title: Battle on the Ice

text: In 1983, a revisionist view proposed by historian John L. I. Fennell argued that the battle was not as important, nor as large, as has often been portrayed. Fennell claimed that most of the Teutonic Knights were by that time engaged elsewhere in the Baltic, and that the apparently low number of knights' casualties according to their own sources indicates the smallness of the encounter. He also says that neither the Suzdalian chronicle (the Lavrent'evskiy), nor any of the Swedish sources mention the occasion, which according to him would mean that the 'great battle' was little more than one of many periodic clashes. Russian historian Alexander Uzhankov suggested that Fennell distorted the picture by ignoring many historical facts and documents. To stress the importance of the battle, he cites two papal bulls of Gregory IX, promulgated in 1233 and 1237, which called for a crusade to protect Christianity in Finland against her neighbours. The first bull explicitly mentions Russia. The kingdoms of Sweden, Denmark and the Teutonic Order built up an alliance in June 1238, under the auspices of the Danish king Valdemar II. They assembled the largest western cavalry force of their time. Another point mentioned by Uzhankov is the 1243 treaty between Novgorod and the Teutonic Order, where the knights abandoned all claims to Russian lands. Uzhankov also emphasizes, with respect to the scale of battle, that for each knight deployed on the field there were eight to 30 combatants, counting squires, archers and servants (though at his stated ratios, that would still make the Teutonic losses number at most a few hundred).


title: NES Classic Edition

text: NES Classic Edition is a dedicated home video game console by Nintendo, which emulates the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It launched on November 10, 2016 in Australia and Japan, and November 11, 2016 in North America and Europe. Aesthetically, the console is a miniature replica of the NES, and it includes a static library of 30 built-in games from the licensed NES library, supporting save states for all of them.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: Nintendo produced and sold about 2.3 million NES Classic Editions from November 2016 through April 2017, with shipments selling out nearly immediately. In April 2017, Nintendo announced they were discontinuing the product, leading to consumer confusion, and incidents of greatly increased pricing among private sellers. Due to the demand of the NES Classic, and the success of the Super NES Classic Edition console, Nintendo re-introduced a limited run of the NES Classic on June 29, 2018. Production was discontinued again in December 2018.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: The NES Classic Edition is a dedicated console for emulating 30 Nintendo Entertainment System games. The console is distributed in two variations; one for Japan, featuring the likeness of the original Famicom, and one for the rest of the world, which looks like the original NES. For the non-Japanese variation, all of the games are based on their US release, running at 60 Hz and using the names by which they were released in the United States. The console's user interface supports up to eight languages, but this does not affect the language for the games themselves.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: Internally, the console uses an Allwinner R16 system on a chip with four ARM Cortex-A7 central processing cores and an ARM Mali 400 MP2 graphics processing unit. It includes 512 MB of flash storage and 256 MB of DDR3 memory.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: For video output, the system features an HDMI connection, which puts out 720p at 60 Hz video for all games.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: The controllers in the international version of the console feature the Wii Nunchuk's connector, which allows the controller to be connected to the Wii Remote for use with Virtual Console games on the Wii and Wii U. Accessories for the Wii such as the Classic Controller may be used with the NES Classic. The controllers for the Japanese version are hardwired into the console just like in the original Famicom, so they cannot be used in conjunction with the Wii. The Famicom Mini controllers are also proportioned to the size of the console, resulting in them being smaller than their North American or European counterpart. They fit into small holding slots on the side of the console. The Famicom Mini comes with two controllers. The microphone on the Player 2 controller is cosmetic only and does not work.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: The console uses the Linux operating system, running a new Nintendo Entertainment System emulation engine developed by Nintendo European Research & Development (NERD). The emulation included limited support for some of the memory management controllers, aka mappers, used in NES cartridges to extend the ability of the console, such as for "Super Mario Bros. 3", though not all known mappers were included with the emulation engine. The emulation engine was well-received by critics and was regarded as superior in both visual and audio support when compared to the NES Virtual Console emulation on the Wii U.A 320-page book called "Playing with Power: Nintendo NES Classics", published by Prima Games, was released the same day as the console; the book is a guide to some of the games included on the system. Nintendo of America brought back the Nintendo Power Line as an automated phone hotline from November 11 to 13 as a celebration of the launch of the system.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: Regardless of the model or region, the microconsole included 30 built-in games in all regions. Games that originally had different titles in the PAL regions use their respective American monikers, such as "Ninja Gaiden" (originally "Shadow Warriors") and "Super C" (originally "Probotector II: Return of the Evil Forces"). From the 30 included titles, 22 are common between all regions, while the eight remaining ones are exclusive to either Japan or North America/PAL region respectively.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: The NES Classic Edition was first released on November 10, 2016 in Japan and Australia, and November 11 in North America and Europe. With the limited supply, these initial shipments sold out almost immediately.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: Nintendo produced about 2.3 million NES Classic Editions over the next five months. By April 13, 2017, Nintendo announced it was ceasing production of the unit, with final shipments sent out within the next few days.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: Nintendo's decision to stop production of the console was met with criticism due to consumer's lack of awareness of the limited availability of the console, as described below. Following the announcement of the Super NES Classic Edition, which served as a counterpart to the NES Classic Edition but for Super Nintendo Entertainment System titles, Nintendo announced that it would also resume production of the NES Classic Edition in 2018. Nintendo brought renewed shipments of the system on June 29, 2018, with production of the system expected to continue throughout the year.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: Upon its re-release in June 2018, the NES Classic Mini sold more units than the PS4, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: On December 13, 2018, Reggie Fils-Aimé affirmed that both the NES and SNES Classic Editions will not be restocked after the 2018 holiday season, nor does Nintendo anticipate producing any similar mini-console version of its other home consoles in the near future.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: Aside from criticism regarding the controller cord being too short as well as minor emulation glitches, especially with sound, the NES Classic Edition has been well received.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: One of many "plug-n-play" consoles on the market, the demand for NES Classic Edition was notably large, with various retailers collectively selling approximately 196,000 units in its first month, remarkably selling out within hours of availability. Nintendo reported 1.5 million units had been sold by the end of 2016. On April 28, 2017, Nintendo revealed that 2.3 million consoles were sold in total. Following the rerelease of the console, Nintendo had sold about 1.3 million additional units through June 30, 2018. Combined sales of the NES and SNES Classic editions by September 30, 2018 exceeded 10 million units.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: Despite the positive reception, journalists were confused about Nintendo's decision to discontinue the unit as announced in April 2017. Nintendo did not say at launch that the system was meant to be only a limited run, and its messaging for it seemed to suggest it would be a product with a longer production life. The company clarified, when announcing the discontinuation, that "NES Classic Edition wasn’t intended to be an ongoing, long-term product. However, due to high demand, we did add extra shipments to our original plans." The lack of availability of the unit since launch, with shipments immediately selling out when they reach stores, also suggested Nintendo was not prepared for the demand for the product. Nintendo of America's CEO Reggie Fils-Aimé later stated that "We just didn't anticipate how incredible the response would be", having considered the sales of other similar retro-consoles, but they had to discontinue the unit as "we've got a lot going on right now and we don’t have unlimited resources."


title: NES Classic Edition

text: According to an April 2017 report by "Eurogamer", the discontinuation of the NES Classic was in part to transition the production line to a Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) Classic system designed similarly to the NES Classic but featuring games from the SNES, to be launched in late 2017, though Nintendo did not confirm this information. While journalists agreed an SNES Classic would be a more enticing product and Nintendo would likely be more prepared to produce a larger number of systems, Nintendo's decision with the NES Classic may have influenced consumers to be wary of trying to buy a system produced in low volumes, or give the impression of artificial scarcity with the product as part of a longer-term strategy to keep consumers demanding Nintendo products. When the Super NES Classic Edition was officially announced in June 2017, Nintendo said it "will produce significantly more units of Super NES Classic Edition than we did of NES Classic Edition" to avoid a similar shortage issue, but reaffirmed that it was not anticipated to be an ongoing product. In December 2018, Fils-Aimé affirmed that both the NES and SNES Classic Editions will not be restocked after the holiday season, nor does Nintendo anticipate producing any similar mini-console version of its other home consoles in the future.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: Shortly after the NES Classic Edition's release, hackers discovered ways to unofficially add up to 700 titles to the system's library, as well as enable emulation support for other consoles. Games from various consoles, such as the Nintendo 64 and 32X, have been successfully made to run on the NES Classic Edition.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: The NES Classic Edition's very limited stock during its original release in 2016 was one of its main criticisms, with some stores receiving fewer than 10 units at a time. This, coupled with the extremely high demand, prompted internet scalpers to buy as many as they could, so they could resell them with extreme price markups. In the US, prices were commonly set between $200 and $500, compared to its launch price of $59.99. The separate controller that could be bought without the console suffered the same fate, often being included with the main unit. The limited supply of NES Classic was compared to the situation around Amiibo shortages, which similarly were offered by Nintendo in limited quantity and led to scalping and high resale prices, frustrating fans.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: When Nintendo announced it was discontinuing the NES Classic Edition in April 2017, Nintendo enthusiasts and some outlets such as "Polygon" and "The Verge" believed that Nintendo planned on a limited release of the NES classic to drive artificial scarcity and increase sales, but which got out of hand with scalpers and secondary sales which have backfired on them. Nintendo denied these claims, stating that it was limited by its own rate of production with other hardware products, and that "It's definitely not intentional in terms of shorting the market".


