By the fourteenth century markets for debt, and secondary markets for debt, equity, and mortgage instruments existed.2 Their development was accompanied by financial innovations such as bankruptcy laws distinguishing illiquidity from insolvency; double-entry accounting; deposit banking; and a reliable medium of exchange – the Venetian Ducat.
3 However, the emergence of alternative trade routes with the discovery of the New World and Vasco de Gama’s voyage to India endangered the economic supremacy of the Italian city. The Venetians were not blind to the changing geopolitical landscape.