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ALEXANDER VI, Pope. [Papal letter of indulgence in support of the Mons pietatis (or pawnshop bank) at Padua]. Beginning “Venerabilibus in christo patrib(us) D(omi)nis presbyteris secularib(us) vel cuiusuis ordinis regularib(us): p(er) i(n)frascriptas p(er)sona(m) seu p(er)sonas electis vel i(n)posteru(m) eligendis idoneis sacri Montis pie-/tatis paduani & fraternitatis eiusde(m) ...”. [Venice, Jacobus de Paganinis, May-June 1494].

Folio, single half-sheet broadside (374 by 259 mm.), printed on one side only, 34 lines in gothic letter (type area 292 by 141 mm.), 4-line woodcut opening initial, white-on-black; formerly folded, contemporary manuscript endorsement on verso “1494 pr[imo] junii”; in a cloth case.

One of two known copies of this letter of indulgence for the benefactors and members of the fraternity of the mons pietatis (or pawnshop bank) at Padua. The only other known copy is at Vicenza, Bibl. comunale Bertoliana. It is reproduced in V. Meneghin, Bernardino da Feltre e i Monti di Pietà, Vicenza 1974 (Tav. 8, opp. p. 88) where the background is discussed at length. We know that it was printed in 6036 copies (the printer being paid 7 ducats for his trouble) to be given to all members of the fraternity, present and future. Subscription to the fraternity was one shilling a month (singulis mensibus … solidum unum persolvere tenerentur). The encouragement to join was the right to appoint a confessor who could remit venial sins, non-fulfilment of vows, etc.

By the end of the 15th century there were eighteen montes pietatis in Italy, but the printed evidence to document their growth is very rare. Only two other such printed broadsides are known (both apparently unique): one relating to the mons pietatis at Cremona (1493), the other to the mons pietatis at Verona (again 1493) (see below).

The montes pietatis were an attempt to solve the problems of usury. There is an account of their institution in John T. Noonan, The Scholastic Analysis of Usury (Harvard University Press, 1957), pp. 294-5: “The medieval usury doctrine especially discouraged the small-loan business. Public lending to the poor was manifest usury … To accept lending as a profession, to admit public dealing in simple consumption loans as desirable, was to make a radical break with the past. This break occurred with the acceptance of the montes pietatis. With this came not only a belief that lending could be a livelihood: although the montes themselves were pawnshops, their acceptance led to acceptance of much of the structure of institutional banking, and in particular, to the approval of investments in lending institutions and a charge of the institutional obligation of being in a position to lend.

A mons pietatis was a public pawnshop, regularly financed by charitable donations and run not for profit but for the service of the poor. It charged a small fee for its care of the pawns and for the expenses of administration, including the salaries of its employees, so that the capital would not eventually be exhausted by the cost of the business. In Italy this fee came usually to 6 per cent, as compared with the 32 ½ to 43 ½ per cent charged by the public usurers. The directors of the mons were usually one or two ecclesiastical representatives and several respected merchants of the town.

From the first, the mons met theological opposition on the grounds that it was an institution making a business out of lending at usury. But in 1467 Paul II approved the constitution of the original Perugian mons and successive popes approved the montes in other Italian cities. The Franciscans espoused the institution, and Blessed Bernardine of Feltre, a great Franciscan preacher [mentioned by name in the present broadside] was its special apostle, travelling throughout Italy attacking Jewish money-lenders and pleading for the mons as the remedy for usury. Some montes founded by Franciscans originally loaned entirely gratuitously, but in 1493, Bernardine convinced a general council of the order that the only practicable ways of preserving them was to charge interest; accordingly, an interest charge was made mandatory for all Franciscan establishments. At the end of the fifteenth century, there were eighty montes pietatis in Italy – a growth which itself is perhaps the best indication of the necessity of their work”.

The printer. Dr Martin Davies writes,

The type of the Paduan mons pietatis broadside is a gothic fount measuring 84mm. for 20 lines, as used by a number of Venetian printers, in this case the 84G of the brothers de Paganinis of Brescia, whose books were variously signed by Paganinus, Jacobus and Hieronymus. Jacobus signs books only of late 1490 to 1491 (BMC V 453), but we have an archival document in Padua (V. Meneghin, Fra Bernardino da Feltre, p. 312) to the effect that this broadside was the work of a printer called “Giacomo da Brescia”, who on 4 June 1494 was paid seven ducats for printing 6,036 copies of it. (The broadside 84G is quite different from that used by Jacobus Britannicus of Brescia, the only other possible candidate among known printers.) The peculiar ticked Q (line 21), standing for Quod, is found sparingly towards the end of the only book signed by Jacobus de Paganinis in the British Library, Panormitanus, Consilia, 7 Apr. 1491, IC.23307, at h4v col. a ad calc. ‘Quarto’, i6v col. b v. 20, k4v col. a v. 4. This sort is also often seen filed down to make a regular Q (one of three distinct designs used by Jacobus in the book), as it is in the Pacioli, Somma di arithmetica, Nov. 1494 signed by his brother Paganinus. Imperfectly modified versions of this sort form the Q at fol. 7r col. 2 of the opening table (‘Quintus) and fol. 63r/h7r (‘Quanta’) in that book. The Panormitanus of Jacobus has no woodcut initials, but the black-ground woodcut V that begins the broadside is often used in the Pacioli of Paganinus, in the British Library copy (IB.23272) first at fol. 36 (c4r). The BL copy has its opening quires from a later printing, with lombards in place of the original woodcut initials: these latter can be seen in the online facsimile provided by Wolfenbüttel HAB at http://diglib.hab.de/inkunabeln/83-1-quod-2f/start.htm, the first woodcut V at frame 65 = fol. 24/c8r, and plentifully thereafter. The two words in roman type (all in capitals) will be printed in the de Paganinis 79R or 85R.

The only broadsides relating to montes pietatis noted by Falk Eisermann, Verzeichnis der typographischen Einblattdrucke des 15. Jahrhunderts im Heiligen Römischen Reich Deutscher Nation (VE15), 3 vols., Wiesbaden, 2004, I.38-56 in his ‘Negativliste’ (i.e. broadsides from outside the German Reich):

i) No. 77. Alexander VI, Bulle “Intenta semper salutis operibus”, 15.3.1492 [= 1493]. daran: Indulgentiae stationum urbis confraternitati pietatis Cremonae. Cremona: [Carolus de Darleriis]. ISTC ia00369950.

ii) No. 79. Alexander VI, Bulle “Pastoris aeterni”, 4.6.1493 [Verona: Johannes Alvisius]. ISTC ia00370900 [= IGI VI 278-A, vellum].

£11000

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