On a sparkling Friday in late June before the sweaty heat of July set in, Ana headed to the archives of the Banco di Napoli to meet the delightful and enterprising archivist Francesco Zappuli in this unbelievable treasure trove of an archive. We found ourselves here through a circuitous and fascinating set of conversations and connections, first with the amazing Leah Clark at Oxford who pointed the way to lovely Francesca Santa Maria at La Capraia in Naples, an institute that connects historians, art historians and scholars working on Naples. The Banco di Napoli archive, tucked away between festoons of drying washing and Maradona flags, ranges across hundreds of rooms and floors and houses thousands and thousands of libri di mastri from the first half of 16th to the end of 19th centuries for nine Naples banks. It is a total curio and a mine of information for material culture as it contains not only expenditures but also lists of what was being transacted, including records from artists and merchants. We will be coming back!
The libri detail everything from cargos lost in ship wrecks to artisanal transactions in the 16th century
