[Rezension zu Marco Fano: L’evoluzione delle banche d’emissione]

Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen: Review of Marco Fano’s L’evoluzione delle banche d’emissione (1909)

Schullern’s brief German review situates Fano’s study of note-issuing banks within a larger, unfinished work on the historical development of exchange mechanisms. Its central contribution is to identify the study’s organizing framework and offer a cautiously favorable assessment.

Er teilt die Geschichte der Emissionsbanken in 3 Perioden: die des Bankenmonopols, jene der Bankvielheit und Freiheit, jene der neuerlichen Einschränkungen und des abermaligen Bankenmonopols, betrachtet diese Perioden für die verschiedenen Staaten und geht schließlich im besonderen auf das Bankwesen der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika ein (S. 86 ff.).

English translation: He divides the history of the banks of issue into 3 periods: that of the bank monopoly, that of the plurality and freedom of banks, and that of the renewed restrictions and of the once again established bank monopoly; he considers these periods for the various states and finally enters in particular into the banking system of the United States of America (p. 86 ff.).

This sequence makes the changing relationship between monopoly and banking freedom the axis of Fano’s comparative history. Schullern describes a movement across national cases culminating in particular attention to the United States; he does not supply an explanation of why these institutional transitions occur.

Die Schrift gibt einen guten Ueberblick über den Gegenstand; näher beurteilt kann sie aber wohl erst im Rahmen des Werkes werden, dem sie angehören soll.

English translation: The writing gives a good survey of the subject; but it can probably be judged more closely only within the framework of the work to which it is to belong.

The praise is therefore provisional: the chapter succeeds as an overview, while fuller judgment depends on its place within Fano’s larger project. Schullern closes by drawing attention to the discussion of the Austro-Hungarian Bank, without developing a separate critique. The review’s significance lies in its concise presentation of Fano’s periodization and its distinction between a useful standalone survey and an argument whose broader coherence remains to be assessed.