INITIATING 'EXCHANGE TRANSACTIONS' IN LITERATURE

SCACCIA, SIGISMONDO.

Tractatus de commerciis, et cambio in quo non minus opportune, quam iuxta occasionem copiose` tractatur de mora, interesse, usura ... & de modo procedendi in causis cambiorum.

Romae, Sumptibus A. Brugiotti, 1619. Folio. In a later half calf binding with 4 raised bands, gilt lettering and gilt ornamentation to spine. Light wear to extremities, a fine and clean copy. (8), 755, (124) pp.

First edition of Scaccia excleedingly influential and popular work on commercial and exchange law, being one of the very first modern treatises on banking and economic theory to represent the new liberal ideas from the period. From the time of Scaccia's Tractatus Commerciis exchange transactions were an important topic in this literature (Rogers, The civilians and the law of bills in the seventeenth century). The work was reprinted 7 times up until 1738.

Scaccia did not conceal his liberal attitude concerning loans and other credit transactions. His standard work [the present] on commercial and exchange law received ecclesiastical approval.
"He rejected the views of Du Moulin on usury and followed the traditional precepts of canon law. Yet he moderated the theory on the illegality of interest by adapting it to the business practices and economic ideas of his time. Even when there was no 'mora', or delay in repayment of a loan, he wrote, it may be licit to charge interest from the first day of the loan, if the creditor would suffer a loss because of 'damnum emergens' or 'lucrum cessans'. He referred to exchange dealing as an inextricable labyrinth designed to evade the usury laws" (Houkes).

He justified profit in exchanges from place to place because of differences in value and price: "The fact that, by reason of the greater scarcity or abundance of money in different places, a larger or smaller sum may be given or accepted appears in the transactions commonly effected between Italy and France. For when money is scarce in France on account of the civil wars there, and plentiful in Italy, whoever delivers money in France for repayment in Italy will receive more than he gave. On the other hand, a merchant who delivers money in Italy for repayment in France will receive less. Yet this is no usury, for one sum is equal to the other, on account of the relative abundance and scarcity of money".

Houkes p. 361-2
Kress 369
Einaudi 5141
Ciasca, 172
Mattioli 3249 (The 1669-edition)

Order-nr.: 53755