soon induced others to copy them.

[Sidenote: Great firms]

Though the Italians invented modern banking they were eventually
surpassed by the Germans, if not in technique at least in the size of
the firms established. The largest Florentine bank in 1529 was that of
Thomas Guadegni with a capital of 520,000 florins ($1,170,000). The
capital of the house of Fugger at Augsburg, distinct from the personal
fortunes of its members, was in 1546, 4,700,000 gold gulden
($11,500,000). The average annual profits of the Fuggers during the
years 1511-27 were 54.5 per cent.; from 1534-6, 2.2 per cent.; from
1540-46, 19 per cent.; from 1547-53, 5.6 per cent. Another Augsburg
firm, the Welsers, averaged 9 per {521} cent. for the fifteen years
1502-17. Dividends were not declared annually, but a general casting
up of accounts was made every few years and a new balance struck, each
partner withdrawing as much as he wished, or leaving it to be credited
to his account as new capital.

[Sidenote: Risks of banking]

Though the Fuggers and other firms soon went into large business of all
sorts, they remained primarily bankers. As such they enjoyed boundless
credit with the public from whom they received deposits at regular
interest. The proportion of these deposits to the capital continually
rose. This general tendency, together with the habit of changing the
amount of capital every few years, is evident from the following table
of the liabilities of the Fuggers in gold gulden at several different
periods:

Year Capital Deposits
1527 . . . . . . . 2,000,000 290,000
1536 . . . . . . . 1,500,000 900,000
1546 . . . . . . . 4,700,000 1,300,000
1563 . . . . . . . 2,000,000 3,100,000
1577 . . . . . . . 1,300,000 4,000,000

A smaller Augsburg firm, the Haugs, had in 1560, a capital of 140,000
florins and deposits of 648,000. As all these deposits were subject to
be withdrawn at sight, and as the firms usually kept a very small
reserve of specie, it would seem that banking was subject to great
risks. The unsoundness of the method was counterbalanced by the fact
that most of the deposits were made by members of the banker's family,
or by friends, who harbored a strong sentiment against embarrassing the
bank by withdrawing at inconvenient seasons. Doubtless the almost
uniformly profitable career of most firms for many years concealed many
dangers.

The crash cam