title: NES Classic Edition

text: Following the April 2017 discontinuation, consumers found that several bootleg versions of the NES Classic Edition appeared on third party auction sites, typically produced by Chinese companies. These bootlegs have been found to be near-identical in hardware and software, which could confuse consumers who were looking to purchase a Classic Edition.


title: NES Classic Edition

text: A very limited gold "Shōnen Jump" Edition of the Famicom Mini was released only in Japan on July 7, 2018. Colored gold to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Shueisha's "Weekly Shōnen Jump" manga magazine, the special edition features 20 Famicom games largely based on "Shōnen Jump" manga properties, including "Dragon Ball", "Saint Seiya", and "Kinnikuman".


title: Medici Bank

text: The Medici Bank (Italian: "Banco dei Medici" ) was a financial institution created by the Medici family in Italy during the 15th century (1397–1494). It was the largest and most respected bank in Europe during its prime. There are some estimates that the Medici family was, for a period of time, the wealthiest family in Europe. Estimating their wealth in today's money is difficult and imprecise, considering that they owned art, land, and gold. With this monetary wealth, the family acquired political power initially in Florence, and later in the wider spheres of Italy and Europe.


title: Medici Bank

text: A notable contribution to the professions of banking and accounting pioneered by the Medici Bank was the improvement of the general ledger system through the development of the double entry system of tracking debits and credits or deposits and withdrawals.


title: Medici Bank

text: Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici was the first Medici to enter banking on his own, and while he became influential in the Florentine government, it was not until his son Cosimo the Elder took over in 1434 as gran maestro that the Medici became the unofficial head of state of the Florentine republic.


title: Medici Bank

text: The Medici family had long been involved in banking at a high level, maintaining their status as a respectably upper-class and notably wealthy family who derived their money from land holdings in the Mugello region towards the Apennines, north of Florence. The Medicis were not only bankers but innovators in financial accounting. At one point, the Medicis managed many of the great fortunes in Italy, from royalty to merchants.


title: Medici Bank

text: Giovanni's father Averardo (?–1363; known as "Bicci") was not a very successful businessman or banker. A distant cousin, Vieri di Cambio (1323–1396), however, was one of Florence's more prominent bankers (the first of the various modestly upper-class Medici lineages, numbering around 20 in 1364). His banking house trained and employed Giovanni and his elder brother Francesco ("c." 1350–1412), who eventually became partners in the firm. Francesco became a junior partner in 1382, while Giovanni rose to become general manager of the Rome branch in 1385, which was incorporated as a partnership, though it was not necessary to capitalize that branch (because the Church was usually depositing funds and not borrowing). Vieri was long-lived, but his bank split into three separate banks sometime between 1391 and 1392. One bank failed quickly. The second, managed by Francesco and later his son, survived until 1443, a little less than a decade after Averardo's death. The third bank was controlled by Giovanni in partnership with Benedetto di Lippaccio de' Bardi (1373–1420).


title: Medici Bank

text: The Medici bank's founding is usually dated to 1397, since it was this year that Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici separated his bank from his nephew Averardo's bank (which had effectively been acting as a branch in Rome), and moved his small bank from Rome to Florence. The branch in Rome was entrusted to Benedetto, and Giovanni took on Gentile di Baldassarre Buoni (1371–1427) as a partner. They raised 10,000 gold florins and began operating in Florence, though Gentile soon left the firm. This move had certain advantages for a bank, inasmuch as the predominant large banks of the 14th century which were based in Florence—the Bardi, Acciaioli, Peruzzi—had met with problems, and saw their places usurped by the Alberti, who were just large enough to capture the Catholic Church's business. But the Alberti firm split over internecine quarrels, and the clan was banished from Florence in 1382 (though they would be allowed to return in 1434), creating yet another void. Giovanni's choice proved to be prescient, especially since what Florence was lacking was a good port on the Mediterranean—which it would obtain in 1406 with the conquest of Pisa and its Porto Pisano. A further advantage was that it was much easier to invest a bank's capital in Florence than in Rome, and because of the Holy See's deposits (obtained through Giovanni's long contacts with them), the bank had a fair amount of capital to invest in other ventures.


title: Medici Bank

text: A factor was dispatched to Venice to seek out investment opportunities. He did well and on March 25, 1402, the third branch of the Medici bank was opened. It suffered from some initial mismanagement (by the factor who had previously done so well—he made the fatal mistake of violating the partnership agreement and loaning money to Germans; on a more humane note, he would eventually become a pauper and be sent 20 florins by Giovanni, who felt that a past partner deserved some charity), but soon was prospering. It was this branch that established the practice of having a general manager's remuneration be paid through shares in the branch that he purchased with his investment. Also in 1402, the first Medici factory was established for the production of woolen cloth, and then another in 1408. By this point, the Rome branch had established a branch in Naples (closed in 1425 and was replaced with one in Geneva) and Gaeta. It may seem that the Medici bank was flourishing and rapidly expanding its assets across Italy, but nevertheless there were perhaps only 17 employees in total of the bank in 1402, with only five at the central bank in Florence, although they were reasonably well-paid and promotions seem to have been rapid when warranted (such as in the case of Giuliano di Giovanni di ser Matteo, who went from being a clerk in 1401 to a junior partner in 1408).


title: Medici Bank

text: In 1420, Benedetto de' Bardi (the "ministro", or general manager, of all the branches) died, and was succeeded by his younger brother Ilarione de' Bardi, who was the manager of the Rome branch. He dissolved one of the wool factories, along with other reorganizations occasioned by partnerships coming to their designated end. This date is interesting because Ilarione's contract with his principal was done in the name of Cosimo and Lorenzo, and not their father Giovanni; this perhaps marks the beginnings of a transfer of responsibility and power in the Medici bank from one generation to the next. Two Portinaris were put in charge of the Florence and Venice branches.


title: Medici Bank

text: Giovanni died in 1429. According to Lorenzo, his fortune upon his death was worth around 180,000 gold florins. His death did not greatly affect the bank's operations, and the transition to Cosimo went smoothly, aided by Ilarione, who was retained as "ministro". Fortunately for the bank, Lorenzo di Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici was on excellent terms with Cosimo, and did not insist on dissolving the partnerships so he could receive his share of the patrimony (primogeniture not being operative here); many Florentine banks and mercantile businesses lasted only a generation or two because some of the inheriting sons usually wished to strike out on their own. At this time, the Medici bank was flourishing: besides the branches in Rome and Florence, the Venetian and Genevan branches had been founded. Ilarione would not last long in his position, and is mentioned as dead in a letter written in February 1433. The timing was unfortunate because the Albizzi government of Florence was moving against the young Medici-led resistance (galvanized by the Albizzi government's failure in a war against Lucca and Milan), culminating in Cosimo's exile to Venice. Despite the unfavorable politics in this period of the bank's history, its Italian branches turned in bumper profits, with as much as 62% of the total coming from Rome (in 1427, the Roman branch of the Medici bank had approximately 100,000 florins on deposit from the Papal Curia; in comparison, the total capitalization of the entire Medici bank was only about 25,000 gold florins) and 13% from Venice between 1420 and 1435 (with the later Medici branches opened in Bruges, London, Pisa, Avignon, Milan, and Lyon contributing nothing as they had not been founded yet). At this time, there seems to have been some sort of Medici office in Basel, and it seems to have lasted until 1443. De Roover speculates that it was a sub-branch of the Medici bank's Geneva branch serving the General Council of the Church, and was closed when the Council no longer made it worth their while to maintain it.


title: Medici Bank

text: On March 24, 1439, the Medici branch at Bruges was officially founded. While the Medicis had done business in Flanders through correspondents and agents since 1416, it was only when the son of the Venice branch's manager (from 1417–1435) was sent to investigate in 1438 and favorably reported back that it was incorporated as a limited liability partnership with that son, Bernardo di Giovanni d'Adoardo Portinari (1407–"c."1457), assuming both the position of manager and the majority of the liability. When Angelo Tani (1415–1492) became junior partner in 1455, the branch was finally created as a full and equal partnership in the Medici bank. A legally similar situation was obtained for an "accomandita" established in Ancona, apparently to finance Francesco Sforza, an ally of Cosimo's.


title: Medici Bank

text: As mentioned previously, Cosimo's uncle had begun a bank with his third of the ownership stake in Vieri's bank, and it closed in 1443 with the death of the grandson of Averardo, taking with it the Medici branch in Pisa. Formerly, any business that the Medici needed to transact in Pisa (such as Cosimo forwarding Donatello money to buy marble) had been done through them. On December 26, 1442, a limited liability partnership was formed with two outsiders. Over time, the Medici progressively reduced their investment in this partnership, and it appears that they withdrew completely sometime shortly after 1457, with only one partner keeping it running until 1476.


title: Medici Bank

text: 1446 saw the start of two Medici branches: the sub-branch that was the Bruges branch was converted into a full partnership, and a limited liability partnership in Avignon, the largest center of trade in southern France (despite the departure of the Papacy). Within 2 years, the Avignon branch was converted into a full partnership. The Medici branch at Lyons was not actually founded as a separate branch; it came about as a result of the gradual move of the Geneva branch, due to the reduction in traffic to the fairs at Geneva and the establishment of four major fairs in Lyons which attracted around 140 other Florentine businesses). The move was completed in 1466.


title: Medici Bank

text: The structure and functions of the Medici bank were largely settled into their final form by this point; a branch would be opened in Milan in late 1452, or early 1453, at the instigation of the grateful Sforza. Its first manager Pigello Portinari (1421–1468) was very capable and this branch did well in loaning to the Sforza court and, like the Roman branch, selling luxuries such as jewels, until Pigello died and was replaced by his feckless brother Accerrito (1427–"c."1503) who could not manage the massive amounts lent to the Milanese court and to Duke Sforza (who did not repay his debts of 179,000 ducats before his death in 1478). A similar problem would plague the Bruges branch of the bank when managed by the third Portinari brother, Tommaso.


