Bardi family

The Bardi family were an influential Florentine family that started the powerful banking company, the Compagnia dei Bardi. In the 14th century the Bardis lent Edward III of England 900,000 gold florins, a debt which he failed to repay along with 600,000 florins borrowed from the Peruzzi family, leading to the collapse of both families' banks. During the 15th century the Bardi family continued to operate in various European centres, playing a notable role in financing some of the early voyages of discovery to America including those by Christopher Columbus and John Cabot.

The nobility of the Bardi family has been documented since the year 1164, when Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa relinquished the county of Vernio to Count Alberto along with “the right to confer the noble title on his descendents.”. Countess Margherita, the last of Alberto’s line, sold Vernio to her son-in-law, Piero de’ Bardi. Alberto’s property included "a castle and nine communes" located 22 miles from Florence on an area that bordered the Mugello. During the fourteenth century the Bardi family became so powerful that the Florentine government considered them a threat. They eventually were forced to sell their castle to Florence because “fortified castles near the city were seen as a danger to the republic.”.

In the 1290s, the Bardi and Peruzzi families had established branches in England and were the main European bankers by the 1320s. By the fourteenth century the Bardi and the Peruzzi family grew tremendously wealthy by offering financial services. These two families facilitated trade by providing the merchants with bills of exchange, known today as checks. What made it so simple was that money paid by a debtor in one town could be paid out to creditor just by presenting the bill in another town. By 1338, there were more than eighty banking houses in Florence. The Bardi family had thirteen different branches located in Barcelona, Seville and Majorca, in Paris, Avignon, Nice and Marseilles, in London, Bruges, Constantinople, Rhodes, Cyprus and Jerusalem. Some of Europe’s most powerful rulers were indebted to the Bardi family. This was one of the main reasons of the bankers’ downfall.

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