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Italy and Italians
Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence
Before they achieved renown as patrons of the arts and de facto rulers of Florence, the Medici family earned their fortune in banking. But even at the height of the Renaissance, charging interest of any kind meant running afoul of the Catholic Church’s ban on usury. Tim Parks reveals how the legendary Medicis—Cosimo and Lorenzo “the Magnificent” in particular—used the diplomatic, military, and even metaphysical tools at hand, along with a healthy dose of intrigue and wit, to further their fortunes as well as their family’s standing.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
238 people are currently reading
2910 people want to read
About the author
Tim Parks
121 books581 followersBorn in Manchester in 1954, Tim Parks grew up in London and studied at Cambridge and Harvard. In 1981 he moved to Italy where he has lived ever since, raising a family of three children. He has written fourteen novels including Europa (shortlisted for the Booker prize), Destiny, Cleaver, and most recently In Extremis.
During the nineties he wrote two, personal and highly popular accounts of his life in northern Italy, Italian Neighbours and An Italian Education. These were complemented in 2002 by A Season with Verona, a grand overview of Italian life as seen through the passion of football. Other non-fiction works include a history of the Medici bank in 15th century Florence, Medici Money and a memoir on health, illness and meditation, Teach Us to Sit Still. In 2013 Tim published his most recent non-fiction work on Italy, Italian Ways, on and off the rails from Milan to Palermo.
Aside from his own writing, Tim has translated works by Moravia, Calvino, Calasso, Machiavelli and Leopardi; his critical book, Translating Style is considered a classic in its field. He is presently working on a translation of Cesare Pavese's masterpiece, The Moon and the Bonfires.
A regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books, his many essays are collected in Hell and Back, The Fighter, A Literary Tour of Italy, and Life and Work.
Over the last five years he has been publishing a series of blogs on writing, reading, translation and the like in the New York Review online. These have recently been collected in Where I am Reading From and Pen in Hand.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 169 reviews
April 22, 2017
I highly recommend this book!
On a recent visit to Florence, my guide suggested several books to continue my learning of Renaissance Florence, including Medici Money. I am so glad she endorsed this book as it provides an excellent counterpoint to Paul Strathern’s The Medici: Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance, which I read to prepare for my trip to Florence. While Strathern’s book is entertaining and far-reaching in its scope (the Ewings from Dallas have nothing on the Medici when it comes to drama), that book bothered me with several of the author’s biases and prejudices, not least of which was his thinly veiled homophobia.
In contrast, Parks’ Medici Money narrows the scope of the book to focus only on the first four leading members of the Medici family: founder of the bank Giovanni di Bicci; mastermind Cosimo di Giovanni; Cosimo’s son Piero; and, Lorenzo il Magnifico. Parks deliberately organized this narrow scope so that he could help us better understand the brilliantly brief arc of the Medici bank’s history. And that is Parks’ point: the Medici family achieved success and upward mobility precisely because of their banks. Strathern, on the other hand, treats the Medici banking system as a device to move his narrative; he wishes only to tell a dramatic story about a famous family dynasty and their sphere of influence.
I admit that I struggled with the economics- and banking-focused chapters 1 and 2 of Medici Money, as those topics are not my strong suit. Nonetheless, I powered through them and made several fascinating connections to the modern day as I progressed through the book. Connections include:
• Cosimo’s (aka Cosimo the Elder) power structure in Florence reminds me very much of The Godfather. Parks acknowledges that analogy in the book, and further clarifies how Italian society still has that system of patrimony and favors for advancement.
• History proves the brilliance of the TV show The Wire. To wit, Parks sums up Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories: “Absolutely nothing is stable. People seem to be taking a certain pleasure in betrayal and complex trickery, almost as if such vices were a novelty. Yet for all the twists and turns of combat and conspiracy, at a deeper level nothing really seems to change.”
• Several of the defining causes of the Medici bank’s decline are fictionalized fantastically in Dorothy Dunnett’s book Niccolo Rising, the first in her House of Niccolo series. Tommaso Portinari as the Director of the Bruges branch of the bank and the alum monopoly in the Papal States are the two biggest examples.
• The Big Short connection: The Medici bank’s version of the mortgage-backed securities debacle unfolded largely for two bad decisions:
1 – Many of the Medici branches extended disastrous, unrecoverable loans to dukes and monarchs across Europe – Edward IV of England; Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold; and Duke of Milan Francesco Sforza, to name but a few. Without the delicate art of exchange that had been the cornerstone of the bank’s growth, loans to such figures doomed the Medici banks, just as they had several Florentine banks a century prior.
2 – Giovanni di Bicci had created the holding company organizational structure for the Medici banking system, which for many years was the cornerstone to the bank’s growth and success. As Parks explains, “Each branch was to be a separate company. The shareholders were: the branch director, to the tune of something between 10 and 40 percent, and then the Medici bank for the rest. Not the Medici family personally, and not the Florence branch, which had the same status as the other branches, but rather a separate holding company located in a separate office in Florence. In this way, a large number of capital-bearing partners could be brought in – one or two in each branch and one or two more important figures in the holding – without the Medici themselves ever losing control of either the parts or the whole.”
* The holding company organizational structure helped the Medici bank, for many years, to avoid the fates of the Peruzzi and Bardi Florentine banks in the 14th century.
* However, upon the death of Giovanni Benci in 1455, the holding company system disappeared from the Medici bank structure. Power devolved to the branch managers without centralized oversight and balanced management. Branch managers then began behaving like their Medici employers with lavish spending and extending the above devastating loans in efforts to align with and be close to powerful figures across Europe.
• In the vein of The Big Short, it would be interesting to find out more about the global financial impact of the closure of the Medici banks. Did it have the same impact that the consortium of banks worldwide had in the 20th and early 21st centuries with their sub-prime mortgage-backed securities scheme?
• Humanism’s iconoclastic impact: “Supremely eclectic, [Marsilio] Ficino’s humanism annihilated all divisions – this in stark contrast to the Christianity of the previous centuries, which had followed a single tradition, concentrated on an established canon of authors, yet managed to divide the world very sharply, perhaps depressingly, into good and bad, true and false, right and wrong, heaven and hell. This was why, for the humanists, the recent past had to be not so much argued with as surpassed, forgotten. It would not permit the thrill of the exotic, or a more personal selection of what to read and think. From now on instead, any argument would take place within a new zona franca where ancient met modern, East met West, and the excited mind was free to try out what it liked. Humanism, in short, unlocked the door to that supermarket of ideas we live in today.”
• Lorenzo the Magnificent was Florence’s Trump. He even had his own early Twitter feed when he used the printing press, newly arrived in Italy, to spread his propaganda (Renaissance alternative facts?) about the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici.
• Parks takes a much more critical stance toward Lorenzo the Magnificent than Strathern, considering Lorenzo to have mismanaged the bank with disastrous consequences. Parks makes a compelling argument that encourages further research and consideration. I added several of the books he references in his bibliography to my reading list for follow-up.
• The period of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s “rule” eerily echoes the behaviors of our society under this new administration: “It seemed a new sort of personality was in the making: that of the man who does not find it too much of a problem to be liberal and virtuous in private while toeing an authoritarian line in public. And perhaps this had come about in response to a new kind of society where public life would always involve a surrender of honest, if only because the basis of power would always be suspect, always require a constant effort of propaganda to assert its legitimacy.”
• The Medici type of international bank had a lot in common with le Carré’s character Richard Roper in The Night Manager as Parks explains: “The contrast alerts us to a condition essential to the development of international banks of the Medici variety: a certain laxity in the application of religious law, or, better still, a complete separation of church and state. In short, there is an affinity between money and eclecticism. ‘No man can serve two masters,’ says Jesus. But money can serve any number. It is no respecter of principles. Broken up into discreet and neutral units, value flows into any cup, a shower of gold into any coffer, be it in Constantinople, Rome, or Jerusalem. The idealist, whether Christian or Muslim, Communist or No-Global, must always be suspicious of money and banking. But the idealist is not to be confused with the ideas man. Quite the contrary. Admirably flexible, the humanist thinkers with their eclectic reading were notorious for finding authorities to justify whatever form of government best suited their paymasters.”
Parks’ Medici Money is a fresh perspective on Medici and Florentine history during the Medici bank’s heyday in the fifteenth century. His writing style is concise and pithy, making this a very quick read once I surmounted the mental challenge of medieval and early Renaissance economics.
On a recent visit to Florence, my guide suggested several books to continue my learning of Renaissance Florence, including Medici Money. I am so glad she endorsed this book as it provides an excellent counterpoint to Paul Strathern’s The Medici: Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance, which I read to prepare for my trip to Florence. While Strathern’s book is entertaining and far-reaching in its scope (the Ewings from Dallas have nothing on the Medici when it comes to drama), that book bothered me with several of the author’s biases and prejudices, not least of which was his thinly veiled homophobia.
In contrast, Parks’ Medici Money narrows the scope of the book to focus only on the first four leading members of the Medici family: founder of the bank Giovanni di Bicci; mastermind Cosimo di Giovanni; Cosimo’s son Piero; and, Lorenzo il Magnifico. Parks deliberately organized this narrow scope so that he could help us better understand the brilliantly brief arc of the Medici bank’s history. And that is Parks’ point: the Medici family achieved success and upward mobility precisely because of their banks. Strathern, on the other hand, treats the Medici banking system as a device to move his narrative; he wishes only to tell a dramatic story about a famous family dynasty and their sphere of influence.
I admit that I struggled with the economics- and banking-focused chapters 1 and 2 of Medici Money, as those topics are not my strong suit. Nonetheless, I powered through them and made several fascinating connections to the modern day as I progressed through the book. Connections include:
• Cosimo’s (aka Cosimo the Elder) power structure in Florence reminds me very much of The Godfather. Parks acknowledges that analogy in the book, and further clarifies how Italian society still has that system of patrimony and favors for advancement.