title: Medici Bank

text: Still, this period (1435–1455) under Cosimo and his "ministro" Giovanni Benci was the Medici bank's most profitable period. With Cosimo's death on August 1, 1464, the decline of the bank began.


title: Medici Bank

text: An early sign of the decline was the near-failure of the Lyon branch because of its manager's venality, saved only by heroic efforts by Francesco Sassetti (1421–1490). Its troubles were followed by the troubled London branch, which got into trouble for much the same reason the Bruges branch would—unwisely loaning large sums to secular rulers, a group notorious for their delinquencies (in this case, the Yorkist Edward IV). In a sense, that branch had no choice but to make the loans, since it faced domestic opposition from English merchant and clothier interests in London and their representatives in Parliament, which was only granting the necessary export licenses to foreign-owned enterprises if its members were well-bribed with loans. The London branch of the Medici bank had already been dropped as a full partnership in 1465, and had been reincorporated as an "accomando". In 1467, Angelo Tani was dispatched to audit the London branch's books. Tani attempted to step up the collection of outstanding debt—the English king owed 10,500 pounds sterling, the English nobility 1,000, and another 7,000 pounds were tied up in goods dispatched on consignment and not soon recoverable. Operating funds were (like previous failing branches had done) borrowed from Medici branches at high rates of interest. Edward IV amortized a portion of his debt, but these reductions were soon rendered less helpful (but not negated outright) by fresh loans and sales of silk. By the spring of 1469, Tani had finished repairing the London branch's operations to his own satisfaction, and returned to Italy. His work would be undone by the unhelpfulness of the other branch managers and the fecklessness of the London branch manager Canigiani. The fatal blow was the Wars of the Roses, which rendered Edward IV unable to repay the loans (the best he could do in way of repayment was to lift all tariffs on the Medici exporting English wool until such time as the debt was repaid), and the branch had loaned far too much to the Lancastrian rebels (and not to a number of Yorkist loyalists), who would never repay their loans after their deaths and defeats. The London branch finished its liquidation in 1478, with total losses of 51,533 gold florins. The succeeding Tudors never paid off the outstanding Plantagenet debt.


title: Medici Bank

text: After the London branch failed, it was turned into a "accomando" and placed under the control of the Bruges branch, managed by the third of the Portinari brothers, Tommaso Portinari. This branch, too, would soon fail. Portinari had managed the Bruges branch for decades, and had steadily proven himself to be a poor manager—he engaged in business dealings on the side, ingratiated himself with the Burgundian court by excessive loans (first to secure the farming of the toll of Graveline—which was never very profitable—and then to mingle socially and elevate himself), made poor business deals like purchasing two galleys (which would be partially sold off at a loss; the rest would be lost to shipwreck and piracy). The debts from the London branch were assumed by the Bruges branch. After Piero's death, Portinari managed to get articles of partnership so favorable that he lived in Florence, only visiting the Low Countries for business. The end-period of the branch would be marked by chaos and possibly fraud. Portinari would refuse to return some deposits, claiming that the monies had really been invested in partnership. He would also claim Angelo Tani as a full partner (and thus liable in the losses), despite the fact that Tani never signed the articles or written with his approval. The magnitude of the financial failures is hard to state. In a surviving memorandum, Lorenzo the Magnificent gives the bad debts to Charles the Bold alone as the sum of 16,150 pounds groat. The articles of partnership, incidentally, strictly forbade Portinari to lend more than the total of 6,000 pounds groat. In another memorandum, Lorenzo faults Portinari for the clever ruse of shifting all the London branch's business to the Bruges branch—except for the profitable wool business. Portinari bought into the separate partnership to the tune of 45%, whereas his share in the Bruges branch was only 27.5%. The branch was liquidated in 1478 with staggering losses. The failure of the Bruges branch meant that not only the debts of that branch had to be handled somehow, but also the outstanding debts of the former London branch. In total, upwards of 70,000 gold florins were lost. This figure is optimistic, since it assumes most book assets were worth the recorded value. As Lorenzo remarked, "These are the great profits which are accruing to us through the management of Tommaso Portinari." Lorenzo refused to take this loss lying down, and dispatched a trusted agent to Bruges to audit the books and dissolve the partnership. Portinari ironically found himself hoisted by his own petard; he could not refuse the dissolution, since the "maggiore" Lorenzo had given the proper notice, and he further had to accept his own cooked books because he claimed that the books were accurate and the rather doubtful assets listed were indeed worth what they were worth. The agent Ricasoli was aided in this task by Angelo Tani, who came all the way from Florence to settle the matter of his supposed partnership in the London branch through the Bruges branch.


title: Medici Bank

text: Upon Cosimo's death, his estate and control of the bank passed to his eldest son, Piero di Cosimo "the Gouty" ("Piero il Gottoso"). Piero had been given a humanist education, unlike his younger brother who was trained in business but had died in 1463. The estate remained intact, though in this case not as a result of good relations between brothers, but because one of the two heirs died before inheriting. In theory, Lorenzo's son Pierfrancesco could have insisted on his share of the estate, but Pierfrancesco was raised by Cosimo and "his emotional ties to his uncle were sufficiently strong to preclude his withdrawal from the company." Pierfrancesco seems to have grown increasingly disaffected, but his death in 1476 prevented any separation. In retrospect, given how Lorenzo would steal from Pierfrancesco's estate while raising his two sons to finance the war against Rome following the Pazzi Conspiracy, Pierfrancesco would have been wiser to effect such a separation. Specifically, Lorenzo appropriated about 53,643 gold florins and only repaid part of the sum.


title: Medici Bank

text: Piero was not Cosimo's equal, but given his training did perhaps better than one would expect, especially considering how he was rendered bedridden by severe gout. Piero recognized the approaching problems, and tried to begin a "policy of retrenchment". This policy doesn't seem to have been fully carried out. Niccolò Machiavelli states in his history of Florence that Piero's policy involved calling in loans for repayment, which caused a number of Florentine businesses to collapse, sparking a plot against Piero and Medici rule.


title: Medici Bank

text: Whether Machiavelli is overstating issues and Piero had merely ordered a thorough accounting is unknown. Machiavelli can probably be trusted here since there was a rash of bankruptcies and bank failures in Florence shortly after Cosimo's death which led to a small recession. De Roover mentions, however, the war between Venice and the Ottoman Empire and the relevant firms' connections to that area as a possible factor as well. It is certain, however, that Piero tried to wind up the London branch and recover as much of the loans made to Edward IV as possible, ordered the Milan branch to loan less, instructed Tommaso Portinari of the Bruges branch to get rid of the galleys and not make any loans to secular rulers, and attempted to shut down the Venice branch which was no longer profitable. From the perspective of carrying out his policies, Piero faced a number of obstacles—it was always politically costly to demand that loans be repaid, particularly when made to monarchs and powerful nobles and such demands could cost Piero dearly close to home. The King of England had him over a barrel as the king could block any attempts to export English wool by the Medici, which was desperately needed by the bank for two reasons. English wool was the finest in the world; if Florence's artisans did not have a supply of English wool to weave, it could not sell its textile wares, and more importantly, could not employ the Florentine lower classes who specialized in textiles. Flemish wool had once served in English wool's place, but after the 1350s, it no longer had a market in Italy and was essentially not imported after 1400. Unemployment generated considerable political unrest and revolts, which would be aimed at Piero and the Medici since he and his family were seen as the true rulers of Florence. The second reason was that there was a systemic specie problem in the Medici bank in which hard currency flowed south to Italy from the northern countries, and the import of English wool was necessary to provide a conduit for currency to flow north and balance the books. So when King Edward IV demanded loans, the London branch had little choice but to oblige him if it wanted to continue to export English wool to Florence.


title: Medici Bank

text: By 1494, the Milan branch of the Medici bank also ceased to exist. The branches that did not die off on their own generally met their end with the collapse of the Medicis' political power in Florence in 1494, when Savonarola and the Pope struck against them. The central Florentine "banco" was burned by a mob, the Lyons branch was taken over by a rival firm, and the Roman branch struck off on its own despite the branch being bankrupt in general (ironically, they would suffer still more debts when a Medici cardinal became Pope Leo X and inquired after the 11,243 gold florins he had deposited with the branch back when it was with the Medici bank). Even at the time of its downfall, the Medici bank was the biggest bank in Europe, with at least seven branches and over fifty factors.


title: Medici Bank

text: De Roover attributes the beginning of the bank's decline to Cosimo de' Medici. He spent the vast majority of his time wrapped up in politics, and when he was not preoccupied with the intricate plotting and other characteristics of Florentine politics, he was patronizing the many fine Renaissance scholars and artists who were present there, or engaged in composing his own renowned poetry. This left minimal time for the careful selection of branch managers and the maintenance of an alert watch against fraud within the bank, which was greatly needed. Most of the financial duties handed over to Francesco Sassetti, who had risen from being a mere factor in the Avignon branch to its general manager, and then a post in Geneva eventually to end up in 1458 in Florence proper at Cosimo's side. Sassetti was left to handle much of the business himself. In the end, it turned out badly. Whether simply due to bad luck, old age, increasing laziness, or diversion of his time to studying humanism like Cosimo, Sassetti failed to discover the fraud at the Lyons branch until it was too late for it to hope to remain solvent. The branch manager Lionetto de' Rossi had attempted to cover up his incompetence by being far too optimistic as to the number of bad loans the branch would have to cover, and by borrowing funds from other banks, thus artificially inflating his profits.


