The Bardi and Peruzzi banks

The Bardi and Peruzzi were the dominant Florentine banking houses of the early 14th century, financiers to popes and princes with branches stretching across Europe and into the Levant — the giants of finance before the Medici rose. Their downfall came from lending too much to too few sovereigns. When Edward III of England defaulted on enormous loans raised to fund the Hundred Years’ War, and other debtors followed, the houses could not absorb the losses. The Peruzzi failed around 1343 and the Bardi by 1346, a collapse that staggered the whole Florentine economy.