• History proves the brilliance of the TV show The Wire. To wit, Parks sums up Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories: “Absolutely nothing is stable. People seem to be taking a certain pleasure in betrayal and complex trickery, almost as if such vices were a novelty. Yet for all the twists and turns of combat and conspiracy, at a deeper level nothing really seems to change.”
• Several of the defining causes of the Medici bank’s decline are fictionalized fantastically in Dorothy Dunnett’s book Niccolo Rising, the first in her House of Niccolo series. Tommaso Portinari as the Director of the Bruges branch of the bank and the alum monopoly in the Papal States are the two biggest examples.
• The Big Short connection: The Medici bank’s version of the mortgage-backed securities debacle unfolded largely for two bad decisions:
1 – Many of the Medici branches extended disastrous, unrecoverable loans to dukes and monarchs across Europe – Edward IV of England; Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold; and Duke of Milan Francesco Sforza, to name but a few. Without the delicate art of exchange that had been the cornerstone of the bank’s growth, loans to such figures doomed the Medici banks, just as they had several Florentine banks a century prior.
2 – Giovanni di Bicci had created the holding company organizational structure for the Medici banking system, which for many years was the cornerstone to the bank’s growth and success. As Parks explains, “Each branch was to be a separate company. The shareholders were: the branch director, to the tune of something between 10 and 40 percent, and then the Medici bank for the rest. Not the Medici family personally, and not the Florence branch, which had the same status as the other branches, but rather a separate holding company located in a separate office in Florence. In this way, a large number of capital-bearing partners could be brought in – one or two in each branch and one or two more important figures in the holding – without the Medici themselves ever losing control of either the parts or the whole.”
* The holding company organizational structure helped the Medici bank, for many years, to avoid the fates of the Peruzzi and Bardi Florentine banks in the 14th century.
* However, upon the death of Giovanni Benci in 1455, the holding company system disappeared from the Medici bank structure. Power devolved to the branch managers without centralized oversight and balanced management. Branch managers then began behaving like their Medici employers with lavish spending and extending the above devastating loans in efforts to align with and be close to powerful figures across Europe.
• In the vein of The Big Short, it would be interesting to find out more about the global financial impact of the closure of the Medici banks. Did it have the same impact that the consortium of banks worldwide had in the 20th and early 21st centuries with their sub-prime mortgage-backed securities scheme?
• Humanism’s iconoclastic impact: “Supremely eclectic, [Marsilio] Ficino’s humanism annihilated all divisions – this in stark contrast to the Christianity of the previous centuries, which had followed a single tradition, concentrated on an established canon of authors, yet managed to divide the world very sharply, perhaps depressingly, into good and bad, true and false, right and wrong, heaven and hell. This was why, for the humanists, the recent past had to be not so much argued with as surpassed, forgotten. It would not permit the thrill of the exotic, or a more personal selection of what to read and think. From now on instead, any argument would take place within a new zona franca where ancient met modern, East met West, and the excited mind was free to try out what it liked. Humanism, in short, unlocked the door to that supermarket of ideas we live in today.”
• Lorenzo the Magnificent was Florence’s Trump. He even had his own early Twitter feed when he used the printing press, newly arrived in Italy, to spread his propaganda (Renaissance alternative facts?) about the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici.
• Parks takes a much more critical stance toward Lorenzo the Magnificent than Strathern, considering Lorenzo to have mismanaged the bank with disastrous consequences. Parks makes a compelling argument that encourages further research and consideration. I added several of the books he references in his bibliography to my reading list for follow-up.
• The period of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s “rule” eerily echoes the behaviors of our society under this new administration: “It seemed a new sort of personality was in the making: that of the man who does not find it too much of a problem to be liberal and virtuous in private while toeing an authoritarian line in public. And perhaps this had come about in response to a new kind of society where public life would always involve a surrender of honest, if only because the basis of power would always be suspect, always require a constant effort of propaganda to assert its legitimacy.”
• The Medici type of international bank had a lot in common with le Carré’s character Richard Roper in The Night Manager as Parks explains: “The contrast alerts us to a condition essential to the development of international banks of the Medici variety: a certain laxity in the application of religious law, or, better still, a complete separation of church and state. In short, there is an affinity between money and eclecticism. ‘No man can serve two masters,’ says Jesus. But money can serve any number. It is no respecter of principles. Broken up into discreet and neutral units, value flows into any cup, a shower of gold into any coffer, be it in Constantinople, Rome, or Jerusalem. The idealist, whether Christian or Muslim, Communist or No-Global, must always be suspicious of money and banking. But the idealist is not to be confused with the ideas man. Quite the contrary. Admirably flexible, the humanist thinkers with their eclectic reading were notorious for finding authorities to justify whatever form of government best suited their paymasters.”
Parks’ Medici Money is a fresh perspective on Medici and Florentine history during the Medici bank’s heyday in the fifteenth century. His writing style is concise and pithy, making this a very quick read once I surmounted the mental challenge of medieval and early Renaissance economics.
October 8, 2016
I thought this would be something about the financial part of the Medici history, in vein of Raymond de Roover’s The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397–1494, but the book tells all the same things other books say about ‘rise and decline, decline, decline of the Medici’. Too bad, even for a non-academic book. There are no references, but I suppose that most information comes from a very limited number of other books. In fact, the author's comments about the academic literature on the Medici betray his inability to comprehend real historical works. There is no structure, no central theme, as if only the total volume was important. Some events are described in detail, other equally important ones are omitted. There are many attempts to make jokes, but they are not funny at all, while thoughts about culture or philosophy are primitive. The author takes readers for idiots and tries to make everything seem too simple. He even has nothing better to describe the impact of the fall of Constantinople in 1453 than to compare it to September 11, which is like comparing the battle of Waterloo to the gunfight at the O. K. Corral.
December 23, 2025
Unhinged. That's all that can be said about this book.
I picked this up because Daniel Abraham said it was one of the books he read when researching banking for the Dagger and Coin series. And yes, this book is ostensibly about both banking and the Medici family.
HOWEVER. This book is written like a series of Tumblr posts. Seriously. Park's absolutely unhinged authorial voice is so incredibly distracting. He, *in a published and acclaimed work of nonfiction*, literally says '30% of Florentines paid no tax at all, because destitute'. He does this more than one time. Am I reading a high schooler's Livejournal? Is Medici Money a series of memes? It's SO BIZARRE.
The first chapter is worth a read if you are interested in the economics of the time period and how banking worked then, as well as how everyone got around the 'no usury' laws. After that, though, it is an extremely labyrinthine history of the time period--both of Italy generally and the Medici family specifically--and it's nearly impossible to follow. Way way way too many similar names with almost no context with very little point that I can see other than: hey, guys, money shouldn't be wrapped up in politics probably. And, as Spencer put it, always have a holding company.
Don't read this if you want a history of the Medici book. Read the first chapter and maybe the second if you're interested in banking. Read the whole thing if you wish more people talked about 15th century Florence on their Xanga.
I picked this up because Daniel Abraham said it was one of the books he read when researching banking for the Dagger and Coin series. And yes, this book is ostensibly about both banking and the Medici family.
HOWEVER. This book is written like a series of Tumblr posts. Seriously. Park's absolutely unhinged authorial voice is so incredibly distracting. He, *in a published and acclaimed work of nonfiction*, literally says '30% of Florentines paid no tax at all, because destitute'. He does this more than one time. Am I reading a high schooler's Livejournal? Is Medici Money a series of memes? It's SO BIZARRE.
The first chapter is worth a read if you are interested in the economics of the time period and how banking worked then, as well as how everyone got around the 'no usury' laws. After that, though, it is an extremely labyrinthine history of the time period--both of Italy generally and the Medici family specifically--and it's nearly impossible to follow. Way way way too many similar names with almost no context with very little point that I can see other than: hey, guys, money shouldn't be wrapped up in politics probably. And, as Spencer put it, always have a holding company.
Don't read this if you want a history of the Medici book. Read the first chapter and maybe the second if you're interested in banking. Read the whole thing if you wish more people talked about 15th century Florence on their Xanga.
August 18, 2024
beklentilerimi hiçbir şekilde karşılamayan bir kitap oldu maalesef. Tim Parks'ın sevdiğim yazım tarzı ile Medici ailesine dair bilmediklerimi öğreneceğimi sanıyordum ama yanılmışım. kitabın alt başlığı bankacılık, siyaset ve sanat olunca bu temalarla yazılmış bölümler okuyacağım herhalde demiştim. kitapta sanata dair neredeyse hiçbir şey yok, Floransa'ya gitmemiş ve başka kaynaklardan bir şeyler öğrenmemiş olsam Medici ailesinin sanatla çok ilgili olduğunu anlamayabilirdim, o kadar az şey var sanata dair. politika başlığını da o kadar dağınık o kadar kopuk anlatmış ki ilginizi çeken bir konu varsa bile doğru anlatılmadığı için gözünüzden kaçabilir. bankacılığa gelecek olursak hem kopuk hem de aşırı teknik ve örnek vermeden anlatmış dolayısıyla bu alanla ilgili ve eğitimli değilseniz anlamanız çok mümkün değil. üstüne bir de çeviri de çok çok kötü, bazı cümlelerde ne dendiğini anlamadım bile.
July 25, 2021
Tim Parks gerçekten okuması keyifli bir yazar. Floransa'ya yolu düşen herkesin bildiği gibi Medici'ler Rönesans döneminde oldukça katkısı olan bir aile. Bu değirmenin suyu nereden geliyordu peki diye merak ediyorsanız, kurdukları bankayı ve dönemin diğer para dinamiklerini anlatıyor. Esprili ve oldukça akıcı sade bir İngilizceyle yazılmış, bayiinizden ısrarla isteyin bence.
