Genoese lira — commercial and fuori-banco account

The story

The mint contract of 1141 specified payments in lire as well as production of local denari. Felloni traces the earlier accounting tradition from the Carolingian system through regional Pavia money to Genoa. This supports an ancestry connection, but the immediate intermediate unit and a conversion ratio remain uncertain. ^{[1] [2]}

The lira remained an account unit through changes in the coins that expressed it. Later Genoese practice distinguished commercial money outside the bank from banco money and the fiscal permesso account. Those distinctions arose within local accounting rather than from three unrelated origins. ^{[1] [4] [5]}

The later commercial lira continued into the nineteenth century. Existing evidence distinguishes legal changes from the later persistence of account practice; the end of Genoese minting is not a sufficient date for the disappearance of the account unit. ^[3]