We study the Italian monetary regime from 1861 to the creation of the Bank of Italy in 1893. The regime was characterized by a multi- plicity of note issuers although one of them, the BNS, rapidly became the dominant bank of the country following a process of territorial expansion. We carefully...

We study the regime of multiple note issuers that characterized the Italian monetary system from the unification of Italy in 1861 to the creation of the Bank of Italy in 1893. We describe how the system evolved and we analyze how it functioned by studying the clearing of notes among banks. Since...