4 x 132 = 528 soldi.
(= 26 lire 8 soldi di piccioli.)
It will be seen at a glance that this equalised the internal and external price of silver.
Rather strangely this enactment of the 19th of August was followed by another no more than four days later (23rd August 1345), by which a slight reactionary change was made in favour of silver. The tale was decreased from 134 to 132 pieces, to be struck from the libbra of the same standard, and issuable at the same equivalence.
Slight as the backward change was, it was sufficient to leave the monetary system exposed to the same influence of differential exchanging, and within two months it had to be repealed by the law of October 1345. Under the name of Nuovi Guelfi a fresh coin was thereby instituted of the same standard and equivalence as above, but at a tale of 142 per libbra (140 being rendered back to the merchant, and 2 retained for expenses of coinage).
140 x 4 = 560 piccioli.
(= 28 lire di piccioli.)
This established a considerable advantage, and turned the flow of silver back again to Florence.
FLORENCE IN 1345
The process might in many respects be compared to our raising of the bank rate, were it not that the two operations represent quite different and separated financial epochs. It is noteworthy, too, because the process will be found immediately imitated in both France and England, that these laws of 1345 represent preponderatingly the sense of the class of exchangers of Florence,—i.e. the financiers professed,—men who would profit individually in their exchange operations as much as the state would in its restored currency of silver. "The above lords," says the preamble to the first-cited Act, "considering the numerous petitions made to them by many artificers, merchants, and honourable citizens, of the incredible lack of silver money in the state of Florence, on account of which the citizens of the said state suffer many inconveniences and wants, have determined to have and have had counsel of the twenty-one guilds of the city, who have [by a roundabout method] chosen eight men, skilled and prudent in the aforesaid, who have had counsel with the officers of our Mint and with certain others of the trade of exchangers," etc., with such result as above.
Yet even so, the effort was only temporarily successful. Before two years was out the price of silver abroad, outside of Florence, had advanced to 12 lire 15 soldi a fiorino = 27 lire 14 soldi di piccioli, whereas the price fixed by a fresh Mint law of 1345 had