National Bank of the Kingdom of Italy

The first decades of the 19th century saw a number of note-issuing banks created on a local basis, reflecting the political fragmentation of Italy and similar to experiences in other parts of Europe such as Germany or Belgium.

On 24 May 1851, then Finance Minister Cavour presented a bill authorizing the bank to increase its capital from 8 to 16 million, requiring it to open branches in Nice and Vercelli, and designating it as the kingdom's fiscal agent.

[7]: 2  In 1859, as a consequence of the annexation of Lombardy following the Second Italian War of Independence, the National Bank created a third seat in Milan, and clarified on that occasion that Turin would become its sole head office.

[8] In 1865, the kingdom's capital was moved to Florence, and the National Bank consequently opened a sixth seat and transferred its head office there.

[5]: 18  In 1867, in the wake of the plebiscite of Veneto of 1866, it opened a seventh seat in Venice upon absorption of the Stabilimento Mercantile di Venezia, a local bank of issue established in 1853,[9] and acquired the Palazzo Dolfin Manin for its office.

[10] The National Bank's renaming was a gradual process, partly because of the simultaneous existence of the Banca Nazionale Toscana in Florence, with which merger projects in the 1860s had failed for political reasons.