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The article focuses on the commercial development of Ancona, Italy between 1479 and 1551. The description of the changes that occurred in the commerce of Ancona is divided into three main periods. A base period, 1479-84, is first described and is then compared with two periods of the first half of the sixteenth century, 1500-27 and 1541-51. The first of these two latter periods is one of fairly rapid development whilst the second is one of consolidation of the earlier changes. Although overall there was very considerable commercial development in the city, this development seems to have had remarkably little effect on the basic economy of the city. Commercial development did not lead as it did elsewhere to much industrial and agricultural change, but was rather superimposed on an existing framework which probably remained similar in its outlines throughout. Ancona's contribution to trade outside the Adriatic consisted almost entirely of the dispatch of two or three ships each year to the eastern Mediterranean principally to Constantinople or Alexandria.

This article focuses on the growth registered by Italian lira in 1925. This growth represented a substantial upward revaluation of the average rate which the market had established during the previous four years and became the cornerstone of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's economic policies after 1925. The article argues that Mussolini and his advisers understood the economics of the situation; they used a variety of economic policies to prepare the domestic economy for the revaluation. Furthermore, Mussolini was aware of the economic consequences of the Quota Novanta but was prepared to accept them because the political pay-off was large. Through an upward revaluation of the lira, Mussolini was able to gain prestige for his regime and to demonstrate his absolute authority in political matters. At the same time, it dispels any misconceptions that fascist economic policies were designed to destroy private enterprise in Italy. Mussolini and the leading industrialists and financiers were able to coexist in harmony once Mussolini's political authority was recognized.