September 18, 2023
Parks’ı edebiyat çalışmalarıyla tanıdığım için kitaba başlarken bu kadar iyi bir tarihçilik beklemiyordum. Bazı yorumlarda genel olarak bekleneni vermediği söylenmiş. Bunun nedeni Uffizi Müzesi. Uffizi mimarisi ve kataloğuyla muazzam bir müze. Medicilerin insanlığa armağanı olarak bilinir. Haliyle okurlar sanat hamisi Medicileri okumak istiyor. Tim Parks ise aileyi o zenginliğe ulaşma yollarıyla anlatıyor. Parks lafı dolandırmadan, yan yollara sapmadan yapıyor. Bankacılık faaliyetinin aslında zenginlere yapılan tefecilik olduğunu ilk bölümden söylüyor. Marksist perspektifle ailenin sınıfsal bir parlama yaşadığını anlatıyor. Sanata yapılan yatırımlar halk için takdir edilecek bir şey olsa da hepsi zenginliği göstermek için yapılır. İtalya’ya giden çoğu insanın rotasında olan rönesans bahçeleri bunun en güzel örneğidir. Villa d’Este, Villa Farnese hemen hepsi rönesans ruhunu yansıttığı için takdir edilse de bunlar papalık isteyen zenginlerin gösterisidir. Parks Medici Ailesi’nin faaliyetlerini de bu eksende anlatıyor. Çok muzip bir dili var. Zengin hastalığı gutu sürekli hatırlatıyor. Aile gut hastalığından muzdarip hatta Piero il Gottoso yani gut hastası Piero olarak anılıyor içlerinden biri.
İtalyan Şehir Devletleri’nin rekabetlerini milliyetçilikten arındırıp sınıfsal olarak bakmamızı sağlıyor. Kitapta Medici Ailesi’nin ayrıntılı bir tablosunu çıkaramayacağını kendisi de söylüyor, okumaya devam ettikçe amacının Medicileri didik didik etmek olmadığı da anlaşılıyor. Sanatla özdeşleşmiş ailenin ayakları yere basan bir tablosunu çiziyor.
İtalyan Şehir Devletleri’nin rekabetlerini milliyetçilikten arındırıp sınıfsal olarak bakmamızı sağlıyor. Kitapta Medici Ailesi’nin ayrıntılı bir tablosunu çıkaramayacağını kendisi de söylüyor, okumaya devam ettikçe amacının Medicileri didik didik etmek olmadığı da anlaşılıyor. Sanatla özdeşleşmiş ailenin ayakları yere basan bir tablosunu çiziyor.
January 30, 2022
Tim Parks harika. Kitap güzel. Ama yayınevinin redaksiyona olan hassasiyetini sorgulamamak elde değil. Misal, nasıl "arka fon" diye bir şey yoksa "geri iade" diye bir şey de yok. Ellerinize sağlık, her zaman sadık bir okurunuz olacağım...
November 20, 2025
I bought this book at the Rome airport, which had a very limited English language section. I now know way more than I need to about 15th century European banking practices and the Medici family. 😄
March 13, 2010
For the last few months I've been studying Italy during the Renaissance. And I've been researching it in the only logical way for a studious college grad to study anything: wikipedia.
Well, not JUST wikipedia. Also, other Renaissance-focused websites that I could never reference if writing an article for ANYTHING. Fortunately, the research isn't for any kind of reputable writing. It's for the fantasy novel I've been slowly brewing these past few months. Subjects I need to study for this book: the Catholic church and Italy during the 1400's (the fifteenth century in general, actually); the spiritual traditions of Native Americans from the Great Plains; possibly Napoleon, if I get super ambitious. No, trust me, in makes sense. Anyway, if any goodreaders out there have any recommendations on any of these topics, please shoot them my way.
On to the book in question: Medici Money. This was a fascinating and witty look at the rise and fall of family Medici, the family that had nearly monarch-like control of Florence at a time when the appearance of republicanism was a central part of Florence's identity. Despite the constant flux of people in and out of power (the council in charge was 'randomly' determined, and changed every TWO MONTHS), the Medicis managed to control a vast amount of the goings-on in Florence. For most of a century.
Tim Parks's writing is witty, entertaining and vivid. But, he doesn't cite sources! This was a constant source of frustration for me, although he has an afterword discussing other good books on the subject of the Medicis. It was an enjoyable enough book for me to look past the lack of sources and simply hope Tim Parks is honest.
His style makes this every bit as entertaining as it is informative. His voice is conversational, with occasional digressions, lots of sentence fragments, and several moments where he vividly describes the scene---smells, colors, sounds---surrounding the book's characters. Speaking of characters, he paints Cosimo and Lorenzo Medici vividly, providing insight into their characters without either villainizing them or drooling all over their robes. The other Medicis in between aren't given as much detail, but he's clearly chosen to focus on the most interesting two.
That said, the book screeches to an end without much warning. And, after reading the whole thing and hearing about this family that suffered from crippling gout, I still have no idea what gout is. Back to wikipedia!
Did you know? Peasants in Florence were required to wear just one color of clothing at a time. And there were strict limits on the numbers and types of buttons peasant women could wear. Also, the wealthy exchanged a form of currency called the florin, while the poor were paid in a completely separate currency. Because of a ridiculous exchange rate, it was entirely impractical to convert your money from this lesser currency into florins. Thus, the peasants were kept in place by their currency, in addition to everything else keeping them down.
Anyway, I'm glad to have stumbled across this terrific little book. It's a fast, entertaining read, with a lot of irony and intrigue packed in. If the subject matter interests you, you really should seek this book out.
Well, not JUST wikipedia. Also, other Renaissance-focused websites that I could never reference if writing an article for ANYTHING. Fortunately, the research isn't for any kind of reputable writing. It's for the fantasy novel I've been slowly brewing these past few months. Subjects I need to study for this book: the Catholic church and Italy during the 1400's (the fifteenth century in general, actually); the spiritual traditions of Native Americans from the Great Plains; possibly Napoleon, if I get super ambitious. No, trust me, in makes sense. Anyway, if any goodreaders out there have any recommendations on any of these topics, please shoot them my way.
On to the book in question: Medici Money. This was a fascinating and witty look at the rise and fall of family Medici, the family that had nearly monarch-like control of Florence at a time when the appearance of republicanism was a central part of Florence's identity. Despite the constant flux of people in and out of power (the council in charge was 'randomly' determined, and changed every TWO MONTHS), the Medicis managed to control a vast amount of the goings-on in Florence. For most of a century.
Tim Parks's writing is witty, entertaining and vivid. But, he doesn't cite sources! This was a constant source of frustration for me, although he has an afterword discussing other good books on the subject of the Medicis. It was an enjoyable enough book for me to look past the lack of sources and simply hope Tim Parks is honest.
His style makes this every bit as entertaining as it is informative. His voice is conversational, with occasional digressions, lots of sentence fragments, and several moments where he vividly describes the scene---smells, colors, sounds---surrounding the book's characters. Speaking of characters, he paints Cosimo and Lorenzo Medici vividly, providing insight into their characters without either villainizing them or drooling all over their robes. The other Medicis in between aren't given as much detail, but he's clearly chosen to focus on the most interesting two.
That said, the book screeches to an end without much warning. And, after reading the whole thing and hearing about this family that suffered from crippling gout, I still have no idea what gout is. Back to wikipedia!
Did you know? Peasants in Florence were required to wear just one color of clothing at a time. And there were strict limits on the numbers and types of buttons peasant women could wear. Also, the wealthy exchanged a form of currency called the florin, while the poor were paid in a completely separate currency. Because of a ridiculous exchange rate, it was entirely impractical to convert your money from this lesser currency into florins. Thus, the peasants were kept in place by their currency, in addition to everything else keeping them down.
Anyway, I'm glad to have stumbled across this terrific little book. It's a fast, entertaining read, with a lot of irony and intrigue packed in. If the subject matter interests you, you really should seek this book out.
December 26, 2021
Echt een saai boek. Tot de helft gekomen en me toen gerealiseerd dat deze guy gewoon ALLEEN maar over de aller saaiste mensen uit de medici familie gaat hebben en gwn letterlijk geen enkele zin over een vrouw gaat schrijven behalve als het om trouwen of een affaire gaat like plsss boeken uit de kringloop halen is leuk maar probleem is dat het negen van de tien keer dit soort stomme dingen zijn. Niet aanbevolen!!! Fijne dagen!!!
November 30, 2025
Tim Parks Demonstrates How The Medici Were Able To Dominate Financial Affairs During The Renaissance By Utilizing The Art Of Exchange.
Tim Parks' Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence seeks to offer an accessible and engaging economic history of one of the wealthiest, most influential banking families of the Italian Renaissance - the Medici successfully navigated the treacherous path to political power and rose to become the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, also producing two Catholic Popes, Leo X and Clement VII, and two queens - Catherine and Marie de'Medici, both of whom married into the Royal House of France. Their majestic line ended in the eighteenth century, the Italian Settecento, with the death of Grand Duke Gian Gastone de' Medici on 9 July 1737.
This mass market paperback edition of Tim Parks' Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence is part of Atlas Books' Enterprise Series, and was originally published in 2006 by W.W. Norton & Company. The 247-page main text is divided into six chapters of moderate length and features twelve photos of Medici artwork and sculpture, a Medici family tree and chronological list of events followed by some short bibliographical notes and an index. There is no bibliography, but the notes explore a number of the author's suggestions for further reading.
In Chapter 1, With Usura..., Parks utilizes the writings of Ezra Pound, Francesco Guicciardini, Dante Aligheri and others to help illustrate the damaging social stigmata that financial institutions suffered at the hands of the Catholic Church during the Middle Age and Renaissance periods, largely due to the canon regulations prohibiting the practice of usury, or collection of interest arising from banking transactions. These policies existed to protect the borrower from predatory lenders, but the banks circumvented them and devised new methods to take advantage of their clients, generating more money than if the laws had never existed to begin with.
The author discusses a method known as a discretionary deposit, in which a clergyman would entrust a large sum to a bank which bypassed the usury law by substituting the interest for a gift, which he would then receive as a gratuity from the firm for his investment after a predetermined period of time. The size of these gifts was calculated in exactly the same way an interest rate was used to assess financial appreciation.
