France is frequently mentioned. The official representatives of the Florentine nation resided in the capital, while numerous houses established themselves in Lyons, in Avignon (since the removal of the Papal chair to this town), in Nismes, Narbonne, Carcassonne, Marseilles, &c. Large transactions were made in Upper Italy at Venice and Genoa, at Castel di Castro in Sardinia, in Apulia, Barletta, and at Palermo in the island of Sicily; Rome and Naples saw in the fifteenth century the greater part of the banking business and a considerable portion of other trade in Florentine hands. There were Florentine colonies in Majorca, at Tunis, at Chiarenza in the Morea, in Rhodes under the supremacy of the Knights of St. John, and in Cyprus under that of Guy de Lusignan; while Florentine merchants carried trade into Asia Minor, Armenia, the Crimea, far into Central Asia and Northern China. The house of the Peruzzi alone had sixteen counting-houses in the fourteenth century, from London to Cyprus. The prudence and careful calculation which were in general characteristic of the Florentine trade prevailed in everything relating to the transmission and receipt of money and the term of payments. Not only have we general rules from Balducci Pegolotti, in the first thirty years of the fourteenth century, as to how they should proceed in calculating the money to be paid abroad, but detailed notes on the fluctuations of the money market in consequence of fairs, expeditions of galleys, regular proceedings of the State, purchase of wool, etc., in the most important places, as Naples, Genoa, Bologna, Venice, Avignon, Paris, Bruges, Barcelona, etc. The Papal court, with which such extensive business was pursued—whether Rome or Avignon, or for the time another town, were its residence—seemed to the experienced Florentine to deserve especial remark. ‘Wherever the Pope goes, money is dear, because from all sides one has to pay so much to him. When he goes away, an ebb sets in, because the members of his court, if they are not rich, must borrow.’ The times when the bills fell due were regulated generally by the distance. An order drawn at Florence on Pisa or Venice was due on the fifth day after the money was paid in; in Rome and Genoa it was the fifteenth day; in Naples the twentieth; in Provence, Majorca, and France, the sixtieth; in Flanders the seventieth; in England the seventy-fifth; and in Spain, after three months. The contracting parties could, however, make arrangements at will.[47] According to the report of an annalist,[48] seventy-two exchange houses and tables were counted in Florence, in the Mercato Nuovo and its vicinity, in the year 1422, and the sum of money in circulation was calculated at two millions of gold florins; while the value of the wares, the letters of credit, and other property defied calculation.