Beck 271: "Over the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Genoese 'switched from commodities to banking' and eventually 'withdrew from commerce.' Now their profits would not come from raw materials or other goods but from the interest they could charge on loans made to others (among other financial instruments). [Giovanni] Arrighi calls this stage the 'financial expansion,' and in agreement with the French historian Fernand Braudel, he calls the switch from material to financial expansion a 'sign of autumn,' a clear signal that the city-states' power had matured, was now on the wane, and would eventually end."