He also addresses how the ready access to banks in towns and cities led to citizens' wealth becoming detached from their communities, as they would deposit large sums of cash and the firms would use the funds to supply kings and princes with enormous loans, finance overseas ventures, or else they would be paid out against other clients' letters of credit. The wealth would travel, and could end up in an entirely different place within a very short amount of time. "Usury alters things. With interest rates, money is no longer a simple and stable metal commodity that just happens to have been chosen as a means of exchange. Projected through time, it multiplies, and this without any toil on the part of the usurer. Everything becomes more fluid. A man can borrow money, buy a loom, sell his wool at a high price, change his station in life." The author also emphasizes Giovanni di Bicci de'Medici's early career in finance and his founding of the Medici Bank of Florence, stressing the key roles his progeny played during its roughly one-hundred-year lifespan. Unlike his son Cosimo, Giovanni largely shunned political life, advising his firstborn to steer clear of the public eye while on his deathbed in 1429.
In Chapter 2, The Art of Exchange, the author includes a brief overview of the Renaissance period's three types of financial establishments - pawnshops, denoted by the red cloth hanging above their doorways, could not escape being labeled usurers, as they accepted material items in exchange for interest-based loans, and in Florence they were annually subjected to a collective fine of 2,000 florins; the banche minuto (small banks) were jewelry vendors who also coordinated scheduled payments and accepted nominal deposits; and the large banks, the banche grosso, conducted a high volume of exchange transactions, also participating in underwriting and venture trading in addition to owning side businesses, all of which provided them with additional income. The Medici's unique role as papal bankers is also discussed in this chapter, focusing on their relationship with Baldassare Cossa, who became the antipope John XXIII. Cossa was a high-ranking cleric who enjoyed the Medici's loyal support both during his election and after his imprisonment, despite the numerous misdeeds he committed while in papal office.
The currency exchange process during the Renaissance was a complex series of money-changing transactions that the banche grosso were forced to engage in if they wanted to avoid damnation and the stigma of usury but still generate revenue, by camouflaging their interest fees within an exchange fee that was deemed to be acceptable by the church. The fee was then documented onto a note of exchange, or cambiale, which would change hands numerous times and cross great distances before being finalized.
Medici Money's accessible explanation of the exchange method is more than sufficient for those not planning on devoting hours towards the topic, but if a technical breakdown of the process is desired, the reader would benefit tremendously by reviewing chapters two and eight in Professor Raymond de Roover's The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397-1494. Having read that study, it was impressive to note that Mr. Parks' cited statistics and figures correspond to those found in de Roover's more formal monograph. The author of Medici Money most assuredly did thorough research writing his wonderful book which is perfect for readers new to the subject, and for enthusiasts it offers a lively and eclectic alternative to the traditional academic format.
The author introduces an array of unique, unconventional topics in Chapter 3, The Rise to Power, among them Florence's struggle to retain control of its territories during the Wars in Lombardy, a series of conflicts waged between Italian city-states which preceded the Peace of Lodi in 1454. The Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, was undertaking a series of campaigns to expand his already-considerable domains, and he defeated the Florentines in a crucial battle at Zagonara, a bitter loss for Florence that was fought during a pouring rainstorm. Venice was attempting to consolidate its mainland territories, known as the Terraferma, by seizing smaller, more vulnerable cities such as Verona and Brescia, because of the increased security of having a "buffer state" which protected the lagoon city from immediate danger.
The campaigns were being led by a group of independent mercenary captains known as condottieri, and these soldiers-for-hire offered their services to the governments of free republics and the lords of city-states via binding contracts called condotte, but they were just as likely to betray their employers if the momentum turned against them. Paying the condotte of the renowned commander Niccolò Piccinino required the Florentine government to raise substantial levies and eventually institute a highly unpopular property and asset tax known as the castato to fund his expensive salary. After being captured at Faenza, Piccinino negotiates his way out of gaol, but then reneges on his word and joins Filippo Maria Visconti to fight against his erstwhile allies. The author has included a pair of maps depicting the political boundaries of Italy's city-states circa 1490 and Florence's territorial possessions as of 1494.
Parks' decision to periodically quote from Niccolò Machiavelli's Florentine Histories provides a stylistic backdrop to crucial events such as Florence's Ciompi Revolt of 1378, helping to illustrate the city's misfortune with hiring mercenary commanders and its citizens' dissatisfaction with their government's onerous taxation. The author moves briskly between topics, establishing the idea of an unstable political environment that was the perfect situation for an ambitious parvenu such as Cosimo de'Medici to begin amassing power and influence. The mere two-month term of office for Florentine governmental appointees during the Quattrocento was insufficient to achieve substantial results, and the reigning faction leader Rinaldo degli Albizzi was frequently absent from the city, leaving Cosimo with a golden opportunity to maximize his tenure on Florence's Council of War and provide 150,000 florins in governmental loans to help fund the ongoing war effort.
Chapter 4, "The Secret Things of Our Town" canvasses the public and private life of the early Renaissance's most influential powerbroker, Cosimo de'Medici, focusing on the Medici Bank's financial growth and expansion, and the political chess match Cosimo became entangled in as his family vied with the Albizzi for control of the Florentine government. Cosimo attempted to fix a trade imbalance affecting the bank's Rome branch by opening additional branches in Bruges and London and replacing the Bardi with the Portinari as general managers, also becoming involved in intranational affairs by politically and financially backing the renowned condottiere Francesco Sforza. His close relationship with Sforza was one of the primary contributing factors to the brilliant Italian entente which came to be known as the Peace of Lodi in 1454.
In addition to his other accomplishments, Cosimo de'Medici was a highly lauded philanthropist and active patron of the arts who contributed 10,000 florins towards the renovation of Florence's Monastary of San Marco, a monumental seven-year project which took from 1436-1443 to complete. The man who would become Florence's beloved Pater Patriae spared no expense in the monastery's decoration - Cosimo hired renowned Renaissance artists to paint breathtaking murals and frescoes, such as Fra Angelico's San Marco Altarpiece and Benozzo Gozzoli's Adoration of the Magi. During the 1440s Cosimo enlisted the services of the Florentine sculptor Donatello to fashion the iconic bronze sculpture, David, which originally decorated the courtyard of his private palace, the Palazzo Medici, but is now housed in Florence's Bargello art museum. Cosimo de'Medici lived such a prolific and eventful life that to encapsulate every aspect of it into a single biography would be an impossible task, but Parks highlights two studies which interested the reviewer - Dale Kent's Cosimo de'Medici and the Florentine Renaissance and Nicolai Rubenstein's The Government of Florence Under the Medici (1434 to 1494) - both of these titles explore the magnate's patronage in art and his political career, respectively.
Cosimo de'Medici's death in 1464 generated shockwaves which reverberated throughout the Florentine economic landscape, and created a period of political instability and social unrest. In Chapter 5, Blue Blood and White Elephants, the author explains how Piero de'Medici successfully overcame a conspiracy plot involving the Duke of Ferrara, Borso d'Este, and afterwards attempted to salvage his family's failing fortunes and rescue the Medici Bank from financial disaster.
Piero de'Medici's financial tribulations within the Medici Bank had arisen due to the fact that he was related by marriage or by circumstance to several underperforming executives and branch managers. Tommaso Portinari and Francesco Sassetti, men with years of banking experience, had steadily grown less interested in the bank's fiscal success and more concerned with becoming members of the Florentine nobility, a goal they hoped to achieve by living extravagant lifestyles, amassing private wealth, and commissioning expensive paintings of themselves so they could impress the European lords and potentates who were bleeding the bank into financial ruin. The grim reality of this unfortunate scenario was that these individuals had become impossible to get rid of and expensive to keep. Tommaso Portinari, the manager of the Bruges branch, made an unsound decision to purchase a yearly 16,000-franc wool contract in the northern French town of Gravelines, only to have the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, outlaw the import of English wool, which devastated the market and brought the branch's income to practically nothing by 1471.
Chapter 6, The Magnificent Decline commences with Lorenzo the Magnificent receiving a proposition from Pope Paul II, offering him a lucrative opportunity to reverse the Medici Bank's downward economic slide by forming a partnership with the Catholic Church and becoming involved in the mining of alum, a valuable mineral used to aid in the process of dying clothing. A substantial supply had been discovered near the town of Tolfa around 1460, and Pope Paul hoped to establish a cartel that would eliminate Italy's reliance on Turkish alum and generate tremendous profits for the Church and its partners in the bargain.
This monopoly was predicated upon the casus belli that the Pope would threaten with excommunication anyone who purchased or imported alum from a non-Italian source, thus obligating Western Christendom to adhere to the astronomical prices established by Pope Paul and the Medici's cartel. Unfortunately for the monopolists, many of the European lords simply accepted excommunication and began importing inexpensive Turkish alum, which the Ottoman Empire was all too happy to sell to them. Meanwhile, the miniscule profits which managed to trickle into the bank's coffers immediately became paid out in loans to those very same lords.
The author discusses Lorenzo the Magnificent's gradual evolution from carefree adolescent to hardened Renaissance statesman, also expounding upon the ruler's lifelong relationships with prominent period humanists such as Marsilio Facino, whose writings greatly influenced his patron's political and cultural views and likely led to Lorenzo's composition of his own treatise, which was entitled, The Supreme Good. Instead of concentrating of political motives, a topic that has been done well in many books, Parks interestingly focuses on the economic factors behind the famous Pazzi Conspiracy of 1468, which was a complex, multi-faceted plot involving Pope Sixtus IV, his nephew Girolamo Riario, and many others.
The Medici Bank's financial woes were only compounded by the respective deaths in 1476 and 1477 of Galeazzo Maria Sforza and Charles the Bold, as both lords had owed astronomical sums of money to the firm, and their families were not in any hurry to pay their debts. Near the end of the book Parks provides an interesting comparison between Lorenzo de'Medici and the Ferraran friar, Girolamo Savonarola, juxtaposing Lorenzo's successful power play to have his son Giovanni appointed to the Cardinalate against the Dominican's ecclesiastic's outright refusal of the rank for reasons of pious devotion.
