The note's not going to be "as good as gold" unless it comes from a seriously reliable lender. You have to be confident that the lender exists, and that he'll p

The note's not going to be "as good as gold" unless it comes from a seriously reliable lender. You have to be confident that the lender exists, and that he'll pay out in good coin when you present the note; you also have to take into account the trouble of getting to the bank from where you are (which means, in practice, trading the note for a note from abroad drawn on a local bank), so paper from Venice is going to circulate below par in Hamburg and vice-versa. (It probably won't even be accepted in the countryside, where access to clearinghouses is almost nonexistent.) Paper from remote areas is basically worthless even in centers of civilization, likelier than not to be a scam; compare the later American "wildcat banks" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat_banking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat_banking). Fernand Braudel has some wonderful books on this subject -- the second and third volumes of Civilization and Capitalism (the storied Structures of Everyday Life is the first), plus his book on the Mediterranean in the age of Philip II.