title: Medici Bank

text: That, however, is not the only factor that caused the fall. A long term trend in the devaluation of gold against silver (which held steady) between 1475 and 1485—possibly thanks to increased output by German and Bohemian silver mines—meant that as creditors, the Medici bank was on the wrong side of the trend. Their deposits were held in gold, and interest was paid in gold. This trend was in part attributable to Florence's reluctance to debase the gold florin, which was internationally esteemed for its stable value, prestige, and reliability. But Florence's dual coinage system only aggravated the problem. This shift in the monetary system perhaps reflected a systemic slowdown or recession in Late Medieval Europe in general: the Arte del Cambio's records of member banks record a drastic decline in membership such that the guild fell from 71 banks in 1399, to 33 in 1460, and then the guild itself into disuse, the outside chronicler Giovanni Cambi noting that of the 9 large banks left in Florence by 1516, one failed on December 25. This banking decline does not appear to have been specific to Florence; similar declines were seen in Bruges and Venice (although apparently not in Spain). Similarly, the northern branches of all European banks were squeezed by a general decline in the supply of English wool.


title: Medici Bank

text: Agreement on these aggravating factors does not seem to be universal; Richard A. Goldthwaite writes in 1987 that "these economic conditions have never been adequately explained. It appears more likely that the contraction and decline of the Medici bank under Lorenzo—it was reduced to branches in only Florence, Rome and Lyons by the time he died in 1492—were due simply to bad management." He also claims that banking guild memberships cannot be used as a proxy for general economic conditions, as the problem could be that "by this time, in fact, Florentine guilds had long lost much of an economic function in the areas of their formally defined activity, with the result that the quality of their internal administration deteriorated; but this institutional history cannot be taken as an indicator of the vitality of the respective sectors of the economy the guilds nominally represented."


title: Medici Bank

text: Piero died on December 2, 1469. He was succeeded by his two sons, Lorenzo and Giuliano. Lorenzo's interest in politics and art (which led to his appellation "the Magnificent") forced him to rely on his "ministro" Francesco Sassetti to handle most affairs of the bank. Sassetti can be faulted and inculpated in the decline of the bank for failing to prevent the disasters of Lyon and Bruges, and Lorenzo for relying too much on Sassetti and not listening to him when Sassetti did notice problems or tried to fix things. Indeed, Lorenzo once said when Angelo Tani (who had tried to prevent the failure of the Bruges branch) appealed to him to overrule Sassetti and restrict the lending of the London branch, that "he did not understand such matters." He would later admit that his lack of knowledge and understanding was the reason he approved Tommaso Portinari's disastrous schemes. Goldthwaite faults Lorenzo in no uncertain terms:


title: Medici Bank

text: With Lorenzo's death on April 8, 1492, the succession passed to his 20-year-old son Piero di Lorenzo (1472–1521). Piero had no talent for running the bank and depended on his secretary and his great-uncle Giovanni Tornabuoni to handle everything. The two mismanaged the bank and balked the new ministro's, Giovambattista Bracci, efforts (Sassetti having died of a stroke in March 1490). If the Medici family and its bank had not been politically overthrown in 1494, it would probably have failed shortly thereafter in a long-delayed bankruptcy.


title: Medici Bank

text: Another factor in the decline of the Medici bank were the spending habits of the Medici. According to Lorenzo, between 1434 and 1471, the family spent an average of 17,467 gold florins a year.


title: Medici Bank

text: Another misjudgement or failure by Sassetti was placing his trust in Tommaso Portinari instead of in more trustworthy managers like Angelo Tani; Portinari would eventually cause the collapse of the bank's Bruges branch.


title: Medici Bank

text: Niccolò Machiavelli gave a more contemporary viewpoint in his "Istorie fiorentine", asserting that the fall of the Medici was due to their loose rein on their bank's managers who began to act like princes and not sensible businessmen and merchants.


title: Medici Bank

text: When the crisis loomed, one way to try to avert it was to simply start reducing the interest paid on discretionary and demand deposits. But such a move would have hurt the Medici name, and so it was undertaken too late. The bank's heavy leverage of their deposits meant that setbacks could be quite sudden. The fact that it seems to have been a common practice for Florentine banks to operate with as little as 5% of their deposits held in reserve lends further support to the idea that collapses could happen abruptly when bad loans were discovered. In addition to all of that, Lorenzo the Magnificent was not at all concerned about the bank. Instead, he chose to concentrate his time and his family's resources on patronizing artists and pursuing his own poetic and political interests.


title: Medici Bank

text: Eventually, the Medici family's fiscal problems grew severe enough to force Lorenzo to begin raiding Florence's state treasuries, at one point defrauding the Monte delle doti, a charitable fund for paying for dowries. Shortly thereafter, the political pressure of King Charles VIII of France's 1494 invasion of Italy caused Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici to concede to the dual forces of Charles and the impending insolvency of the Medici bank. The Medici bank's remaining assets and records were seized and distributed to creditors and others. All the branches were declared dissolved.


title: Medici Bank

text: Not much remains of the Medici Bank's records; mentions of it and its activities are rife in the writings of outsiders, but outsiders necessarily had little access to the balance books which could truly tell the story of the bank's rise and fall, and certainly not to the confidential business correspondence and the secret books. Some of the most copious documentation, derived from archived tax records such as the "catasto" records, are largely useless since the various principals of the bank were not above flagrantly lying to the taxman. The once voluminous internal documentation has been grievously reduced by the passage of time:


title: Medici Bank

text: This study is based mainly on the business records of the Medici Bank: partnership agreements, correspondence, and account books. The extant material is unfortunately fragmentary; for example, no balance sheets have survived. Only a few pages of some of the account books have escaped destruction by a frenzied mob.


title: Medici Bank

text: Nevertheless, the sources are sufficiently numerous (exceeded only by the Datini's bank's archives, in Tuscany/Prato) that the Medici bank is well understood, especially as the remains of the Medici records were given to the city of Florence by a descendant of the Medici.


title: Medici Bank

text: Because of communication delays, the Medici Bank was forced to establish two groups of relatively independent subsidiary units in important cities which communicated with the head bank via mail. Pisa, Milan, Venice in 1402, Geneva (moved to Lyons in 1466), Avignon, Bruges, London and an itinerant branch that followed the Pope around to tend to his needs—not for nothing have they been called "God's Bankers"—all hosted a Medici branch. If the bank could not establish a branch somewhere, then they would usually contract with some Italian banker (preferably one of the Florentine banks) to honor drafts and accept bills of exchange:


title: Medici Bank

text: Of course, if an Italian agent could not be procured, any trustworthy banker would do; in Cologne, their representative was the German Abel Kalthoff.


title: Medici Bank

text: A crucial distinction between the Medici Bank and its older rivals (the Peruzzi, the Bardi, the Acciaioli, etc.) was that its "decentralization" was not merely geographic: it was legal and financial. The Peruzzi bank was taken over by outsiders in 1331 because there was but one partnership, based in Florence and held largely by Peruzzi family members, which owned everything. The employees were only paid a salary for their service. So the nine original outsiders could slowly leverage their 21 shares to overwhelm the Peruzzi's collective 36 shares. The lack of clear leadership, though, when the leading partner died has been suggested as another factor in the failure of the Bardi and Peruzzi banks.


title: Medici Bank

text: Such a takeover was impossible in the Medici Bank. The essential structure was that of a single partnership based in Florence, which immutably held the lion's share of shares in each branch (and the three textile factories in Florence), which were themselves incorporated as independent partnerships. At the end of the year on March 24 (by the then used calendar), each partnership would be dissolved, although the Medici could dissolve a partnership at any time with six months' notice. The books were thoroughly gone through and checked, and a reckoning of profits would be made. Indeed, the structure of the Medici Bank resembles nothing so much as the modern holding company.


title: Medici Bank

text: The branch manager (the "governatore", or "governor", would have put up a portion of his own money at the start of the partnership) and the investing partners could take out their profits at this point, since salaries or dividends were not paid when the partnership agreement was in effect, but usually the Florentine partners ("maggiori", "seniors") and the branch manager would then incorporate a fresh partnership if the manager's performance had been satisfactory. Managers were not paid salaries, but were considered to have invested in the partnership a sum greater than they actually had (for example, in 1455, the Venice branch's partnership agreement was renewed and the manager Alessandro Martelli invested 2,000 of the 14,000 ducats. He would be paid of the total profits not his fair th, but rather th).


title: Medici Bank

text: The manager could, if he wished, attempt to start a rival bank, but he could not legally claim to be part of the Medici Bank, since a right to use that trademarked name came with the partnership. This measure would turn out to be effective against ambitious dissident juniors like Tommaso Portinari. However, even before the shares' profits were paid out, any sums invested in the branch outside of an ownership of shares were repaid at a set interest rate, sometimes leading to one branch paying another for the latter's investment in the former.


title: Medici Bank

text: Governors were given wide latitude in daily operations and in the management of their seven or eight assistant managers, clerks, cashiers, accountants, or couriers who lived and boarded at the Medici-rented employee housing (although the managers had little say in their selection, which was done by the Florence bank), but policy was set by the seniors, and often firmly. The Bruges branch was, when first incorporated, strictly forbidden by the terms of the partnership to lend money to temporal lords and kings. Policy would generally be communicated to the branch managers during their biennial or triennial trips to Florence to report in person and discuss important issues, or in the private letters and reports their couriers carried.


