, with power to decide, without appeal, all questions relating to the customs. They remained in office one year, and were addressed with the title of illustrissimi, refusing to consider any document that was not prefixed with this honorable appellation. The procurators, also eight in number, had special charge or oversight of the cartulari, or registers of stock, deciding all disputes relating to transfer of the same; they enforced payment in case of delinquent debtors of the bank and receivers of the revenues, and had supervision of the accounts of the treasury or vault. It was The sindacutori, four in number, were specially charged to enforce the exact observance of the rules and regulations of the bank. their duty to correct errors, investigate frauds, and, in case of malfeasance in office, to arraign, inquire into, and censure the conduct of any official or employé whatsoever, with power of inflicting a pecuniary fine not exceeding one thousand francs for every offense, together with liability to damages. In addition to these there was a large number of subordinate officers, among whom the most important was the sindac, who exercised the functions now discharged by a comptrollergeneral of finance. In glancing over the list of salaries of the various officers, we find that a cashier received seven hundred and thirty-seven francs per annum, while a weigher of salt received twenty soldi per month. As already intimated, every hundred lire of credit constituted a luogo, or share, every creditor a luogotario, or shareholder, and the sum total of the shares the compere, or capital stock. The names of the stockholders, with the amount of their participation, were inscribed in eight | probably the origin of paper-money, and such cartulari, or records, corresponding to the eight were the simple expedients adopted to prevent quarters of the city, so that each quarter had counterfeiting and fraud before chemistry and its bank register, and every street its particular bad faith had made such wonderful progress. bank account. As the independence of St. George of gov The bank treasury, or vault, was called sac-ernmental control was guaranteed by the conristy, as expressive of the religious care with stitution, the relations of the bank to the rewhich it should ever be guarded from fraud and | public being defined and adjusted by the most violence. formal decrees, the government could not interfere in its management or administration without violating its most solemn compacts, destroying its own political constitution, and thereby destroying itself. Among other privileges and guarantees, the government pledged itself not to create any new imposts, nor to augment any of those already existing to the prejudice of those assigned to the bank. On the establishment of St. George the rate of interest, as already stated, was fixed at seven per cent., which certainly was not excessive, when we consider that the minimum rate at that time in Europe was ten per cent., and that Jews, who demanded twenty, with the addition, it may be, of Shylock's "merry bond," were invested with special privileges, and hailed as de- | liverers from the more extortionate exactions of native usurers. As the interest, however, The protectors were invested with civil and partook more or less of the nature of dividends, criminal jurisdiction, the former in all cases depending upon the receipts of the public reve-whatsoever that appertained to their office, the nues, which varied with the increase or decline of commerce and trade, it sometimes did not exceed five per cent. upon the original value, or two and a half per cent. upon the market value of the compere. The bills of the bank, which were first issued in the early part of the sixteenth century, were written upon thick, heavy paper, with the date, denomination, and name of the creditor, and then countersigned by the notary. When canceled a corner of the bill was clipped off, or transverse lines, in the form of a cross, were simply drawn across its face with a pen. No bill entered into circulation without its equivalent in gold in the vaults, and was paid in coin on presentation at the counter. Such was latter in all such as related to frauds upon the revenue, or maladministration on the part of the officers of the bank. A safe-conduct accorded by the government was not valid in the case of a debtor of St. George. The shares of the bank were not transferable without the consent of the holder, or by way of inheritance, dowry, or bequest, not even by virtue of a decree of the highest courts. Its bills were a legal tender. It had exclusive jurisdiction over delinquent debtors, without formality of trial or right of appeal. Its officers were exempted from holding office, even such as no citizen could refuse under penalty of heavy censure and pecuniary fine. THE ARCHIVES. Whatever views may be entertained of the political propriety of conferring such privileges upon a body of capitalists, one thing is certain, that, notwithstanding the apparent incompatibility of the contemporary existence. in the state of a sovereign and independent body corporate, the adjustment was effected in such a manner that they subsisted distinct, and yet operated in harmony, to the mutual advantage of both the bank and the republic, for a period of nearly four hundred years. and discord, public calamities, popular conspiracies, and political convulsions, St. George remained quiet and serene, casting far and near its benign and cheering ray, like a solitary pharos amidst the stormy elements that ever and anon threatened to involve the state in shipwreck and disaster. The year 1797 was fatal to St. George as well as to the republic. Its privileges were abolished, as incompatible with the sovereignty of the people. The duties and excises so long under its control were restored to the government. Its bills, once preferred to gold, were worth but little more than the paper upon which they were stamped. Grass grew in the streets of the Porto Franco, whose extensive magazines, where once was stored the wealth of the Indies, were publicly sold to satisfy its clamorous creditors. The discovery of the Cape of Good Hope had transferred to England the commercial supremacy of Europe, and the commerce of Genoa was but the shadow of its former greatness. In 1804 an attempt was made to revive the bank, but it was dead beyond the hope of a resurrection. The violated faith of the republic was its death-blow. Its prestige was gone. Its patron saint no longer vouchsafed his powerful protection. The richly freighted argosies of the East whitened other seas, and St. George was more successfully invoked upon other shores. Such was the end of that remarkable establishment, which for nearly four centuries was