Overall, Tim Parks' Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence is a wonderfully written, accessible and engaging way for readers from all avenues to learn the financial history of one of the most politically and economically influential families of the Italian Renaissance. Its six chapters showcase a diverse assortment of writing styles and methods of presentation, with some resembling the traditional historical narrative while others demonstrate the author's admirable ability to discuss a succession of loosely related topics effectively. There is a wealth of worthwhile economic history to be found herein, and Mr. Parks has done exceptional work ensuring that his historical information and financial data are accurate and correspond to the more specialized works from which he has very likely conducted his research. Thank you so much for reading, I hope that you enjoyed the review!
Tim Parks' Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence seeks to offer an accessible and engaging economic history of one of the wealthiest, most influential banking families of the Italian Renaissance - the Medici successfully navigated the treacherous path to political power and rose to become the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, also producing two Catholic Popes, Leo X and Clement VII, and two queens - Catherine and Marie de'Medici, both of whom married into the Royal House of France. Their majestic line ended in the eighteenth century, the Italian Settecento, with the death of Grand Duke Gian Gastone de' Medici on 9 July 1737.
This mass market paperback edition of Tim Parks' Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence is part of Atlas Books' Enterprise Series, and was originally published in 2006 by W.W. Norton & Company. The 247-page main text is divided into six chapters of moderate length and features twelve photos of Medici artwork and sculpture, a Medici family tree and chronological list of events followed by some short bibliographical notes and an index. There is no bibliography, but the notes explore a number of the author's suggestions for further reading.
In Chapter 1, With Usura..., Parks utilizes the writings of Ezra Pound, Francesco Guicciardini, Dante Aligheri and others to help illustrate the damaging social stigmata that financial institutions suffered at the hands of the Catholic Church during the Middle Age and Renaissance periods, largely due to the canon regulations prohibiting the practice of usury, or collection of interest arising from banking transactions. These policies existed to protect the borrower from predatory lenders, but the banks circumvented them and devised new methods to take advantage of their clients, generating more money than if the laws had never existed to begin with.
The author discusses a method known as a discretionary deposit, in which a clergyman would entrust a large sum to a bank which bypassed the usury law by substituting the interest for a gift, which he would then receive as a gratuity from the firm for his investment after a predetermined period of time. The size of these gifts was calculated in exactly the same way an interest rate was used to assess financial appreciation.
He also addresses how the ready access to banks in towns and cities led to citizens' wealth becoming detached from their communities, as they would deposit large sums of cash and the firms would use the funds to supply kings and princes with enormous loans, finance overseas ventures, or else they would be paid out against other clients' letters of credit. The wealth would travel, and could end up in an entirely different place within a very short amount of time. "Usury alters things. With interest rates, money is no longer a simple and stable metal commodity that just happens to have been chosen as a means of exchange. Projected through time, it multiplies, and this without any toil on the part of the usurer. Everything becomes more fluid. A man can borrow money, buy a loom, sell his wool at a high price, change his station in life." The author also emphasizes Giovanni di Bicci de'Medici's early career in finance and his founding of the Medici Bank of Florence, stressing the key roles his progeny played during its roughly one-hundred-year lifespan. Unlike his son Cosimo, Giovanni largely shunned political life, advising his firstborn to steer clear of the public eye while on his deathbed in 1429.
In Chapter 2, The Art of Exchange, the author includes a brief overview of the Renaissance period's three types of financial establishments - pawnshops, denoted by the red cloth hanging above their doorways, could not escape being labeled usurers, as they accepted material items in exchange for interest-based loans, and in Florence they were annually subjected to a collective fine of 2,000 florins; the banche minuto (small banks) were jewelry vendors who also coordinated scheduled payments and accepted nominal deposits; and the large banks, the banche grosso, conducted a high volume of exchange transactions, also participating in underwriting and venture trading in addition to owning side businesses, all of which provided them with additional income. The Medici's unique role as papal bankers is also discussed in this chapter, focusing on their relationship with Baldassare Cossa, who became the antipope John XXIII. Cossa was a high-ranking cleric who enjoyed the Medici's loyal support both during his election and after his imprisonment, despite the numerous misdeeds he committed while in papal office.
The currency exchange process during the Renaissance was a complex series of money-changing transactions that the banche grosso were forced to engage in if they wanted to avoid damnation and the stigma of usury but still generate revenue, by camouflaging their interest fees within an exchange fee that was deemed to be acceptable by the church. The fee was then documented onto a note of exchange, or cambiale, which would change hands numerous times and cross great distances before being finalized.
Medici Money's accessible explanation of the exchange method is more than sufficient for those not planning on devoting hours towards the topic, but if a technical breakdown of the process is desired, the reader would benefit tremendously by reviewing chapters two and eight in Professor Raymond de Roover's The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397-1494. Having read that study, it was impressive to note that Mr. Parks' cited statistics and figures correspond to those found in de Roover's more formal monograph. The author of Medici Money most assuredly did thorough research writing his wonderful book which is perfect for readers new to the subject, and for enthusiasts it offers a lively and eclectic alternative to the traditional academic format.
The author introduces an array of unique, unconventional topics in Chapter 3, The Rise to Power, among them Florence's struggle to retain control of its territories during the Wars in Lombardy, a series of conflicts waged between Italian city-states which preceded the Peace of Lodi in 1454. The Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, was undertaking a series of campaigns to expand his already-considerable domains, and he defeated the Florentines in a crucial battle at Zagonara, a bitter loss for Florence that was fought during a pouring rainstorm. Venice was attempting to consolidate its mainland territories, known as the Terraferma, by seizing smaller, more vulnerable cities such as Verona and Brescia, because of the increased security of having a "buffer state" which protected the lagoon city from immediate danger.
The campaigns were being led by a group of independent mercenary captains known as condottieri, and these soldiers-for-hire offered their services to the governments of free republics and the lords of city-states via binding contracts called condotte, but they were just as likely to betray their employers if the momentum turned against them. Paying the condotte of the renowned commander Niccolò Piccinino required the Florentine government to raise substantial levies and eventually institute a highly unpopular property and asset tax known as the castato to fund his expensive salary. After being captured at Faenza, Piccinino negotiates his way out of gaol, but then reneges on his word and joins Filippo Maria Visconti to fight against his erstwhile allies. The author has included a pair of maps depicting the political boundaries of Italy's city-states circa 1490 and Florence's territorial possessions as of 1494.
Parks' decision to periodically quote from Niccolò Machiavelli's Florentine Histories provides a stylistic backdrop to crucial events such as Florence's Ciompi Revolt of 1378, helping to illustrate the city's misfortune with hiring mercenary commanders and its citizens' dissatisfaction with their government's onerous taxation. The author moves briskly between topics, establishing the idea of an unstable political environment that was the perfect situation for an ambitious parvenu such as Cosimo de'Medici to begin amassing power and influence. The mere two-month term of office for Florentine governmental appointees during the Quattrocento was insufficient to achieve substantial results, and the reigning faction leader Rinaldo degli Albizzi was frequently absent from the city, leaving Cosimo with a golden opportunity to maximize his tenure on Florence's Council of War and provide 150,000 florins in governmental loans to help fund the ongoing war effort.
Chapter 4, "The Secret Things of Our Town" canvasses the public and private life of the early Renaissance's most influential powerbroker, Cosimo de'Medici, focusing on the Medici Bank's financial growth and expansion, and the political chess match Cosimo became entangled in as his family vied with the Albizzi for control of the Florentine government. Cosimo attempted to fix a trade imbalance affecting the bank's Rome branch by opening additional branches in Bruges and London and replacing the Bardi with the Portinari as general managers, also becoming involved in intranational affairs by politically and financially backing the renowned condottiere Francesco Sforza. His close relationship with Sforza was one of the primary contributing factors to the brilliant Italian entente which came to be known as the Peace of Lodi in 1454.
In addition to his other accomplishments, Cosimo de'Medici was a highly lauded philanthropist and active patron of the arts who contributed 10,000 florins towards the renovation of Florence's Monastary of San Marco, a monumental seven-year project which took from 1436-1443 to complete. The man who would become Florence's beloved Pater Patriae spared no expense in the monastery's decoration - Cosimo hired renowned Renaissance artists to paint breathtaking murals and frescoes, such as Fra Angelico's San Marco Altarpiece and Benozzo Gozzoli's Adoration of the Magi. During the 1440s Cosimo enlisted the services of the Florentine sculptor Donatello to fashion the iconic bronze sculpture, David, which originally decorated the courtyard of his private palace, the Palazzo Medici, but is now housed in Florence's Bargello art museum. Cosimo de'Medici lived such a prolific and eventful life that to encapsulate every aspect of it into a single biography would be an impossible task, but Parks highlights two studies which interested the reviewer - Dale Kent's Cosimo de'Medici and the Florentine Renaissance and Nicolai Rubenstein's The Government of Florence Under the Medici (1434 to 1494) - both of these titles explore the magnate's patronage in art and his political career, respectively.
Cosimo de'Medici's death in 1464 generated shockwaves which reverberated throughout the Florentine economic landscape, and created a period of political instability and social unrest. In Chapter 5, Blue Blood and White Elephants, the author explains how Piero de'Medici successfully overcame a conspiracy plot involving the Duke of Ferrara, Borso d'Este, and afterwards attempted to salvage his family's failing fortunes and rescue the Medici Bank from financial disaster.
