ABSTRACT
Raffaele’s own father had built up favourable links with several bankers of European stature. Andrea de Ferrari invested money with the De La Rües, Protestant bankers of Genevan origin who had settled in Genoa in the eighteenth century; with the Heaths, Protestants from London who had professional ties with the De La Rües and who had been working in Genoa since the end of the eighteenth century; and with the Odiers, whose one descendant, Gabriel, had opened a bank in Paris. Andrea de Ferrari also did business with Jacques Laffitte; with Jonas Hagerman from Geneva, another close associate of the De La Rües; and with Barthélémy Paccard, another Genevan who had founded a partnership limited bank in Paris in 1825. Aware of the potential the Parisian market offered in terms of yielding profits, Raffaele was faithful to the tradition established by his father and chose to invest his fortune, which he estimated at eight million lire, in France.
