- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Profile Books (26 May 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1861977913
- ISBN-13: 978-1861977915
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.8 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 755,394 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Spectator, June 18, 2005
'hugely readable breadth and insight'
Product Description
The Medici are famous as the rulers of Florence at the high point of the Renaissance. Their power derived from the family bank, and this book tells the fascinating, frequently bloody story of the family and the dramatic development and collapse of their bank (from Cosimo who took it over in 1419 to his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent who presided over its precipitous decline). The Medici faced two apparently insuperable problems: how did a banker deal with the fact that the Church regarded interest as a sin and had made it illegal? How in a small republic like Florence could he avoid having his wealth taken away by taxation? But the bank became indispensable to the Church. And the family completely subverted Florence's claims to being democratic. They ran the city. Medici Money explores a crucial moment in the passage from the Middle Ages to the Modern world, a moment when our own attitudes to money and morals were being formed.To read this book is to understand how much the Renaissance has to tell us about our own world. Medici Money is one of the launch titles in a new series, Atlas Books, edited by James Atlas. Atlas Books pairs fine writers with stories of the economic forces that have shaped the world, in a new genre - the business book as literature.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Neither a borrower nor a lender be ...,
By
This review is from: Medici Money: Banking, metaphysics and art in fifteenth-century Florence (Paperback)
Medici Money is, in the author's words, "a brief reflection on the Medici of the fifteenth century - their bank; their politics; their marriages, slaves and mistresses; the conspiracies they survived; the houses they built and the artists they patronized." And so indeed it is, 250 smoothly readable pages, informed by a mind that might seem cynical were it not expressed with an acerbic wit.
Take, for example, Tim Parks on an occasion when the public debt was running out of control. "The government announces that from now on, interest returns on tax loans will only be paid when and to the extent possible. As a result, disappointed lenders in need of ready cash start selling their debt bonds to those speculators who can wait. The Domicans says this is usury and the Franciscans say it is not. What do we have different religious orders for, if not for a second opinion?" If the Medici didn't quite invent banking they worked hard to develop it. Not an easy task when the Roman church condemned lending money at interest as usury. Then there was the problem of moving money between branches established in other Italian cities and soon throughout Europe. To move money physically was too dangerous. The bankers became merchants, investing the money they held in commodities they could sell - they hoped - at a profit. The Letter of Credit was introduced, with cunning caveats to placate Rome - but nothing eased relations with the Pope more effectively than lending him money. The Medici were of necessity politicians, too, adept at manipulating power over Florence and relationships elsewhere. Five generations of the Medici family ran the bank from inception to collapse over a period that is neatly bounded by the fifteenth century. They accumulated wealth in a manner that may not have been usury but was close enough, and spent much of it preparing heir path to heaven by lavishing it on churches and decorating them with great art. Parks doesn't ignore the metaphysical paradox. "Even today there are many who believe that art is necessarily on the right side, and do not ask which bank sponsored it." Renaissance Italy is an overwritten area in European history, but there is always room for the work of a skilled story-teller. A light touch with serious subjects helps earn Medici Money an honourable place on a crowded shelf.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read before you go to Florence,
This review is from: Medici Money: Banking, metaphysics and art in fifteenth-century Florence (Paperback)
I bought this book in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence to read up on the family whose portraits form a centre piece of many of the rooms. I found it a fascinating and easy to read book on the early years of the Medici family. I wish I had read it before my trip to Florence as it would have given me more insight into the city. It is an 'easy' book but has led me to read further into the history of this family, in particular it only looks at the 100 years when the family ruled Florence and does not consider the later years of the dynasty. But it's a good holiday read for a trip to Florence.
1 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
I found this useless,
By
This review is from: Medici Money: Banking, metaphysics and art in fifteenth-century Florence (Paperback)
Not a whole lot to be said about this book except I found it next to useless.
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