title: Medici Bank

text: Usury was still banned by the Church in this period, with an interpretation concisely expressed as "Quidquid sorti accedit, usura est" ("Whatever exceeds the principal is usury"). So the Medici Bank could not openly adopt the modern formula of promising to pay interest on demand deposits and loaning out a fraction of the deposits at greater interest to pay for the interest on the deposit, since a depositor would gain revenue on the principal without any risk to the principal, which would have made both parties usurers and sinners; nor could they charge fees or other such devices.


title: Medici Bank

text: Discretionary deposits were a partial way out, but the bank made most of its money by selling holographic "bills of exchange". These bills certified that a particular person or company had paid a particular Medici branch a certain sum of money, as verified by the general or assistant manager of that branch (who were the only ones allowed to make out such bills). The bill instructed the recipient Medici branch to pay back that sum in local currency, but not at whatever the local exchange rate for the two currencies concerned happened to be at the moment the bill was presented to be cashed in, but rather at the exchange rate set when the presenting (or current owner; bills of exchange could be sold and traded freely) person bought the bill of exchange. That there was a difference in time was guaranteed by the terms of the bill. A specific date could be set, but generally the time between a bill was issued in one city and could be cashed in at another was set by long-standing custom, or at "usance". The usance between Florence and London was 3 months, for example.


title: Medici Bank

text: A fictional but illustrative example: a merchant is traveling from Florence to London. He buys a bill of exchange for 10 florins, with the understanding that the London branch will cash that bill at half a pound to the florin, for a total of 5 pounds. If he reaches London and discovers that the florin has become stronger against the pound, to the point where a florin buys a whole pound, he takes a loss: instead of the 10 pounds he could have gotten had he not bought the bill of exchange, he will instead receive only 5. Similarly, if the florin weakens greatly, he could well reap a windfall at the expense of the London branch.


title: Medici Bank

text: Clearly the branches would want to try to maximize sales of bills of exchange in the former situation, where the rate of the issuing currency increases between the time of issuance and payment. This they attempted to do with frequent letters between branches and paying close attention to exchange rates. While close to loans, the element of risk meant that this practice did not actually become usury, except in the case of "dry exchange", where the moving around of money was fictitious. With appropriate issuances of bills, branches could move around money and actually make money. Similarly, they could be fairly certain of a profit when a bill was issued in one of the Italian branches because they could demand a premium of sorts for being asked to deliver money in a far away place at however far in the future usance set the maturation date. De Roover offers this real example:


title: Medici Bank

text: A controlling interest in a "bottega di seta" (silk shop) and two "botteghe di lana" (cloth manufacturing establishment) were further possessions of the Medici (although run in partnership with men of the necessary technical expertise). They paid by the piece and ran on the putting-out system; for the wool especially it was a very complex system, in which the early steps had to be done in the factories but then the spinning of the wool was done by women outside the factory, and the yarn collected to be brought to the weavers, who would then turn it over to the dyers and finishers in the factory. Legally, they were incorporated much the same as the branches, although unlike the branches, the managers apparently had complete latitude in managing employees.


title: Medici Bank

text: The silk shop produced some of the finest silk wares, and were usually sold to Florentine exporters or shipped to the branch in Bruges as a consignment to feed the Burgundian court's strong appetite for such goods, or to the branch in Milan to sell to the Sforza court. The cloth manufacturers similarly produced very high-quality pieces and sold a good deal of their output to Milan and the Sforzas.


title: Medici Bank

text: While lucrative, the revenues realized from the three factories should not be overemphasized: while the Medici often had invested more than 7,900 gold florins in the three "factories" in 1458, for example, the sum invested in "banks" in 1458 was more than 28,800—and that figure is low, for it excludes the Rome branch serving the Pope, the Medici's interest-bearing deposits in their branches, and also omits any accounting of several years' profit which were inaccessible (since the relevant partnerships had not yet been dissolved; this may seem to be a flaw in the system, but it built up capital in a branch and allowed it to lend out more than it had been incorporated with). Part of the reason for maintaining these factories when the funds could have been more profitably invested in the banks or trade could have been social: it seems to have a bit of a Florentine tradition to run such factories to provide employment for the poor—a social obligation, as it were.


title: Medici Bank

text: The first beginnings of the factories came in 1402. Giovanni di Bicci began a partnership to run a wool factory with an experienced manager, Michele di Baldo di ser Michele. This first wool shop was followed by a second one in 1408, this time with Taddeo di Filippo. The first one was ended in 1420; de Roover speculates that it was poorly run and so not very profitable. Eventually another one was opened in 1439; the original eventually came to an end between 1458 and 1469 for unknown reasons ("probably because of the manager's death."). The last shop was apparently being liquidated in 1480 amidst a general decline in the Florentine textile industry, and does not appear again in the tax records. The silk shop is known to have not existed before 1430; the "libro segreto" ("secret records", the second set of books kept to record partners' profits, and generally more accurate than the public books, inasmuch as they state the real profits and losses and which depositors were real) mention that they entered into a short partnership with two silk manufacturers. When the partnership ended, one of the two manufacturers became the manager of the silk factory until his death in 1446 or 1447. The silk shop endured until 1480, when the last descendant of that partner died.


title: Medici Bank

text: Alum was a vital commodity because of its many uses and relatively few sources. It was used in the wool preparing process to clean the wool of grease and other substances, as a mordant which fixed the dyes in the wool, in glassmaking, in tanning, and in a few other areas.


title: Medici Bank

text: The Roman branch of the bank was not merely charged with the normal deposit and bill of exchange business of the bank, nor with just the mechanics of being "fiscal agents of the Holy See" (which entailed handling and moving the papal revenues, paying out designated subsidies to countries fighting the Turks, fees, etc., but the Medici did not actually collect the monies from sales of indulgences or taxes due the Papacy), but also with managing a certain piece of Papal property: the Tolfa alum mines, an interest they had acquired in 1473 in exchange for forgiving some of the Pope's long overdue debts to the Medici, although they had a previous interest in the "Societas Aluminum" (the company which farmed the mines after their discovery in 1460 in Tolfa near Civitavecchia; the agreement forming this company had three partners, one of whom was the mines' discover Giovanni da Castro, and was ratified by the pope on September 3, 1462) dating back to 1466, expecting that by breaking the Turkish monopoly of alum imported from the Middle East (from the mines in Asia Minor, at Phocaea near Smyrna) they could reap far more than their investments in the form of never to be repaid loans. The Medicis immediately set about trying to eliminate the competition, of which there were three main sources of large amounts of decent quality alum—Turkey, the mines in Ischia, and the mines in Volterra.


title: Medici Bank

text: The Pope's share of the revenue was to be used to finance campaigns against the Hussites as well as the Turks, so buying Turkish alum was declared by him to be utterly immoral in that it helped the infidel enemy and hurt the faithful. Turkish alum was to be seized where it was found.


title: Medici Bank

text: They discouraged the alum mining near Volterra in Italy, apparently pushing its inhabitants to revolt against Florentine rule. At Lorenzo's direction, the insurrection was brutally suppressed. The mines reduced output safely under Florentine (and thus, Medici) control. The sad outcome of this episode was that the sack was entirely unnecessary: exploitation of this mine was abandoned in 1483 simply because the mine was so poor that it was unprofitable.


title: Medici Bank

text: Ischia was under the ownership and protection of the King of Naples, so the Medici and the company then exploited the Ischia mines signing a 25-year cartel agreement to restrict output and boost prices by only selling at a fixed price. This cartel flagrantly violated the teachings of the church, which tried to justify it by pointing to the virtuous military campaigns it would finance. Regardless, the cartel was not particularly successful. Turkish alum was never satisfactorily suppressed (the Pazzi bank is known to have smuggled Turkish alum into the Low Countries, for example), and the cartel was not well organized with conflict between the Medici branches. The Bruges branch and its manager Tommaso Portinari were convinced that the papal mines were simply producing far too much alum and glutting the market. They would not accept more alum on consignment until the alum they then had had finally sold.


title: Medici Bank

text: Between this internal dissension, the dissension between cartel partners, the constant flow of Turkish alum, and the organized opposition of consumer groups, the alum interest was never as profitable as expected. Regardless of its success, or lack thereof, the alum interest ended after the Pazzi Conspiracy, in 1478, after which Pope Sixtus IV confiscated as much Medici property as he was able to.


title: Medici Bank

text: The Rome branch of the Medici bank was a fully incorporated partnership which technically did not reside in Rome. It was known internally as "ours who follow the Court of Rome" ("i nostri che seguono la Corte di Roma"), and only contingently resided in Rome at times, as it followed the Papal court. Odd situations could occur, though. When Pope Martin V resided in the Dominican friary of Santa Maria Novella from February 1419 to September 1420, and when Pope Eugene IV stayed there, the Rome branch set up operations in Florence itself, even though the Florence branch was still in operation.


title: Medici Bank

text: The Rome branch was always busy. The Papal court was attended by hundreds of minor officials, both ecclesiastical and secular, along with their attendants. The needs of the Papal court were such that there was a measurable rise in the frequency of money shortages wherever the court went. This led to a need for banking services that the Medici could provide. The various bishops, cardinals, and prelates often held Church or private estates in far-flung states in and beyond Italy. The revenues from these estates needed to be transferred to wherever the Court was residing. A more practical reason was that alternate investments generally took the form of real estate, and any cardinal or bishop who invested overly much in real estate (which they were not supposed to) or relied on income from Church lands might see his investments confiscated under a new Pope who might not favor him so much or even turned over to a replacement. Accounts with the Medici were kept secret and generally free from prying, ecclesiastical eyes, especially in the case of discretionary deposits.


