Tancredi Bianchi was the greatest Italian scholar of Banking of the XXth century, professor at Sapienza and then at Bocconi, banker and President of ABI. This article traces his academic path through his fundamental works and then proposes a conceptual map of his scientific thought. His most important insights are the role of capital in banks’ management, the use of accounts flow in the screening of creditworthiness, the preferability of prudential over structural supervision. These ideas are intimately linked in an overall vision that moves from the perspective of the Bank as a Company, extends to Corporate Finance, Financial Markets, Monetary policy. A vision fertilized by his experience as a manager of credit intermediaries.