Piero de'Medici's financial tribulations within the Medici Bank had arisen due to the fact that he was related by marriage or by circumstance to several underperforming executives and branch managers. Tommaso Portinari and Francesco Sassetti, men with years of banking experience, had steadily grown less interested in the bank's fiscal success and more concerned with becoming members of the Florentine nobility, a goal they hoped to achieve by living extravagant lifestyles, amassing private wealth, and commissioning expensive paintings of themselves so they could impress the European lords and potentates who were bleeding the bank into financial ruin. The grim reality of this unfortunate scenario was that these individuals had become impossible to get rid of and expensive to keep. Tommaso Portinari, the manager of the Bruges branch, made an unsound decision to purchase a yearly 16,000-franc wool contract in the northern French town of Gravelines, only to have the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, outlaw the import of English wool, which devastated the market and brought the branch's income to practically nothing by 1471.
Chapter 6, The Magnificent Decline commences with Lorenzo the Magnificent receiving a proposition from Pope Paul II, offering him a lucrative opportunity to reverse the Medici Bank's downward economic slide by forming a partnership with the Catholic Church and becoming involved in the mining of alum, a valuable mineral used to aid in the process of dying clothing. A substantial supply had been discovered near the town of Tolfa around 1460, and Pope Paul hoped to establish a cartel that would eliminate Italy's reliance on Turkish alum and generate tremendous profits for the Church and its partners in the bargain.
This monopoly was predicated upon the casus belli that the Pope would threaten with excommunication anyone who purchased or imported alum from a non-Italian source, thus obligating Western Christendom to adhere to the astronomical prices established by Pope Paul and the Medici's cartel. Unfortunately for the monopolists, many of the European lords simply accepted excommunication and began importing inexpensive Turkish alum, which the Ottoman Empire was all too happy to sell to them. Meanwhile, the miniscule profits which managed to trickle into the bank's coffers immediately became paid out in loans to those very same lords.
The author discusses Lorenzo the Magnificent's gradual evolution from carefree adolescent to hardened Renaissance statesman, also expounding upon the ruler's lifelong relationships with prominent period humanists such as Marsilio Facino, whose writings greatly influenced his patron's political and cultural views and likely led to Lorenzo's composition of his own treatise, which was entitled, The Supreme Good. Instead of concentrating of political motives, a topic that has been done well in many books, Parks interestingly focuses on the economic factors behind the famous Pazzi Conspiracy of 1468, which was a complex, multi-faceted plot involving Pope Sixtus IV, his nephew Girolamo Riario, and many others.
The Medici Bank's financial woes were only compounded by the respective deaths in 1476 and 1477 of Galeazzo Maria Sforza and Charles the Bold, as both lords had owed astronomical sums of money to the firm, and their families were not in any hurry to pay their debts. Near the end of the book Parks provides an interesting comparison between Lorenzo de'Medici and the Ferraran friar, Girolamo Savonarola, juxtaposing Lorenzo's successful power play to have his son Giovanni appointed to the Cardinalate against the Dominican's ecclesiastic's outright refusal of the rank for reasons of pious devotion.
Overall, Tim Parks' Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence is a wonderfully written, accessible and engaging way for readers from all avenues to learn the financial history of one of the most politically and economically influential families of the Italian Renaissance. Its six chapters showcase a diverse assortment of writing styles and methods of presentation, with some resembling the traditional historical narrative while others demonstrate the author's admirable ability to discuss a succession of loosely related topics effectively. There is a wealth of worthwhile economic history to be found herein, and Mr. Parks has done exceptional work ensuring that his historical information and financial data are accurate and correspond to the more specialized works from which he has very likely conducted his research. Thank you so much for reading, I hope that you enjoyed the review!
February 25, 2020
Credevo non ci fosse niente di meglio di abbandonare le classiche letture per dedicarmi a qualcosa di più formativo e questa era l’occasione perfetta. Inizio a leggere e sin dalle prime pagine mi rendo conto che qualcosa non va. Non mi sento attirata dalla lettura come credevo sarebbe stato, in quanto inizialmente vi era un sviluppo un po’ lento; penso dunque tra me e me che con l’avanzare delle pagine vi sarà un miglioramento in quanto l’argomento trattato ritengo sia molto stimolante ed interessante.
In questo volume si parla dell’evoluzione e dello sviluppo della banca Medici, sin dagli albori con Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici nel 1397, sin al crollo iniziale con Lorenzo de’ Medici (il Magnifico) e infine totale con Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici (il Fatuo) nel 1494.
Attraverso la lettura di questo libro ho appreso molte cose di cui non ero a conoscenza:
In primis, che il valore della moneta era esclusivamente dato in base al materiale di realizzazione e che per ottenere dei fiorini non bastava contare e mettere insieme le monete d’argento. Interessante.
Continuando, Cosimo acquistò la schiava, da lui nominata Maria Maddalena, che gli diede un figlio di nome Carlo che fu poi istituito alla carriera ecclesiastica, in quanto, come vuole la tradizione:
“I frutti del peccato carnale preannunciano i voti del celibato” (p.63)
Nel 400 vi era questa forte contraddizione a idea degli stranieri. Essi furono sorpresi di vedere come gli italiani avessero molti figli illegittimi, ma che però tenessero molto all’etichetta. Due caratteristiche che non vanno di pari passo.
Ho trovato molto bella, veritiera e molto attuale questa citazione di Cosimo de’ Medici:
“Che giova all’uomo guadagnare il mondo intero, se poi perde l’anima sua?”
Passiamo però adesso a parlare dell’idea complessiva che mi sono fatta di questo volume.
Trovo che il linguaggio utilizzato sia molto semplice, ma ahimè, si passa da un argomento all’altro nello stesso capitolo (spesso a tre righe di distanza) e ciò ha reso la lettura lenta e difficile. Anche le spiegazioni contabili si sono rivelate complesse da comprendere.
Tutto ciò viene anche arricchito da frasi, citazioni e spezzoni di poesie che onestamente fanno perdere il filo del discorso. Interessanti ma non indispensabili.
Ho notato inoltre che vi sono dei termini latini privi di traduzione. Delle note a margine o un indice in cui fossero elencate le traduzioni di tali termini sicuramente avrebbero reso il lettore più consapevole degli argomenti trattati.
Dal primo capitolo, tutta la prima parte non la ricordo nemmeno. Si comincia ad accennare a Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici a pg. 41 e soltanto al terzo capitolo si introduce Cosimo de’ Medici.
Ci si sposta da un secolo ad un altro in modo repentino. Sicuramente tutto ciò ha un filo logico ma a livello espositivo crea nel lettore (nel mio specifico caso) confusione. C’è dietro un ragionamento ben studiato ma esposto male.
La storia segue un’esposizione cronologicamente corretta per certi versi seppur confusa. Mostro nel dettaglio ciò a cui mi riferisco:
Ci troviamo a pg. 97-98 al funerale di Cosimo nel 1464 e alla sua nomina da parte del governo della città a pater patriae e a pagina 99 si parla di quando Cosimo aveva 53 anni, nel 1442.
Altro esempio: a pagina 104 si parla prima dell’anno 1439, per poi spostarci al 1446. A pagina 105 si cita l’anno 1436.
Ciò che voglio far notare è dunque un passaggio temporale repentino e scollegato che mi ha fatto stare con un’espressione interrogativa per l’intera narrazione degli eventi.
Ho faticato molto a leggere questo libro, sono sempre stata lì e lì ad abbandonarlo però ho continuato a leggere nella speranza di un miglioramento. Una piccola gioia l’ho avuta nella lettura degli ultimi due capitoli seppur sempre confusionari e ho dunque trovato più semplice la comprensione degli eventi solo alla fine…. Nella cronologia. Dove appunto gli eventi risultano cronologicamente collocati nel giusto spazio.
Gli ultimi due capitoli non bastano a salvare un intero libro, per cui la mia valutazione finale è questa. A chi consiglio questo libro? Sicuramente a qualcuno più “esperto” in finanza per quanto riguarda le spiegazioni bancarie e a chi non va in confusione con i continui passaggi da un anno all’altro.
In questo volume si parla dell’evoluzione e dello sviluppo della banca Medici, sin dagli albori con Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici nel 1397, sin al crollo iniziale con Lorenzo de’ Medici (il Magnifico) e infine totale con Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici (il Fatuo) nel 1494.
Attraverso la lettura di questo libro ho appreso molte cose di cui non ero a conoscenza:
In primis, che il valore della moneta era esclusivamente dato in base al materiale di realizzazione e che per ottenere dei fiorini non bastava contare e mettere insieme le monete d’argento. Interessante.
Continuando, Cosimo acquistò la schiava, da lui nominata Maria Maddalena, che gli diede un figlio di nome Carlo che fu poi istituito alla carriera ecclesiastica, in quanto, come vuole la tradizione:
“I frutti del peccato carnale preannunciano i voti del celibato” (p.63)
Nel 400 vi era questa forte contraddizione a idea degli stranieri. Essi furono sorpresi di vedere come gli italiani avessero molti figli illegittimi, ma che però tenessero molto all’etichetta. Due caratteristiche che non vanno di pari passo.
Ho trovato molto bella, veritiera e molto attuale questa citazione di Cosimo de’ Medici:
“Che giova all’uomo guadagnare il mondo intero, se poi perde l’anima sua?”
Passiamo però adesso a parlare dell’idea complessiva che mi sono fatta di questo volume.
Trovo che il linguaggio utilizzato sia molto semplice, ma ahimè, si passa da un argomento all’altro nello stesso capitolo (spesso a tre righe di distanza) e ciò ha reso la lettura lenta e difficile. Anche le spiegazioni contabili si sono rivelate complesse da comprendere.
Tutto ciò viene anche arricchito da frasi, citazioni e spezzoni di poesie che onestamente fanno perdere il filo del discorso. Interessanti ma non indispensabili.
Ho notato inoltre che vi sono dei termini latini privi di traduzione. Delle note a margine o un indice in cui fossero elencate le traduzioni di tali termini sicuramente avrebbero reso il lettore più consapevole degli argomenti trattati.
Dal primo capitolo, tutta la prima parte non la ricordo nemmeno. Si comincia ad accennare a Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici a pg. 41 e soltanto al terzo capitolo si introduce Cosimo de’ Medici.
