Fenzi

The Fenzi family was to benefit from all the notable privileges of the nobility such as tax exemptions granted by the favors of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

They were central players in the financing of the Suez Canal in association with 'Hans Oppenheim and Co' - founders of the 'Society General de l'Empire Ottoman.

They later built the Palazzo Fenzi Piazza della Signoria designed by Giuseppi Matelli, now Assicurazioni General.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Fenzi family started to create alliances with potential business partners both local and foreign.

By the 1820s the Fenzi Bank was backing the Hall family who had acquired the monopoly of the Tuscan straw hat market in England.

Whilst maintaining an activity of financing public initiatives, in 1849 they became the main stockholders in the company that built the railway Leopolda.

In the next thirty to forty years, the Fenzi Bank spread its network throughout Europe; by 1860, their agents were present in all the most important markets of central and northern Italy and in several cities in England, France, and Germany.

After nearly 20 years of planning and creation upset by the unstable political situation of the Risorgimento, the first section of the Leopolda Railway was at last finished.

Verity Family Collection; Glamorgan Records Office, including the letters of Sebastiano Fenzi and Florence Cox from Sant' Andrea.