Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

Banche e ferrovie in Piemonte
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was common to banks throughout western and centrai Europe in the boom and bust years of the 1850s.
After Bolmida railroads lost their pre-eminence in the Cassa del Commercio's operational design. The only new undertaking in the sector was the floating of a new bond issue to raise four million lire for the Cuneo 'railroad company. The operation was first put together by Bolmida late in 1856 in his guise as president of the railroad firm, but his death forestalled ready agreement by the investment bank and led to protracted negotiations which were not successfully concluded until August 1857. The difficulties reflected a new ambivalence on the part of the bank with regard to the railroad company. The new distance between the two enter-prises was further demonstrated by the bank's Iack of interest in a pair of expansion projects broached by the Cuneo company in 1857 and 1858.61> Nevertheless, the Cassa del Commercio was irrevocably bound to the Cuneo company through its long-standing loans against the trailroad's shares. In the last quarter of 1857, as the collapse of the internatìonal railroading boom forced retrenchment throughout the capitalist West, the Cassa del Commercio was being forced to liquidate the positions of some of its commerciai and speculative clients by buying out their rail shares. The bank's holdings of Cuneo shares grew by nearly twenty percent from the end of 1856 to the end of 1857, reaching a par value of nearly 1.9 million lire. More telling was the magndtude of the Cassa del Commercio's stili outstanding loans against Cuneo shares, which at par values added up to roughly 2.4 million lire in the middle of 1858. At that point in time, the bank's total commitment to the Cuneo company, through its direct invest­ment, its temporary bond holdings, and its lending against shares, amounted to twenty-eight percent of the railroad's total capital at par values (issue values for the bond).)
Luigi Bolmida and his aHies had a flexible and viable railroad pian. They got their start with locai roads serving Turin's agri-industrial hinter­land and they aspired to the creation of a major railroad company with internatìonal connections. They lost no time in bringing into being a new kind of joint-stock commercial and investment bank which could serve them in their ambitions. Although none of the Cassa del Commercio's
60) MAIC, b, 175, f. 52, minutes of Cuneo company shareholder meetings of 2 Dee. 1856 and 23 J-une 1857; Ministry of Finance to Cuneo company, 16 Dee. 1856 (copy); minutes of Cuneo company board of directors meeting of 10 Aug. 1857; Saverio Mancardi, managing director of the Cuneo company, to Ministry of Finance, 15 Aug. 1857; and royal deeree of 21 Aug. 1857.
6D MAIC, b. 175, f. 52, Cuneo company report from shareholder meeting of 4 May 1857; and b. 57, f. 406, Cuneo company to Ministry of Finance, 3 June 1858.
62) Gazzetta Piemontese, 15 Jan. 1859; MAIC, b. 155, f. 107, sf. unnumbered, Titoli di proprietà della Cassa, 31 March 1858; Situazioni dei Titoli di Rendita ed Azioni Industriali, 18 Aug. and 9 Dee. 1858; CCI debtor list, 20 Aug. 1858; sf. 18, Riporti della Cassa del Commercio e dell'Industria, Credito Mobiliare al 31 dicembre 1858; and Howell, pp. 204, 237-241 a.