title: Medici Bank

text: Persons not already at the court made use of the branch for cashing letters of credit to make their pilgrimage or journey safer. Tribute from the many dioceses and institutions the Church controlled needed to be consolidated (but not collected by the Medici) and then safely transmitted. That service, too, the Medici could provide to a degree, though not in all areas. To carry out their services, the papal bankers were often given considerable power: if a banker could not collect the rents due the pope, they had but to complain and the offending cleric would be summarily excommunicated (a threat aired in 1441 against the slow Bishop of Nevers), or they could block appointments, as they threatened to do to John Kemp, whose nephew had just been appointed to the bishopric of London with their aid, if the proper payments were not soon made.


title: Medici Bank

text: Officially, the branch could not make its money by lending at a profit to the Popes (who were lax in repaying the Medici), and taking in many deposits at interest. The branch did this to some extent, but the principal means of profit came from commercial transactions. Rather than charging interest, "the Medici overcharged the pope on the silks and brocades, the jewels and other commodities they supplied.".


title: Medici Bank

text: These payments were entirely one way, and not exchanges. Rome and Italy generally produced little to nothing of value and so the balance of trade was greatly unequal. It could be alleviated by the production from northern silver mines, but in general the main commodity Italy was willing to exchange specie for was English wool. The decline in availability of English wool to be imported, and the general concomitant economic problems, have been identified as one of the contributing causes to the bank's decline.


title: Medici Bank

text: At this time, the Popes frequently held great councils and conferences. These meetings of eminent and wealthy individuals gave rise to a need for advanced banking services, to such a degree that the Medici were not the only Italian bank to open up temporary branches wherever such councils were convened.


title: Medici Bank

text: The close relation between the papacy and the branch declined over the years, with the decline especially pronounced after 1464, with few to no branch managers being selected to be the "depositary-general", the official who was essentially the fiscal agent for the Apostolic Chamber, or the Church's treasury. Pope Sixtus IV would repudiate the Medici's control of the alum trade and also his debts to them, as well as seizing Medici property in Rome following the Pazzi Conspiracy in 1478. The Pazzi's interlocked businesses and banks had captured the alum business after the Medici were removed from it, and were supplying the depositary-general from their ranks, indicating that they were trying to follow the Medici route of initially building up their empire through papal custom. The papacy would eventually agree to repay the debts, but did so extremely slowly; so slowly that the branch manager Giovanni Tornabuoni agreed to take stocks of alum instead, despite the depressed market for alum. Tornabuoni would still be in charge when 1494 came and the edifice of the Medici came crashing down. Because the branch had been doing so poorly, it owed more than it was due, so the Roman government was satisfied to allow Tornabuoni to assume the rest of the partnership's equity and debts.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a predominantly African American Methodist denomination. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. The African Methodist Episcopal Church is the first independent Protestant denomination to be founded by Black people; though it welcomes and has members of all ethnicities.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: It was founded by Richard Allen (1760–1831)—who was later elected and ordained the AME's first bishop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—in 1816 when he called together five African American congregations of the previously established Methodist Episcopal Church (which had been founded either in December 1784 at the famous "Christmas Conference" or at its first General Conference at Lovely Lane Chapel meeting house in old Baltimore Town) by Blacks hoping to escape the discrimination that was commonplace in society.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: It was among the first denominations in the United States to be founded for this reason (rather than for theological distinctions), and has persistently advocated for the civil and human rights of African Americans through social improvement, religious autonomy, and political engagement while always being open to people of all racial backgrounds. Allen, an previously ordained deacon in the Methodist Episcopal Church, was elected by the gathered ministers and ordained as its first bishop in 1816 by the first General Conference of the five churches—extending from the three in the Philadelphia area in Pennsylvania to ones in Delaware and Baltimore, Maryland. The denomination then expanded west and through the South, particularly after the American Civil War (1861–1865). By 1906, the AME had a membership of about 500,000 (half a million), more than the combined total of the two other predominantly Black American denominations—the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, making it the largest major African-American denomination of the Methodist traditions.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The AME Church currently has 20 districts, each with its own bishop: 13 are based in the United States, mostly in the South, while seven are based in Africa. The global membership of the AME is around 2.5 million members, and it remains one of the largest Methodist denominations in the world.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: Derived from Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne's original motto "God our Father, Christ our Redeemer, Man our Brother", which served as the AME Church motto until the 2008 General Conference, when the current motto was officially adopted.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The AME Church worked out of the Free African Society (FAS), which Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and other free blacks established in Philadelphia in 1787. They left St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church because of discrimination. Although Allen and Jones were both accepted as preachers, they were limited to black congregations. In addition, the blacks were made to sit in a separate gallery built in the church when their portion of the congregation increased. These former members of St. George's made plans to transform their mutual aid society into an African congregation. Although the group was originally non-denominational, eventually members wanted to affiliate with existing denominations.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: Allen led a small group who resolved to remain Methodist. They formed the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1793. In general, they adopted the doctrines and form of government of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1794 Bethel AME was dedicated with Allen as pastor. To establish Bethel's independence, Allen successfully sued in the Pennsylvania courts in 1807 and 1815 for the right of his congregation to exist as an institution independent of white Methodist congregations.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: Because black Methodists in other middle Atlantic communities also encountered racism and desired religious autonomy, Allen called them to meet in Philadelphia in 1816 to form a new Wesleyan denomination. Sixteen representatives, from Bethel African Church in Philadelphia and African churches in Baltimore, MD, Wilmington, DE, Attleboro, PA, and Salem, NJ, met to form a church organization or connection under the title of the "African Methodist Episcopal Church" (AME Church).


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: It began with eight clergy and five churches, and by 1846 had grown to 176 clergy, 296 churches, and 17,375 members. Safe Villages like the Village of Lima were setup with nearby AME churches and in sometimes involved in the underground railroad. The 20,000 members in 1856 were located primarily in the North. AME national membership (including probationers and preachers) jumped from 70,000 in 1866 to 207,000 in 1876.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The church also expanded internationally during this period. The British Overseas Territory of Bermuda, 640 miles from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, was settled in 1609 by the Virginia Company and retained close links with Virginia and the Carolinas (with Charleston settled from Bermuda in 1670 under William Sayle) for the next two centuries, with Bermudians playing both sides during the American War of Independence, being the point from which the blockade of southern Atlantic ports was maintained and the Chesapeake Campaign was launched during the American War of 1812, and being the primary port through which European-manufactured weapons and supplies were smuggled into the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Other Bermudians, such as First Sergeant Robert John Simmons of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, fought to end slavery in the United States. Among the numerous residents of the American South with ties to Bermuda was Denmark Vesey, who had immigrated to South Carolina from Bermuda as a slave before purchasing his freedom. Vesey was a founder of Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church before his execution after conviction in a show trial resulting from white hysteria over an alleged conspiracy for a slave revolt in 1822.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The majority of the population of Bermuda during the first century of settlement was European, with free and enslaved blacks primarily from the Spanish West Indies and Native Americans, primarily from New England (anyone not entirely of European ancestry was counted as "coloured"). As any child of a coloured and a white parent was counted as coloured, the ratio of the white to coloured population shifted during the course of the 18th Century (4,850 whites and 3,514 coloured in 1721; but 4,755 whites and 5,425 coloured in 1811). The Church of England is the established church, and was the only church originally permitted to operate in Bermuda. Presbyterians were permitted to have a separate church and to conduct their own services during the 18th Century. The Wesleyan Methodists sought to include enslaved blacks and a law was passed by the Parliament of Bermuda in 1800 barring any but Church of England and Presbyterian ministers from preaching. The Methodist Reverend John Stephenson was incarcerated in December, 1800, for six months for preaching to slaves. The law and attitudes changed during the course of the following century, but any church organised by blacks and organising blacks would not be welcomed by the white dominated Government. Stephenson was followed in 1808 by the Reverend Joshua Marsden. There were 136 members of the Society when Marsden left Bermuda in 1812.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: "Susette Harriet Lloyd" travelled to Bermuda in company with the Church of England's Archdeacon of Bermuda Aubrey Spencer. Her visit lasted two years, and her ‘’Sketches of Bermuda’’ (a collection of letters she had written enroute to, and during her stay in, Bermuda, and dedicated to Archdeacon Spencer) was published in 1835, immediately following the 1834 abolition of slavery in Bermuda and the remainder of the British Empire (Bermuda elected to end slavery immediately, becoming the first colony to do so, though all other British colonies except for Antigua availed themselves of an allowance made by the Imperial government enabling them to phase slavery out gradually). Lloyd's book gives a rare contemporary account of Bermudian society immediately prior to the abolition of slavery. Among her many observations of the people of Bermuda, Lloyd noted of the coloured population:


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: Lloyd's negative comments on the "dissenters" was in reference to the Wesleyan Methodists. The degree of education of coloured Bermudians would be noted by later visitors, also. Christiana Rounds wrote in Harper's Magazine (re-published in an advertising pamphlet by A.L Mellen, the Proprietor of the Hamilton Hotel in 1876):


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The foundation stone of a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was laid in St. George's Town on the 8 June 1840, the local Society (by then numbering 37 class leaders, 489 Members, and 20 other communicants) having previously occupied a small, increasingly decrepit building that had been damaged beyond use in a storm in 1839. The inscription on the foundation stone included:


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The AME First District website records that in the autumn of 1869, "three farsighted Christian men—Benjamin Burchall of St. George’s, William B. Jennings of Devonshire and Charles Roach Ratteray of Somerset—set in motion the wheels that brought African Methodism to" Bermuda. By the latter Nineteenth Century, the law in Bermuda specified that any denomination permitted to operate in the United Kingdom should also be permitted in the colony (although only the Church of England, the Presbyterian Church, and the Wesleyan Methodists were permitted to conduct baptisms, weddings and funerals until after the First World War). As the Imperial Government had ruled that the AME Church could operate in the United Kingdom, the first AME church in Bermuda was erected in 1885 in Hamilton Parish, on the shore of Harrington Sound, and titled St. John African Methodist Episcopal Church (the congregation had begun previously as part of the British Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada). Although the Church of England (since 1978, titled the Anglican Church of Bermuda) remains the largest denomination in Bermuda (15.8%), the AME quickly flourished (accounting for 8.6% of the population today), overtaking the Wesleyan Methodists (2.7% today).


