Sources
Not much remains of the Medici Bank's records; mentions of it and its activities are rife in the writings of outsiders, but outsiders necessarily had little access to the balance books which could truly tell the story of the bank's rise and fall, and certainly not to the confidential business correspondence and the secret books. Some of the most copious documentation, derived from archived tax records such as the records, are largely useless since the various principals of the bank were not above flagrantly lying to the taxman. The once voluminous internal documentation has been grievously reduced by the passage of time:
This study is based mainly on the business records of the Medici Bank: partnership agreements, correspondence, and account books. The extant material is unfortunately fragmentary; for example, no balance sheets have survived. Only a few pages of some of the account books have escaped destruction by a frenzied mob.
Nevertheless, the sources are sufficiently numerous (exceeded only by the Datini's bank's archives, in Tuscany/Prato) that the Medici bank is well understood, especially as the remains of the Medici records were given to the city of Florence by a descendant of the Medici.
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