page_title: Nacional Monte de Piedad
section_title: Origins and history
hierarchical_section_title: Nacional Monte de Piedad / The institution / Origins and history
caption_attribution_description: English: Inside of of the rooms of the National Monte de Pieded building just off the main plaza of Mexico City.
context_page_description: The Nacional Monte de Piedad is a not-for-profit institution and pawnshop whose main office is located just off the Zócalo, or main plaza of Mexico City. It was established between 1774 and 1777 by Don Pedro Romero de Terreros, the Count of Regla as part of a movement to provide interest-free or low-interest loans to the poor. It was recognized as a national charity in 1927 by the Mexican government. In the first decade of the 21st century, it is a fast-growing institution, with over 200 branches all over Mexico and plans to open a branch in every Mexican city.
context_section_description: The Monte di Pietà movement began in Perugia, Italy, in 1450 with the Orden de Menores Observantes de San Francisco. It had the aim of providing financial assistance to people in the form of no-interest loans.  Instead of interest, borrowers were urged to make donations to the Church.  It spread first through Italy then in other parts of Europe.  The first Monte de Piedad organization in Spain was founded in Madrid, and from there the idea was transferred to New Spain by Pedro Romero de Terreros, the Count of Santa María de Regla and Knight of Calatrava.  
  Terreros (1710–1781) was born in Spain and arrived to Mexico in 1730,  where he founded a number of enterprises including the Real del Monte silver mine in the modern-day state of Hidalgo. He founded the Sacro y Real Monte Pío de Animas between 1774 and 1777 with approval of the Spanish king Charles III, authorizing him the use of part of the College of Saints Peter and Paul, where the main office is today.  Terreros initially funded the project by donating 300,000 pesos  of gold. As with other Monte de Piedad institutions, Terrenos’s foundation did not charge interest on the loans that it gave and also urged borrowers to make donations to Church institutions, especially the College of Saints Peter and Paul. He also urged borrowers to attend church and pray as a way to help them spiritually as well as financially.
  Operations began in 1775 in the College of Saints Peter and Paul and where the current main office is now.   In 1818, Don Viceroy Apodaca ordered the evacuation of the building due to problems with the Independence movement but this did not happen until 1821, when King Ferdinand VII confiscated Jesuit properties.   The foundation moved to the Franciscan Convent of Saint Bridget that was on Juárez Avenue and San Juan de Letrán Street (now Eje Central). It moved again in 1836 to two houses on Empedradillo Street off a difference section of the Zocalo that were owned by the Duke of Monteleone,  a descendant of Hernan Cortés.  Some time after the College of Saints Peter and Paul moved to what is now the Colegio de San Ildefonso, the Monte de Piedad bought the old college structure and its original home from the Duke of Monteleone in 1836.  
  After Independence, the institution was sanctioned by the new government and gained its current name.  In the beginning of the 19th century, mismanagement, loans forced by the government and political unrest caused serious financial problems for Monte de Piedad. However, before the end of the same century, the institution was so financially solvent that it began to issue its own money (called confidential certificates of deposit) worth up to six million pesos in 1881.  In that same year, it opened its first branches in San Luis Potosí, Oaxaca and Puebla, but these closed within a short time. In 1927, by presidential decree, Monte de Piedad was declared legally as an institution of "Beneficiencia Privada" (private charity).
caption: One of the rooms inside the building
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