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The rise of the Wesleyan-Holiness movement in Methodism influenced the African Methodist Episcopal Church, with Jarena Lee and Amanda Smith preaching the doctrine of entire sanctification throughout pulpits of the connexion.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: AME put a high premium on education. In the 19th century, the AME Church of Ohio collaborated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, a predominantly white denomination, in sponsoring the second independent historically black college (HBCU), Wilberforce University in Ohio. By 1880, AME operated over 2,000 schools, chiefly in the South, with 155,000 students. For school houses they used church buildings; the ministers and their wives were the teachers; the congregations raised the money to keep schools operating at a time the segregated public schools were starved of funds.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: After the Civil War Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (1834–1915) was a major leader of the AME and played a role in Republican Party politics. In 1863 during the Civil War, Turner was appointed as the first black chaplain in the United States Colored Troops. Afterward, he was appointed to the Freedmen's Bureau in Georgia. He settled in Macon, Georgia, and was elected to the state legislature in 1868 during Reconstruction. He planted many AME churches in Georgia after the war.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: In 1880 he was elected as the first southern bishop of the AME Church after a fierce battle within the denomination. Angered by the Democrats' regaining power and instituting Jim Crow laws in the late nineteenth century South, Turner was the leader of black nationalism and proposed emigration of blacks to Africa.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The African Methodist Episcopal Church has a unique history as it is the first major religious denomination in the western world that developed because of race rather than theological differences. It was the first African-American denomination organized and incorporated in the United States. The church was born in protest against racial discrimination and slavery. This was in keeping with the Methodist Church's philosophy, whose founder John Wesley had once called the slave-trade "that execrable sum of all villainies." In the 19th century, the AME Church of Ohio collaborated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, a predominantly white denomination, in sponsoring the second independent historically black college (HBCU), Wilberforce University in Ohio. Among Wilberforce University's early founders was Salmon P. Chase, then-governor of Ohio and the future Secretary of Treasury under President Abraham Lincoln.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: Other members of the FAS wanted to affiliate with the Episcopal Church and followed Absalom Jones in doing that. In 1792, they founded the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, the first Episcopal church in the United States with a founding black congregation. In 1804, Jones was ordained as the first black priest in the Episcopal Church.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: While the AME is doctrinally Methodist, clergy, scholars, and lay persons have written works that demonstrate the distinctive racial theology and "praxis" that have come to define this Wesleyan body. In an address to the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions, Bishop Benjamin W. Arnett reminded the audience of blacks' influence in the formation of Christianity. Bishop Benjamin T. Tanner wrote in 1895 in "The Color of Solomon – What?" that biblical scholars wrongly portrayed the son of David as a white man. In the post-civil rights era, theologians James Cone, Cecil W. Cone, and Jacqueline Grant, who came from the AME tradition, criticized Euro-centric Christianity and African-American churches for their shortcomings in resolving the plight of those oppressed by racism, sexism, and economic disadvantage.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The AME motto, "God Our Father, Christ Our Redeemer, Holy Spirit Our Comforter, Humankind Our Family", reflects the basic beliefs of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The basic foundations of the beliefs of the church can be summarized in the Apostles' Creed, and The Twenty Five Articles of Religion, held in common with other Methodist Episcopal congregations. The church also observes the official bylaws of the AME Church. The "Doctrine and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church" is revised at every General Conference and published every four years. The AME church also follows the rule that a minister of the denomination must retire at age 75, with bishops, more specifically, being required to retire upon the General Conference nearest their 75th birthday.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The Mission of the African Methodist Episcopal Church is to minister to the social, spiritual, physical development of all people. At every level of the Connection and in every local church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church shall engage in carrying out the spirit of the original Free African Society, out of which the AME Church evolved: that is, to seek out and save the lost, and serve the needy. It is also the duty of the Church to continue to encourage all members to become involved in all aspects of church training. The ultimate purposes are: (1) make available God's biblical principles, (2) spread Christ's liberating gospel, and (3) provide continuing programs which will enhance the entire social development of all people. In order to meet the needs at every level of the Connection and in every local church, the AME Church shall implement strategies to train all members in: (1) Christian discipleship, (2) Christian leadership, (3) current teaching methods and materials, (4) the history and significance of the AME Church, (5) God's biblical principles, and (6) social development to which all should be applied to daily living.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The African Methodist Episcopal Church has been one of the forerunners of education within the African-American community.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The General Conference is the supreme body of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It is composed of the bishops, as "ex officio" presidents, according to the rank of election, and an equal number of ministerial and lay delegates, elected by each of the Annual Conferences and the lay Electoral Colleges of the Annual Conferences. Other "ex officio" members are: the General Officers, College Presidents, Deans of Theological Seminaries; Chaplains in the Regular Armed Forces of the U.S.A. The General Conference meets every four years, but may have extra sessions in certain emergencies.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: At the General Conference of the AME Church, notable and renowned speakers have been invited to address the clergy and laity of the congregation. Such as in 2008, the church invited then Senator Barack H. Obama, and in 2012, the church invited then First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The Council of Bishops is the Executive Branch of the Connectional Church. It has the general oversight of the Church during the interim between General Conferences. The Council of Bishops shall meet annually at such time and place as the majority of the Council shall determine and also at such other times as may be deemed necessary in the discharging its responsibility as the Executive Branch of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Council of Bishops shall hold at least two public sessions at each annual meeting. At the first, complaints and petitions against a bishop shall be heard, at the second, the decisions of the Council shall be made public. All decisions shall be in writing.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The Board of Incorporators, also known as the General Board of Trustees, has the supervision, in trust, of all connectional property of the Church and is vested with authority to act in behalf of the Connectional Church wherever necessary.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The General Board is in many respects the administrative body and comprises various departmental Commissions made up of the respective Treasurer/CFO, the Secretary/CIO of the AME Church, the Treasurer/CFO and the members of the various Commissions and one bishop as presiding officer with the other bishops associating.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The Judicial Council is the highest judicatory body of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It is an appellate court, elected by the General Conference and is amenable to it.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The Connectional Health Commission serves, among other tasks, to help the denomination understand health as an integral part of the faith of the Christian Church, to seek to make our denomination a healing faith community, and to promote the health concerns of its members. One of the initiatives of the commission is the establishment of an interactive website that will allow not only health directors, but the AMEC membership at-large to access health information, complete reports, request assistance. This website serves as a resource for members of the AMEC, and will be the same for anyone who accesses the website. Additionally, as this will be an interactive site, it will allow health directors to enter a password protected chat room to discuss immediate needs and coordinate efforts for relief regionally, nationally and globally.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: It is through this website that efforts to distribute information about resources and public health updates, and requests for services may be coordinated nationally. This will allow those who access the website to use one central location for all resource information needs.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The World Council of Churches estimates the membership of the AME Church at around 2,510,000; 3,817 pastors, 21 bishops and 7,000 congregations.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The AME Church is a member of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC), World Methodist Council, Churches Uniting in Christ, and the World Council of Churches.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The AME Church is not related to either the Union American Methodist Episcopal Church (which was founded in Delaware by Peter Spencer in 1813), or the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (which was founded in New York by James Varick). However, all three are within full communion with each other since May 2012.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The AME Church is divided into 20 districts, spanning North America and Bermuda, the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South America:


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: In May 2012, The African Methodist Episcopal Church entered into full communion with the racially integrated United Methodist Church, and the predominantly Black/African American members of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, African Union Methodist Protestant Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, and Union American Methodist Episcopal Church, in which these Churches agreed to "recognize each other's churches, share sacraments, and affirm their clergy and ministries", bringing a semblance of unity and reconciliation to those church bodies which follow in the footsteps of John and Charles Wesley.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: The AME Church is active regarding issues of social justice and has invested time in reforming the criminal justice system. The AME Church also opposes "elective abortion". On women's issues, the AME has supported gender equality and, in 2000, first elected a woman to become bishop. In 2004, the denomination voted to prohibit same-sex marriages in its churches, but did not establish a position on ordination. There are openly gay clergy ordained in the AME and "the AME Church’s Doctrine and Discipline has no explicit policy regarding gay clergy". In 2019, the Council of Bishops decided to allow a proposal to allow same-sex marriages in church to be considered at the General Conference in 2020. While debating marriage in 2021, the AME confirmed that, while the church does not allow same-sex marriages, "it does not bar LGBTQ individuals from serving as pastors or otherwise leading the denomination." The AME General Conference voted against a bill to allow same-sex marriages in church while also voting to approve a committee to explore and provide recommendations for changes to church doctrine and discipline and for pastoral care for LGBTQ people.


