The Business Papers of a Great Roman Family

Extract

Two years ago the Baker Library made its first major excursion into the field of early Italian business source material when Mr. H. Gordon Selfridge deposited with it a number of account books belonging to a branch of the Medici family. This summer the Society acquired, through the generosity of Mr. Edward J. Frost, of Boston, some account books and other business records of the great Barberini and Sciarra-Colonna families of Rome. This collection of eighty-seven vellum-bound volumes, covering the activities one of Italy's most powerful families from 1618 to 1816, takes up the story of Italian banking almost where the earlier books left it.