Management of the Neapolitan Public Banks' Crisis in the Late XVIIIth Century: The Model of "Banco Generale" as an Instrument of Going Concern Settlement

The troubled political and financial events of the Kingdom of Naples under the Bourbon dominion in the late 18th century outline the environmental perimeter in which the business phenomenon, subject of this investigation, will be deepened: the unification of the Neapolitan public banks under the shared aegis of “National Bank of Naples” in 1794. The analysis will aim to examine thoroughly the complex reasons underlying the last and irreversible crisis of the ancient Neapolitan public banks highlighting how the structural, functional as well as conceptual characteristics of these institutes changed in response to the socio-economic scenario shifts. Particularly, the contribution intends to critically discuss the social and political implications of the extensive reform promulgated by the central government, under King Ferdinand IV, for the restoration of the Neapolitan banking system. The normative corpus was reconstucted basing on a large collection of primary sources, collated through meticulous archival research, and secondary ones, arising from historiographical and academic literature. For this purpose, the work integrates into the research unit of History of Companies and Public Institution, by adopting a theoretical perspective of historical-administrative origins. According to the examined sources, the inadequacy of the royal measures led to a deep systemic crisis, which resulted to be fatal for the ancient Neapolitan banks.