title: African Methodist Episcopal Church

text: During the 2016 General Conference, the AME Church invited Hillary Clinton to offer an address to the delegates and clergy. Additionally, the AME Church voted to take "a stand against climate change". AME Church works with non-partisan VoteRiders to spread state-specific information on voter ID requirements.


title: Aquafaba

text: Due to its ability to mimic functional properties of egg whites in cooking, aquafaba can be used as a direct replacement for them in some cases, including meringues and marshmallows. It is especially suitable for use by people who avoid eggs, such as vegans.


title: Aquafaba

text: In December 2014, musician Joël Roessel found that water from canned beans can form foams much like protein isolates and flax mucilage do. Roessel shared his experiments on a blog and published recipes for floating island of Chaville, chocolate mousse, and meringue made from chickpea liquid to demonstrate its foaming capabilities.


title: Aquafaba

text: Around the same time, vegan food enthusiast Goose Wohlt discovered that the cooking liquid can replace egg white without the need for stabilizers. In March 2015 he published a recipe for egg-free meringue using only chickpea liquid and sugar.


title: Aquafaba

text: A few days later, a Facebook group was created to encourage development and popularize the egg substitute.


title: Aquafaba

text: Aquafaba is used as a replacement for eggs and egg white. Its composition of carbohydrates, proteins, and other soluble plant solids which have migrated from the seeds to the water during cooking gives it a wide spectrum of emulsifying, foaming, binding, gelatinizing and thickening properties.


title: Aquafaba

text: In general one medium egg white can be replaced with 30 millilitres (2 tablespoons) of aquafaba, or one medium whole egg with 45 ml (3 tbsp).


title: Aquafaba

text: The simplest way to obtain aquafaba is to decant the liquid from canned or boxed legumes such as white beans or chickpeas. It also can be made by boiling, steaming, pressure cooking, or microwaving pulses in water.


title: Aquafaba

text: Sweet applications for aquafaba include meringues, macarons, nougat, icing, ice cream, fudge, and marshmallows. Savory applications include baked goods, dairy substitutes, mayonnaise, cheese substitutes, batters, and meat substitutes. Aquafaba is also recommended as a vegan substitute for egg white in preparing cocktails with a foamy "head", particularly sour cocktails like the whiskey sour.


title: Aquafaba

text: Aquafaba contains about one tenth of the protein of egg whites by weight. The difference in protein content may enable those who cannot properly metabolize proteins (such as phenylketonuria) to consume foods which are normally egg-based. The lower protein content makes it unsuitable for applications which rely on egg protein for structure, such as angel food cakes.


title: Aquafaba

text: The best aquafaba appears to be from chickpeas and white beans such as the Navy bean. Other legumes such as peas, lentils, soy, kidney, and black beans can be used but their slightly different compositions may require more tinkering with the concentration to work well.


title: Aquafaba

text: Legume seeds, or pulses, are primarily composed of carbohydrates (starch, sugars, and fiber), proteins (albumins and globulins), and water. The carbohydrates are found in greater quantities than the proteins; the starches consist mostly of amylose and amylopectin. A typical nutritional composition of chickpeas, is listed as 19% protein, 61% carbohydrate, 6% lipids, and 14% water. However, these amounts are approximate and can vary by variety. During the process of cooking legume seeds, the starches in the seed are gelatinized, allowing the soluble parts of the seed to leach out into the cooking water. More material can be extracted from the seeds, if both the cooking temperature and pressure are increased, as well as extending the cooking period.


title: Aquafaba

text: Once the legumes are cooked and filtered out, the water-soluble part left is aquafaba. Comparing the final composition of a cooked seed with a raw seed shows that under normal cooking conditions, approximately 5% of the initial dry weight has been transferred to the cooking water. The dry matter consisted mainly of carbohydrates (sugars, soluble and insoluble fibre) and protein. That ratio of soluble material is approximately the same ratio as found in the raw seed. However, fat and starch were not detected. A concentration of 5% dry weight to water is typical for aquafaba, but the solution can also be reduced to increase the concentration to 10% or more, depending on the application. This can be especially useful for applications where emulsification and viscosity are more important than foaming capabilities. The concentration can also be tailored to produce a more stable foam using less aquafaba by carefully filtering non-soluble material from the solution and adjusting the concentration to the application.


title: Aquafaba

text: In general, the composition of aquafaba depend on: 1. processing methods (soaking, cooking and industrial dehydration), 2. conditions (pH, temperature, pressure and treatment duration), 3. genotype (Kabuli or Desi chickpeas), 4. additives, 5. protein concentration, and 6. carbohydrate type and concentration.


title: The Death Cure

text: The Death Cure is a 2011 young adult dystopian science fiction novel written by American writer James Dashner and the third published in the "Maze Runner" series (the fifth and last in narrative order). It was published on 11 October 2011 by Delacorte Press and was preceded in publication order by "The Maze Runner" and "The Scorch Trials" and followed by the series prequels, "The Kill Order" and "The Fever Code".


title: The Death Cure

text: After being held in solitary confinement, Thomas is eventually released by Janson (nicknamed the "Rat Man"), who is the assistant director of WICKED (World In Catastrophe Killzone Experiment Department). Janson tells the Gladers (Group A) and Group B that most of their number are immune to the Flare, but some, whose names he reads, are not immune, including Newt. The Gladers are offered the chance to remove the mind-control chips in their heads and restore their memories but at the cost of Thomas's ability to communicate telepathically with Teresa and Aris. Only Thomas, Minho, and Newt choose not to undergo the surgery, as they do not trust WICKED, and Thomas does not want to know who he was when he helped to create the maze. All three of them escape from WICKED with the help of Brenda and Jorge before their chips are removed.


title: The Death Cure

text: Brenda and Jorge are revealed to be working for WICKED. Thomas initially feels betrayed, but Brenda reveals she only joined so she wouldn't be executed and reasons Teresa may have only betrayed him because of that too. Soon afterward, the Gladers discover that everyone who had undergone the memory restoration abandoned them. Newt gives Thomas a note and tells him to open it "when the time is right." The five then travel to Denver to find Hans, a former WICKED researcher who can remove their mind-control chips. There, a man in a black suit directs them to an address, where Gally is waiting for them. Gally has joined the rebel group the Right Arm and explains that WICKED is capturing every Immune that it can find to prepare another cycle of the Trials. He also reveals that in the decaying cities, many live who suffer from the Flare but take the illicit drug Bliss, which slows down the brain's functioning and helps to relieve the pain that Cranks feel from the Flare.


title: The Death Cure

text: The group finds Hans, who removes Minho's control chip. However, WICKED uses Thomas's chip to force him to resist the procedure. Brenda, Jorge, and Minho must hold him down so that Hans can perform the surgery. Afterward, the group visits a café, where a security guard apprehends Thomas to sell him to bounty hunters, who will take him to WICKED. Janson intervenes in a holographic, sends a police vehicle to rescue Thomas, and tells him that he must return to WICKED "to save Newt." Thomas and his friends find out in a note that Newt has been taken to the Cranks. Minho convinces them to go to the Denver Crank Palace to rescue Newt, where they bribe the guards to get in. When they meet Newt, he angrily orders them to leave, and the other Cranks chase them out. Thomas then remembers Newt's note, reads it, and discovers that he had begged Thomas to kill him. Thomas despairs over not having read the note earlier.


title: The Death Cure

text: After returning to Denver, Thomas sees that Newt has succumbed to the Flare. Thomas answers Newt's pleas by shooting him in the head as an act of mercy. The group then discovers that Teresa and the other Immunes have been captured. After knocking out the guards, they discover that the guards were led by Vince, the leader of the Right Arm, who explains that they are infiltrating WICKED's headquarters. Inside, Thomas discovers how Janson tried to use his attempt "to save Newt" to compile data for the cure by examining the physical structure of Thomas's brain, which would kill him. Thomas is forced to begin the deadly brain surgery but manages to plant a device that disables WICKED's weapons, which allows the Right Arm to begin storming the facility.


title: The Death Cure

text: Thomas wakes up to find a note from Chancellor Ava Paige, the head of WICKED, who explains there are already enough resources from the Trials to make a blueprint for the cure and so his brain is not needed after all. Paige reveals the location of the Immunes "sold" by the Right Arm to gain access to WICKED, and she gives directions to a "safe place" where Thomas should take all of them. Thomas and his friends re-enter the Maze and find the captured Immunes. However, they learn the Right Arm intends to destroy, rather than occupy, WICKED headquarters. Explosions rock the Maze, and falling debris kills some of the Immunes who are inside. Triggered by the commotion, the Grievers come out of storage, but Teresa shows Thomas how to shut them down. Thomas finds a back-door; which turns out to be a Flat Trans. They start herding the Immune kids through the Flat Trans but before Thomas and his friends can escape, Janson and the security guards corner them. They start a fight which ends when Thomas strangles Janson to death. However, Teresa also dies from falling debris to save Thomas's life. Fleeing the building, the Immunes escape through the Flat Trans that leads to a lush paradise. Minho becomes the technical leader, Brenda and Thomas start a relationship and the Immunes resolve to wait until everyone is dead so they can return to the old world.


title: The Death Cure

text: The epilogue is narrated by Paige. She reveals that after the catastrophic solar flares, the Flare was deliberately created and released by the government as a form of population control. However, the government and WICKED found themselves unable to control the plague. Paige came to realize that they would never be able to find a cure for the Flare and that WICKED's efforts were futile. She realized that the only hope of preventing humanity's extinction was for Immunes to start their society, away from the rest of the world. She devised a plan with Brenda and Jorge to send them to a safe place where they could restore human civilization and so she stated, "WICKED is good."