And you need not to mislead people when you cite sources. Nothing in Hobson's book contradicts settled history about the beginnings of capitalism in Europe. Everything builds on everything else. Also, in case you didn't notice, Florence is also not Genova or Venezia. It's wealth was largely based on the wool trade with England, and its banking activities had to do with being, in effect, the national bank of various European "states".
See:
Renaissance Florence, Cradle of Capitalism
http://www.economist.com/node/13484709
The book they are discussing is Richard Goldthwaites, The Economy of Renaissance Florence:
https://www.amazon.com/Economy-Rena...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240881396&sr=8-1
Rational Capitalism in Renaissance Italy:
https://prezi.com/fnl85gww-zpy/capitalism-in-the-renaissance/
http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=pn_wp
From the above:
"What were the social and institutional factors that led to, and reinforced, theprecocious emergence of Florentine commercial capitalism,3 especially in the domain ofinternational merchant-banking? The dominant stream of answers, emphasized byeconomic historians and by economists, focuses on the invention in late-medieval andRenaissance Italy of a variety of innovative business techniques – bills of exchange,double-entry bookkeeping, partnership contracts, commercial courts."
There's nothing controversial or "nationalistic" about any of this. It is standard European history, as I was taught it in American universities by American professors with no ax of any kind to grind. Here, for example, is an outline for a university class. As you will see, the development of capitalism was indeed in some sense propelled by trade with the east. How does that change the fact that these new forms of economic organization, totally different from anything in the east, developed in these city-states?
See:
http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/266LecN.html
"
The capitalistic motive has always existed; however, after the fall of the Roman Empire, western civilization disintegrated and money all but went out of circulation for hundreds of years. At the height of the Crusades in the 12th and 13th centuries, soldiers returning from the Holy Lands not only brought back tales of the great and wonderful Muslim civilization they fought against but they also brought back a taste for earstern trade goods such as spices and silks. The Italian city-states gained notariety both for their work in ferrying the Crusaders from Europe over to Constantinople and the Holy Lands and for coming back on the return voyage loaded with those eastern goods. With the sack of a fellow Christian city, Constantinople, during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Venetians gained control over the failing Byzantine Empire for the next 50 years, together with all its wealth and its control over the east-west caravan routes. Thus, the Venetians became the earliest of the Italian city-states to gain the capital neccessary to finance both the Renaissance and overseas expansion"
"During the Renaissance, Italian merchants began to accumulate vast fortunes from east-west trade, they looked for ways to invest their capital."
" They began by lending it to various kings, who were always strapped for cash, so they could raise their own paid armies, thus liberating them from dependence on the feudal nobility for the raising of troops."
They also needed to develop structures and economic systems to make that money "work" for them, and they did.
I thought you had gotten over this sort of reflexive, anti-Italian nonsense, but I guess not. Personal prejudices like this do not advance reasoned discussion. It's also provocative and disruptive, so cut it out.