Banche di frontiera. Credito e moneta sul confine italo-svizzero (secoli XIX-XX)

[Autom. eng. transl.] What was the historical process that led to the current definition of relations between Italy and Switzerland regarding foreign capital flows? The concept of frontier can help to frame these events in a particularly effective way. It does not have a unique meaning. The frontier is not a natural datum fixed in time but a construction, also symbolic; it transforms and does not disappear; separates but at the same time puts in contact. In the European experience, its barrier effect has often been highlighted. But the function of contact can sometimes be dominant over that of separation. What, then, is the real effect of a political limit on border territories? Switzerland, wedged in the heart of Europe, is a real laboratory for the variety of its border areas. This volume intends to offer an interpretation of how relations on the Italian-Swiss frontier have been transformed since the mid-nineteenth century, to reach the current challenges of globalization. At the center of attention are the intense banking and monetary relations that have always existed between Como and the Canton of Ticino, a history made up of interests that are often on the borderline between legality and illegality, which can however shed light on the historical evolution of the border and its long-term effects.