The history of Italian, especially Tuscan finance in the late Middle Ages, has always been a particularly important topic of international historiography. A general opinion derived from more than a century of research holds that the Holy Roman Empire was uninteresting to the Italians for banking transactions—or, in the words of Arnold Esch, “While almost all of Europe was covered by a network of Italian-served piazze di cambio, from which bills of exchange could generally be found in all directions, i.e. cashless transfers, this system had a conspicuous hole east of the Rhine” (“Aus dem Alltag eines Ablasskollektors. Eine Reise durch Deutschland, die Niederlande und Österreich anhand der Buchführung 1470–1472,” in Päpste, Pilger, Pönitentiarie: Festschrift für Ludwig Schmugge zum 65, ed. Andreas Meyer, Constanze Rendtel, and Maria Wittmer-Butsch [2004], 124). Nevertheless, there was a need for financial transfers—on the one hand, from a church council to the delegates in Constance or Basel, and, on the other hand, to transfer annuities, indulgences, and tithe payments from German bishops and abbots to the curia. The places for handling such payment flows were Bruges and Venice, where “the German-Nordic and the Italian” payment systems met (407, 416)—the latter being far more elaborate and efficient.

Weissen takes up the doubts expressed by Wolfgang von Stromer about Esch's thesis. Stromer suspected that the payments from Germany were too significant in total for the Italian Bankers to not collect them directly at the place of origin. In this book, Weissen presents the results of many years of intensive archival research, primarily in Italy and especially in the holdings of the Alberti, Medici, and Spinelli banks. German sources could only be found in exceptional cases, mainly in Basel, Nuremberg, and in the archive of the Teutonic Order.

The introduction (chapter 1) deals with the subject area, the state of research, and the related archives. In the following chapter, on market attractiveness, Weissen shows on which legal foundations the money transfers from Germany to Rome were based and how comparatively small the payments from this area to Rome were in comparison to France, Italy, or Spain. The third chapter, on the means of money transfer, shows the possibilities of transferring purchasing power across the Alps. The transport of coins was significant, although naturally connected to high costs. Via bankers, there was the possibility of cashless transfers by bill of exchange. Venice and Bruges naturally lent themselves to such transfers, as substantial merchant groups from both language areas resided in these places since the thirteenth century. In the fourth chapter, on the curia banks active in the German market, Weissen names a large number of Italian banker families and documents their business in Germany. Cologne, Nuremberg, and Lübeck stand out as places with significant importance until a crisis and disconnection around the middle of the century.

In chapter 5, Weissen distinguishes market spaces in Germany. He sees no competition between the Italian bankers here but rather a subdivision of areas of engagement. The sixth chapter, on market space strategies, is short and deals mainly with trade-related aspects, such as the infrastructure used or the communications system. The conclusion bundles the results in a somewhat Solomonic judgment that both Esch and Von Stromer were right in their opposing positions, since the involvement of Italian curia banks in Germany was more intensive than Esch assumed, but that he was nevertheless right, in that payments from the Holy Roman Empire to Italy almost always took place via Bruges or Venice. An extensive excursus on trade practices and detailed remarks on the archival situation for relevant research, as well as impressive appendixes, conclude the work.

This book is undoubtedly a fundamental work that gives a profound insight into the role of the German area in the European—Italian-dominated—finance system of the late Middle Ages. The research efforts can be felt during the lecture, as a highly specific question was approached on the basis of a partly very rich, partly extremely fragmentary collection of sources. The reading of a complex topic, for which a rather heterogeneous archival material was collected, is sometimes not easy—but it yields many insights due to its connection to the overarching research questions as well as a convincing framing in the introduction and conclusion. This work significantly enriches our knowledge of late medieval financial history far beyond the German context.