Public Debt, Guarantees and Local Elites in the Papal States (XVI-XVIII Centuries)

Abstract

The article investigates the original contribution to the financial revolution of the Papal States at both the central and local level. It is argued that from the standpoint of public finance the contractual character of Papal power was a mixed blessing. On the one hand Papal authorities proved reamrkably apt both at winning trust of local investors and at mastering the art of public borrowing, on the other hand the close alliance with provincial oligarchies acted as a powerful barrier to the modernization of the state and the widening of the fiscal base.