Company of Saint Paul

COMPAGNIA DI SAN PAOLO. – A charitable institution, also called the Compagnia della fede cattolica, founded in Turin on 25 January 1563 for the practice of charity and the defense of religion. For more than three centuries it was the driving force behind the major corporal and spiritual works of charity in the Savoy capital, from the care of women in danger to spiritual exercises and the operation of the Monte di pietà. Suppressed, or nearly so, during the Napoleonic period, it resumed its glorious religious and social traditions after the restoration of the monarchy in 1814. From 1853 onward, as credit activity through the Monte di pietà gained the upper hand, it gradually transformed itself, while retaining extensive charitable activity, into a banking institution, now of a national character (1932), known by the name of « Istituto di S. Paolo ».