Anthony Adverse by Hervey Allen

Vincent Nolte was now doing most of the banking and financing for the port of Leghorn and the surrounding territory. He had been among the first to see that the struggle between England and France was going to be a long one, and to arrange his business accordingly. Regular trading had almost ceased, but there was considerable intermittent running of cargoes as the fortunes of war varied in and about the Mediterranean. Livorno had become the centre of this activity. Most of the travellers who came to Italy or crossed it still landed there. The profits on what cargoes did come into the port were enormous, and there was a large fleet of small craft, sloops and feluccas, that slipped from port to port, from Italy to France to Spain, and back again.

Vincent had promptly closed up the old merchant firm of Otto Frank and Co. about five years before and devoted himself to taking risks on cargoes. He made innumerable small loans to small shipowners at high rates. He took care of letters of credit, and slipped bills of exchange through the blockade whether it was the British or the French who were in the offing. In a short time he had concentrated in his hands a surprising volume of business. People in Rome, Florence, Genoa, and Venice depended upon him. The ruling families and bankers of the whole northern part of the peninsula now corresponded with him to transact innumerable affairs, from delivering letters to buying French wines or English manufactures for them or selling their oil. "Nolte can do it" rapidly became a byword.