Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

Banche e ferrovie in Piemonte
177
allowed the Cassa del Commercio to carry out on a vastly expanded scale and in an unfettered manner activities which it had already been conducting for nearly three years. The most significant novelty was the alliance with Rothschild, which not only brought a huge infusdon of capital and a euphoric glamor, but also the prospect of spartócipation in vast new operatdons conducted on Italian- and European-wide stages,
James de Rothschild's alliance with the Cassa del Commercio effectively closed the door on the Pereires and the Crédit Mobdlier in Turin, but the Kàngdom of Sardinia was only one arena for their struggle. In the spring of 1856 Rothschild scored another coup when he wooed the Genoese financier Raffaele De Ferrari, the Duke of Galliera, away from the Crédit Mobilier group and induced him to carry with him the concession for a large centrai Italian railroad system, a concession which De Ferrari had been dispatched to secure for the Crédit Mobilier and its friends. Five states were signatories of the convention for the centrai Italian concession which would link Milan with the Duchies of Parma-Piacenza and Modena, the Grandduchy of Tuscany, and the Papal States. Rothschild and his associates promptly merged the new centrai Italian railroad company with their newly-formed Lombard-Venetian company, which had just acquired the Austrian state railways in Lombardy and Venetia.46) In June 1856 the Cassa del Commercio made its first large pucrchase of shares in the Stradella railroad company, which would be a naturai complement to the <new lines which tìie Roth­schild group had acquired just beyond the Kingdom of Sardinia's fron­tiere.47)
The Stradella concession included the most direct route from Turin and Genoa to the duchies of centrai Italy and part of the most direct route from Genoa to Milan. It was a rpivotal piece of the railroad network which was emerging in the northern half of the Italian peninsula. Parts of the concession were the target of Genoese promoters in 1826, 1834, and
charter; Osservazioni sul progetto sottoposto al Ministero di un nuovo statuto della Cassa d'Industria e Commercio ; Progetto di Nuovi Statuti della Cassa del Commercio e dell'Industria ; Credito Mobiliare - Pro-Memoria ; Bolmida to Cavour, 24 March 1856; Cavour to Ruggero de Salmour, 27 March 1856; CounciiI of State opinion adopted 14 Aprii 1856; Ministry of Finance to Bolmida, 22 and 24 Aprii 1856 (copies); Ricostituzione della Società Anonima della Cassa del Commercio e dell'Industria stabilita in Torino ; sf. 8, CCI, Statuti, approvati con decreto reale delti 29 Aprile 1856 (Turin, 1856); Cavour to Lanza, 12, 16, and 30 March 1856, in Cavour, Lettere, 2:413-414, 422; Cavour to Michelangelo Castelli, 17 March 1856, in Michelangelo Castelli, Carteggio Politico, ed. Luigi Chiala, 2 vols. (Turin, Rome, and Naples, 1890 and 1891), 1:141; Lanza to Cavour, 16 and 24 March and 17 Aprii 1856, and Cavour to Lanza, 25 and 30 March 1856, in Lanza, 1:327, 329, 334-336, 340; and Gille, Les investissements, pp. 134-138, and Procès-verbaux , pp. 23, 26.
46) Gille, Rothschild, pp. 315-321, 327, 332-342, Les investissements, pp. 163-167, and Procès-verbaux , introduction and pp. 14-16, 18-22, 24-25; Cameron, France, pp, 223-228; and Atti della Commissione, 1:9-11.
47) MAIC, b. 155, f. 107, sf. 2, CCI company report from shareholder meeting of 14, 16, 17, and 18 Feb, 1857; and Gazzetta Piemontese, 15 Jan. 1859, for CCI company report from shareholder meeting of 12 fan. 1859.