Ci si sposta da un secolo ad un altro in modo repentino. Sicuramente tutto ciò ha un filo logico ma a livello espositivo crea nel lettore (nel mio specifico caso) confusione. C’è dietro un ragionamento ben studiato ma esposto male.
La storia segue un’esposizione cronologicamente corretta per certi versi seppur confusa. Mostro nel dettaglio ciò a cui mi riferisco:
Ci troviamo a pg. 97-98 al funerale di Cosimo nel 1464 e alla sua nomina da parte del governo della città a pater patriae e a pagina 99 si parla di quando Cosimo aveva 53 anni, nel 1442.
Altro esempio: a pagina 104 si parla prima dell’anno 1439, per poi spostarci al 1446. A pagina 105 si cita l’anno 1436.
Ciò che voglio far notare è dunque un passaggio temporale repentino e scollegato che mi ha fatto stare con un’espressione interrogativa per l’intera narrazione degli eventi.
Ho faticato molto a leggere questo libro, sono sempre stata lì e lì ad abbandonarlo però ho continuato a leggere nella speranza di un miglioramento. Una piccola gioia l’ho avuta nella lettura degli ultimi due capitoli seppur sempre confusionari e ho dunque trovato più semplice la comprensione degli eventi solo alla fine…. Nella cronologia. Dove appunto gli eventi risultano cronologicamente collocati nel giusto spazio.
Gli ultimi due capitoli non bastano a salvare un intero libro, per cui la mia valutazione finale è questa. A chi consiglio questo libro? Sicuramente a qualcuno più “esperto” in finanza per quanto riguarda le spiegazioni bancarie e a chi non va in confusione con i continui passaggi da un anno all’altro.
January 1, 2022
Rating: 2.5/5
Content-wise, this book is fascinating. It just lacks in terms of execution.
The raw story of the Medici family itself makes for a great read. I liked how the author used it to show interdependencies between business (banking), politics, religion and society. Many of those relationships are so familiar with how our current civilization looks like that it's interesting to see they didn't appear yesterday - on the contrary; they were present in human history for a long time. If you think that current corporations are corrupted and dishonest and that Wall Street is where it all originated, you are in for a surprise.
In this regard, I liked how Tim Parks built the narrative and made it relatively easy to mentally comprehend for even those who know almost nothing of Italy from the ages (like myself).
On the other side, it was written in a very chaotic, hard-to-process way. It looks more like a transcription of a lecture series than a well-edited book. It's hard to believe that it has undergone a series of revisions from a publisher - or even that it had an editor.
The author likes to use incomplete sentences, omit verbs, or vague references. I believe it would work better if he would tell me this story orally, over a cup of coffee, rather than to have it penned on paper.
I think that's the reason why it took me almost three months to finish reading this fairly short book - while starting & finishing other books in the meantime. Even though the story itself was material for a page-turner, its disorganized delivery made it hard to enjoy it fully.
I'm glad that I had had an opportunity to pick it up and that I had finished it, as I've learned a great deal out of it, and there were plenty of times I enjoyed it thoroughly. I'm just a bit frustrated, as it could have been much better than this.
Content-wise, this book is fascinating. It just lacks in terms of execution.
The raw story of the Medici family itself makes for a great read. I liked how the author used it to show interdependencies between business (banking), politics, religion and society. Many of those relationships are so familiar with how our current civilization looks like that it's interesting to see they didn't appear yesterday - on the contrary; they were present in human history for a long time. If you think that current corporations are corrupted and dishonest and that Wall Street is where it all originated, you are in for a surprise.
In this regard, I liked how Tim Parks built the narrative and made it relatively easy to mentally comprehend for even those who know almost nothing of Italy from the ages (like myself).
On the other side, it was written in a very chaotic, hard-to-process way. It looks more like a transcription of a lecture series than a well-edited book. It's hard to believe that it has undergone a series of revisions from a publisher - or even that it had an editor.
The author likes to use incomplete sentences, omit verbs, or vague references. I believe it would work better if he would tell me this story orally, over a cup of coffee, rather than to have it penned on paper.
I think that's the reason why it took me almost three months to finish reading this fairly short book - while starting & finishing other books in the meantime. Even though the story itself was material for a page-turner, its disorganized delivery made it hard to enjoy it fully.
I'm glad that I had had an opportunity to pick it up and that I had finished it, as I've learned a great deal out of it, and there were plenty of times I enjoyed it thoroughly. I'm just a bit frustrated, as it could have been much better than this.
January 4, 2022
An amazing read. I read it right after watching the Medici Netflix series and I loved how much I learnt about Italian history and culture from this book. It also helped me sit through The Prince by Macchiaveli which I doubt I would have otherwise read. The context helped a lot.
Highly recommend to anyone who plans on visiting Florence, it will make you look at everything with deeper interest and understanding. I wish I could go back and look at everything again.
Highly recommend to anyone who plans on visiting Florence, it will make you look at everything with deeper interest and understanding. I wish I could go back and look at everything again.
August 30, 2024
14. ve 15. yy'da Floransa'da yaşamış (özellikle 15. yy'da etkisini göstermiş) ve hayatın pek çok alanında ciddi etkileri olan Medici ailesine dair bir araştırma kitabı bu. Sadece İtalya'nın değil tüm Avrupa'nın en başarılı bankasına sahip olan Mediciler, yaşadıkları döneme sadece damga vurmakla kalmamış o dönemi aynı zamanda şekillendirmiştir. Bankacılık başta olmak üzere özellikle sanat alanında rönesans ve hümanizmle beraber yaptıkları yatırımlarla hala daha saygıyla anılmaktadır. Sanatçılara verdikleri destek hem siyasi hem de dini temelli bir destektir. Papayla olan yakın ilişkileri ve kilise ile olan bağlantıları üst boyuttadır. Savaş için papaya borç verilmesi, savaş kaybedilince savaş tazminatı için papaya daha çok borç verilmesi, papaya kimlerin piskopos olması gerektiğinin söylenmesi gibi aralarında azımsanamayacak bir ilişki söz konusudur. Mediciler kiliseyi ve papayı yönlendirecek derece güçlü olan bir ailedir.
1397'de kurulan ve 1494'te batan bu bankanın ve bu ailenin çalkantılı hayatının bir özetini bu kitapta bulabilirsiniz. "Modern bankacılık ve eşsiz sanat" çizgisinde bir kuşağın öyküsüdür bu. Bankalarının şubelerinden maliye defterlerine, çalışanlarının maaşlarından tefeciliğe, siyasi faaliyetlerinden atlattıkları komplolara, inşa ettikleri evlerden sahip çıktıkları sanatçılara, evliliklerinden kölelerine kadar pek çok başlığın içinde bulunduğu bir başvuru kitabı bu. Elbette merkezinde bankacılık faaliyetleri ve siyasi ilişkiler yer alıyor. Sanat kısmı biraz daha arka planda yan rol olarak kalmış ki kitapla ilgili tek eleştirim bu olabilir.
Giovanni di Bicci'nin kurduğu banka 1420'de Cosimo'ya devrediliyor. Cosimo ressamların dostu, sanatçıların hamisi ve büyük eserlerin banisi olan bir Medici üyesi. Sırasıyla Giovanni, Cosimo, Piero (gutlu olarak anılan), Lorenzo (muhteşem) ve Piero (ahmak olarak anılan) üzerinden bir zaman çizelgesinde ilerliyor. Kitap sadece Medici ailesini değil o dönemi de anlamak için güzel bir kaynak. Picciolo (halkın parası) ile florin (ticaret/zengin parası) arasındaki ilişkiye kadar anlatılıyor ve anlatırken size bir dönem panoraması sunuyor.
Medicilerin Papa'nın Floransa Vaftizhanesi'ndeki mezarını yaptırdığı büyük Rönesans öncüsü heykeltıraş Donatello ve mimar Michelozzo'dan da yer yer söz ediliyor. Donatello bu eserden sonra Cosimo'nun baş heykeltıraşı oluyor.
Medicilerin sadece bankacılık ve ticaretle bu kadar zengin olmaları elbette mümkün değil. Peki bu nasıl oldu? "Her şey ilgili para biriminin ilgili ülkede biraz daha değerli olması üzerine kuruludur." Bu cümleyi daha iyi anlamak için kitabı okumanız gerekmekte. Medici ailesini, yaptıklarını ve ilgili dönemi merak edenler için güzel bir başlangıç kitabı. Meraklısına tavsiyemdir.
1397'de kurulan ve 1494'te batan bu bankanın ve bu ailenin çalkantılı hayatının bir özetini bu kitapta bulabilirsiniz. "Modern bankacılık ve eşsiz sanat" çizgisinde bir kuşağın öyküsüdür bu. Bankalarının şubelerinden maliye defterlerine, çalışanlarının maaşlarından tefeciliğe, siyasi faaliyetlerinden atlattıkları komplolara, inşa ettikleri evlerden sahip çıktıkları sanatçılara, evliliklerinden kölelerine kadar pek çok başlığın içinde bulunduğu bir başvuru kitabı bu. Elbette merkezinde bankacılık faaliyetleri ve siyasi ilişkiler yer alıyor. Sanat kısmı biraz daha arka planda yan rol olarak kalmış ki kitapla ilgili tek eleştirim bu olabilir.
Giovanni di Bicci'nin kurduğu banka 1420'de Cosimo'ya devrediliyor. Cosimo ressamların dostu, sanatçıların hamisi ve büyük eserlerin banisi olan bir Medici üyesi. Sırasıyla Giovanni, Cosimo, Piero (gutlu olarak anılan), Lorenzo (muhteşem) ve Piero (ahmak olarak anılan) üzerinden bir zaman çizelgesinde ilerliyor. Kitap sadece Medici ailesini değil o dönemi de anlamak için güzel bir kaynak. Picciolo (halkın parası) ile florin (ticaret/zengin parası) arasındaki ilişkiye kadar anlatılıyor ve anlatırken size bir dönem panoraması sunuyor.
