In private banking, our ancestry all pretty much leads way back to the House of Medici, those fabulous bankers of the Renaissance and such seminal founders of modern finance techniques.

It’s rather like the Darby Arabian and Godolphin Barb, from which all today’s thoroughbreds are descended.

Today it is difficult to comprehend how powerful the Medicis were back in the day, e.g. the 1400s. At one point, they managed most of the great fortunes in Europe, from royalty to rich merchants and the church. There was even a time when the currency issued by the Medicis, the florin, was used throughout Europe as the preferred ...