the wonder and admiration of Europe, and together with which the recollections of the glories of the Genoese republic will go hand in Quite as remarkable, perhaps, is the fact that a moneyed institution, usually so sensitive to political change, should have uniformly maintained its credit, and steadily augmented its resources, undisturbed by the conflict of parties, while the republic was convulsed by aristocrat-hand for all coming time. ic feuds, civil discords, and chronic revolutions. In the midst of those political changes so frequent in the annals of Genoa, whoever among the rival factions were the victors, whether Guelph or Ghibeline, Fregosi or Adorni, Fieschi or Doria, they all pledged their fidelity and alike swore allegiance to St. George. Amidst sack and pillage, famine and plague, anarchy There is a stroke of poetical justice in the absorption of St. George by the custom-house, which had once been so completely absorbed by St. George. The old bank building, originally built by Boccanegra, who, having rendered himself obnoxious to the citizens, determined to erect a palace sufficiently grand for his dignity, and sufficiently strong for his security, is now occupied by the custom-house. | er presents the appearance of a small fortified According to some authorities, it was construct- city, defended with draw-bridges and surrounded with the stone of the Palazzo Veneto, in ed by walls. The principal façade is adorned Constantinople, destroyed by the Genoese, and by a fresco of the celebrated Tavarone, reprebrought to Genoa by Antonio Doria about the senting St. George and the Dragon, and is surmiddle of the thirteenth century. Originally mounted by an ancient clock tower and bell, in the form of a quadrangle, by successive ad-upon which is the following inscription: "Anno ditions, in connection with the Porto Franco-1667. Dum campana sonans ex equo divido tema double range of bonded warehouses-it rath- | pus." cient niches with an air of haughty pride or dignified surprise, as if fairly startled from their propriety by all this din and deafening uproar. These statues, some sitting, some standing, tell their own story. If you can not decipher the antiquated characters of the marble scrolls, held out somewhat ostentatiously in their extended palms, you may read it in their posture. St. George established a graduated scale of rewards as a premium on generosity and benevolence. When a citizen left a legacy, either in favor of the republic or some benevolent enterprise, in shares of the bank, he was rewarded with a memorial in marble. When the legacy did not exceed twenty-five thousand francs, the protectors decreed simply a marble tablet with an inscription; from twenty-five thousand to fifty thousand, a marble bust; from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand, a marble statue in a standing posture; and for any amount above the latter sum, the same in a sitting posture. Exteriorly it has probably undergone but lit- | the dust of centuries, look down from their antle change since the downfall of the bank; but of the interior arrangement the archives alone remain intact. Five large rooms, well filled from floor to ceiling, contain these precious, musty manuscripts and records, guarded as jealously now as formerly, when not even the employés and officers of the bank were allowed to consult them freely. These records relate in good part to the regulations of the public debt, to the establishment of the several imposts assigned to the liquidation of the same, and to the administration of territorial possessions of St. George. Here every thing is invested with an air of antiquity. Venerable parchments, venerable registers, venerable armchairs, not to forget the venerable archivista, who is the presiding genius of the place. Here are ancient bank-bills, dating back in all probability to the origin of paper-money, together with rotary ballot-boxes of antique form, where chance did the voting. Here is a letter of Christopher Columbus, addressed to the protectors of the bank shortly after the discovery of America. It is written in old Spanish, and very much abbreviated. In it he states that, though absent in body, he is present in spirit; that the Lord has conferred greater favor upon him than upon any one after David; that the king and queen wish to honor him more than ever, and his undertakings are meeting with brilliant success; that he is about to embark for the Indies, in the name of the Holy Trinity, with a view of returning immediately, but, since he is mortal, he desires to make some disposition of his interest in the funds of the bank in favor of his son D. Diego. Then follow his instructions to the directors, and then a long list of his titles as admiral, viceroy, governor-general, captain-general, etc., with the simple abbreviated signature, Christo-ferens (Christ-bearing), or Christopher. Leaving the solitude of the Archivio, and going below, every thing is astir. The great heart of the city is all a-throb. The Bourse begins to hum, and is populous as a bee-hive. The great marble stairway leading to the grand Council-Chamber of St. George is worn into deep channels by the busy feet of a restless commerce. Where once stood the illustrissimi in solemn conclave, you now find boxes of goods, bales of merchandise, dapper clerks, and broadshouldered fucchini. There are female employées, and they are in the majority-a delicate sarcasm upon an ancient ill-natured regulation of the Porto Franco whereby ingress was forbidden to women and priests, on account of their smuggling proclivities. Every where tablets with Latin inscriptions in obsolete characters challenge the attention of the passing antiquarian. Marble statues, with their stony features, rigid ruffs, and inflexible togas, stained with age and covered with Nearly a century has elapsed since the downfall of the bank, and still St. George is the presiding genius every where. Over the doorways, along the passages, upon the façade, the goodly knight is represented in marble, in stucco, in fresco, but always upon horseback, in full armor, with his lance buried deep in the vitals of the traditional dragon, while his noble steed now ambles in bass-relief like a rude Christmas toy, or flashes in fresco like Raymond's Aquilino, as if conceived of the wind and brought forth by the lightning. It would appear as if the merchant princes of Genoa still cherished the memory of their patron saint in the palmy days of the republic, as if he were still associated in some mysterious manner with their commercial prosperity, just as the ancient Christian emperors, who bore the image of St. George upon their banners, were certain of victory so long as it waved above their heads, or floated from their standards. |