Financial Vipers of Venice

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
Preface

PART ONE:
THE MARTYR, THE METAPHOR, AND THE MERCHANTS

1. Martyr to the Metaphor: Banksters, Bishops and the Burning of Bruno
A. Bruno's Life and Wanderings
1. The Return to Venice, and a Mystery
2. Disturbing Testimony and a Deepening Mystery: Bruno's Secret Society, the Giordanisti
3. The Roman Inquisition and Bruno's Execution
B. Bruno's Doctrine and the Ancient Metaphor
1. The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast
a. The Contradictory Moral Nature of Yahweh
b. Yahweh Not the First Cause: Man as Medium and Philosophers' Stone
2. Cause, Principle, and Unity and On Magic:
a. The Substrate and Magic
b. The Medium, The Metaphor
c. Bruno's Art of Memory

2. The Mind, The Medium, and Money: The Ancient Alchemical-Topological Metaphor of the Medium
A. The Origins of the Corpus Hermeticum
1. The "Author" of the Corpus Hermeticum
2. The Works in the Corpus Hermeticum
3. The Medicis, Ferrara-Florence, and Ficino
4. Isaac Casaubon and the End of Hermes Trismegistus
5. Epilogue: Modern Scholarship and the "End" of Isaac Casaubon
B. The Ancient Topological Metaphor of the Medium
1. Topological Preliminaries
2. In the Vedas
a. The Vedic Version of the Metaphor, and Sacrifice
3. The Metaphor in the Hermetic Tradition
4. Giordano Bruno and Other Renaissance Thinkers
C. The Religious, Political, and Financial Implications of the Hermetic Version of the Metaphor
1. Political and Religious Implications of the Coincidenta Oppositorum
a. The Atheistic and Theistic Interpretations
b. The Impersonal and Personal Interpretations
2. The Financial Implications

3. Serenissima Republica, Part One: A Brief History of Shady Dealings from the Foggy Swamp
A. The Euphrates Flowed into the Tiber: The Pre-History of Venice
B. A Brief History of Venice
1. Foggy Beginnings in a Swamp
2. The Influence of the East Roman, or Byzantine, Empire

a. The "Golden Bull" of 1082
b. The Fourth Crusade and the Venetian Sacking of Constantinople
(1) The Sequence
(2) The Speculation
c. The Fall of Constantinople (1453) and the Beginning of the Decline
3. The Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and Venice
4. The War of the League of Cambrai(1508-1516): the True First European General War
5. The End of the Most Serene Republic: Napoleon Bonaparte and His Peculiar Demands

4. Serenissima Republica Part Two: The Venetian Oligarchy: Its Methods, Agendas, Tactics, and Obsessions
A. The Structure and Methods of the Venetian Republic: The Major Families, Players, and Implications
1. The Methods of Empire
2. The Three Pillars of Venetian Power
3. The Venetian Oligarchical Families
4. The Suppression of Factional Infighting
B. The Council of Ten: Terrorism as a Matter of State Policy
C. Giammaria Ortes and the Origin of the Carrying Capacity Myth, and Other Oligarchical Memes

5. Conclusions to Part One

PART TWO:
MONETIZING THE METAPHOR, AND THE PYRAMID OF POWER

6. Retrospective: Brahma, Buddha, Babylon, and Greece
A. Debt, Sacrifice, and the Metaphor
1. Primordial Debt Theory: Brahmanism, Babylon, and Buddhism
2. Sumeria, The Breaking of the Tablets and the Jubilee: Pressingthe "Reset/Reboot" Button
3. Bullion, Coins, Militaries, and the "Military-Coinage-Slavery Complex"
B. Mind, Metaphysics and Money in Greece
1. Coins, and the Metaphor
a. The Stamp
b. The Idealized Substance and the Coincidence of Opposites
2. The Hidden Elite's Hand: Pythagoreanism
C. The Tally: Money as the Common Surface of the Metaphor

7. Law, Language, and Liability: The Persona Ficta of the Corporate Person in Theology and Finance
A. The Theological Part of the Story
1. The Central Verse and Crux Interpretum
a. The Greek and the King James
b. The Latin Vulgate and All Other English Translations

2. The Corporation, or Partnership, in Mediaeval Italian Law

B. The Financial Part of the Story: The Collapse of the Bardi and Peruzzi "Super-Companies" in the 1340s
1. General Considerations and Aspects of the "Super-Companies"
2. A Catalogue of Techniques: The Rise of the Peruzzi Company, and Mercantilism
a. Control Both Sides of a (Dialectical) Conflict
b. Accounting and Exchange Techniques
8. Florentine Fers-de-Lance, Peruzzi Pythons, and the Venetian Vipers: Reading Between the Lines of the Financial Collapse of the 1340's
A. Basics of Mediaeval Monetary System and the Venetian Bullion Trade
1. The Structure of Florentine Super-companies' Trade, and the Interface with Venetian Bankers
2. The Venetian "Grain Office" and the Council of Ten: Tools of the Oligarchs
3. The Venetian International Bullion Trade, or, Manipulating the Global East/West Gold/Silver Bullion Flow for Oligarchical Fun and Profit
a. Coins, Bullion, Mints, and "Seiniorage"
b. Banksters, Coinage, and Tactics of Manipulation of the Money Supply
c. Venice, the East/West Gold/Silver Flow, Moneys of Account, and Indicators of Manipulation During the Bardi-Peruzzi Crisis
B. A Further Meditation on the Topological Metaphor of the Medium: On the Financial Pyramid Version of the Metaphor

9. Maps, Money, and Monopolies: The Mission of Christopher Columbus
A. The Strange Case of the Piri Reis Map
1. Antarctica
2. Mediaeval Portolans
3. Maps from High Antiquity
B. Christopher Columbus' Voyages and the Hidden Cartographic Tradition
1. Piri Reis' Statements on Columbus
C. Some Further Speculations
1. Spain, Genoa, and Venice

10. Conclusions to Part Two

PART THREE:
EPILOGUE IS PROLUGUE:
THE ANNUITARY ASPS OF AMSTERDAM AND THE COLLATERALIZED COBRAS OF THE CITY OF LONDON, AND THE MOVE NORTHWARD


11. The Transference Northward to Germany and Holland


Appendix: he Missing Documents of Bruno's Trial: Napoleon Bonaparte, Pope Piux IX (Giovanni Cardinal Mastai-Ferreti), and the Implications
A. Bonaparte and the Masons
B. Giovanni Cardinal Mastai-Ferreti (Pope Pius IX)
1. Brief Notes
2. The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita Lodge
3. José Maria Cardinal Caro y Rodgriguez, Cardinal Archbishop of Santiago
4. A Sidelight from the Bavarian Illuminati
5. Fr. Malachi Martin on "The Bargain"