Medicilerin Papa'nın Floransa Vaftizhanesi'ndeki mezarını yaptırdığı büyük Rönesans öncüsü heykeltıraş Donatello ve mimar Michelozzo'dan da yer yer söz ediliyor. Donatello bu eserden sonra Cosimo'nun baş heykeltıraşı oluyor.
Medicilerin sadece bankacılık ve ticaretle bu kadar zengin olmaları elbette mümkün değil. Peki bu nasıl oldu? "Her şey ilgili para biriminin ilgili ülkede biraz daha değerli olması üzerine kuruludur." Bu cümleyi daha iyi anlamak için kitabı okumanız gerekmekte. Medici ailesini, yaptıklarını ve ilgili dönemi merak edenler için güzel bir başlangıç kitabı. Meraklısına tavsiyemdir.
December 21, 2025
2.5 cop out stars I think
Tho was an odd duck of a book. Overall I would say that this is more a book about Economics and banking history than a history of the Medici. Think of them more of a case study to provide the point about money. In that - I quite enjoyed the book. The banking portions was the musing about the nature of money and power were fascinating.
However, the history portions were hard to get through. The style of writing which moves between third person, first person, present tense and musings were hard to read for me. This was almost as if a book of essays was mashed into a history books. And I am not a fan.
I enjoyed the content - the period is fascinating - but the writing wasn’t for me at all. So I am copping out and giving it a better than ok for me but I can’t say I enjoyed it either.
I do want to highlight the actual economics part of it though and put it into a separate book. So who knows - this may actually be a great book?
Tho was an odd duck of a book. Overall I would say that this is more a book about Economics and banking history than a history of the Medici. Think of them more of a case study to provide the point about money. In that - I quite enjoyed the book. The banking portions was the musing about the nature of money and power were fascinating.
However, the history portions were hard to get through. The style of writing which moves between third person, first person, present tense and musings were hard to read for me. This was almost as if a book of essays was mashed into a history books. And I am not a fan.
I enjoyed the content - the period is fascinating - but the writing wasn’t for me at all. So I am copping out and giving it a better than ok for me but I can’t say I enjoyed it either.
I do want to highlight the actual economics part of it though and put it into a separate book. So who knows - this may actually be a great book?
July 23, 2019
How to explain Renaissance era explosion of art and architecture? Even these days, when you walk the streets of Firenze and look at those masterpieces in the form of sacral buildings, palazzos, sculptures and paintings you can't help but wonder who were those people behind it. Yes, we know it was pure genius of Leonardo, Botticelli, Brunelleschi and others that made it possible. But going deeper we start to realise that it wouldn't be possible without patrons, the Big Money.
The Medici Bank founded in 1397 by Giovanni de Medici was not the first international bank in history, and eventually it went under, but through its 5 Medici family generations it shaped the history of Western art and especially the city of Firenze as we see it today and gave the reason why it is visited by millions of tourists each year.
In the name of God and of Profit!
The Medici Bank founded in 1397 by Giovanni de Medici was not the first international bank in history, and eventually it went under, but through its 5 Medici family generations it shaped the history of Western art and especially the city of Firenze as we see it today and gave the reason why it is visited by millions of tourists each year.
In the name of God and of Profit!
February 5, 2023
I bought this book at the Galleria Uffizi with the intention of getting to know better the Medici family that is at the heart of almost all of Florence's art and architecture.
The book is amazing and the author tells the story of the family quite enthusiastically, although many economics and banking related terms are introduced, the book as the title says talks mostly of the financial part of the medici family, so it didn't excite me so much, hence the three star score, although it was a very good book.
The book is amazing and the author tells the story of the family quite enthusiastically, although many economics and banking related terms are introduced, the book as the title says talks mostly of the financial part of the medici family, so it didn't excite me so much, hence the three star score, although it was a very good book.
June 16, 2011
A very engaging narrative and a nice mixture of history and finance. Of all the history books I’ve read, this is by far the most fun to read. The best thing I came out with after reading this book is the similarities between our modern-day life and the world back in the 15th century. Although we tend to think differently, the motivations and struggles that existed back then still exists today in most societies. Except for the speed of transportation and communication, most of our human habits are the same and has not changed. Banking and commerce is just one example.
If you think modern financing tools of using exchange of goods instead of direct lending is an invention of modern day middle eastern theologians, think again. Back in the 1400’s in Italy, the lending of money with interest was banned by the catholic church. However, just like our modern capitalistic world, back then, merchants wanted to borrow and bankers wanted to be compensated for their risk.
To get around this, Medici Bank invented what is called the bill of exchange. What this bill does is allow a merchant to obtain a bill from Italy and cash in Italy’s currency with the promise to pay it back in London after sometime with the London’s currency. The catch, however, is the difference in exchange rate. For example a unit of Italian currency would only buy you 3 goats. However, the exchange rate used in London would buy you 4 goats.Therefore, the lender would make a profit of 1 goat by manipulating the value of the medium–in this case, currency.
Another practice would replace currency prices with prices of any commodity, such as steel. The client obtains 4 tons of steel from the bank for future payment at the price of 5 tons. The bank makes a profit of 1 ton of steel from this loan by manipulating the price of the medium–in this case, steel. In reality, what would happen is the profit from the transaction is made to be similer to what it would be had interest been charged.
Motivation is important. In both cases, if the motivation is the exchange of goods for a profit and not the lending for interest, then it is not usury. Of course, this is a big if. Most of the time, it is clear that what the merchant wants is a loan in cash and is willing to pay interest on it.
In regards to fixed deposits with interest, the practice was prohibited by the church for it was considered usury. This was mitigated by Medici Bank’s invention of discretionary deposit accounts. In this case, the client would deposit the money at the bank, but without contractual obligation for the bank to pay interest. The return, or profit, would then be given as a “gift” at the bank’s discretion, hence the term discretionary account. “If the bank failed to produce the gift…the customer took his cash elsewhere.”
All these practices were declared not usury by the Pope at the time. To quote the author, “for everything must be declared a sin or not a sin, ‘He who is not for me is against me’, Christ said”
Again, all this happened in 15th century in Europe–six-hundred years ago!
If you think modern financing tools of using exchange of goods instead of direct lending is an invention of modern day middle eastern theologians, think again. Back in the 1400’s in Italy, the lending of money with interest was banned by the catholic church. However, just like our modern capitalistic world, back then, merchants wanted to borrow and bankers wanted to be compensated for their risk.
To get around this, Medici Bank invented what is called the bill of exchange. What this bill does is allow a merchant to obtain a bill from Italy and cash in Italy’s currency with the promise to pay it back in London after sometime with the London’s currency. The catch, however, is the difference in exchange rate. For example a unit of Italian currency would only buy you 3 goats. However, the exchange rate used in London would buy you 4 goats.Therefore, the lender would make a profit of 1 goat by manipulating the value of the medium–in this case, currency.
Another practice would replace currency prices with prices of any commodity, such as steel. The client obtains 4 tons of steel from the bank for future payment at the price of 5 tons. The bank makes a profit of 1 ton of steel from this loan by manipulating the price of the medium–in this case, steel. In reality, what would happen is the profit from the transaction is made to be similer to what it would be had interest been charged.
Motivation is important. In both cases, if the motivation is the exchange of goods for a profit and not the lending for interest, then it is not usury. Of course, this is a big if. Most of the time, it is clear that what the merchant wants is a loan in cash and is willing to pay interest on it.
In regards to fixed deposits with interest, the practice was prohibited by the church for it was considered usury. This was mitigated by Medici Bank’s invention of discretionary deposit accounts. In this case, the client would deposit the money at the bank, but without contractual obligation for the bank to pay interest. The return, or profit, would then be given as a “gift” at the bank’s discretion, hence the term discretionary account. “If the bank failed to produce the gift…the customer took his cash elsewhere.”
All these practices were declared not usury by the Pope at the time. To quote the author, “for everything must be declared a sin or not a sin, ‘He who is not for me is against me’, Christ said”
Again, all this happened in 15th century in Europe–six-hundred years ago!
Read
December 24, 2017A total delight of a text, vivid and colourful, and with a good-natured sense of humour towards the oddball creature that is history.
Wedged somewhere between the world of academic texts found in second-hand bookshops and university bookstores and pop fiction readily obtainable in general bookshops, Parks' novel straddles the line that divides these two worlds with considerable aplomb.
Wry observations, curious facts, an obvious interest in the topic, and a good sense of humour permeate this delightful history text.
It's hard to make a history of finance and money interesting, as the topic is not one that many might find engaging or interesting. Reader, if such is the case - give this text a go. It's never confusing, nor boring. You will learn to understand why wool imports/exports mattered, and learn a lot about letters of credit, and even a bit about numismatics.
Wedged somewhere between the world of academic texts found in second-hand bookshops and university bookstores and pop fiction readily obtainable in general bookshops, Parks' novel straddles the line that divides these two worlds with considerable aplomb.
Wry observations, curious facts, an obvious interest in the topic, and a good sense of humour permeate this delightful history text.
It's hard to make a history of finance and money interesting, as the topic is not one that many might find engaging or interesting. Reader, if such is the case - give this text a go. It's never confusing, nor boring. You will learn to understand why wool imports/exports mattered, and learn a lot about letters of credit, and even a bit about numismatics.
October 12, 2021
Kitabı da çeviriyi de sevemedim. Oysa başlık, içerik ne kadar ilgimi çekmişti. Buradaki review’lar da çok ümit vaadediyordu.
Çok uzun olmamasına rağmen (belki kısa tutulması da sebep olmuştur) önemli önemsiz ayırdını güçleştirecek şekilde isimler, mekanlar, olaylar boca edilmiş. Takibi güç, keyifli değil. Günümüzle kıyaslanabilecek şekilde insanların güç, para, inanç ve iktidar ilişkilerine dair şeyler okumak hoşuma gitse de beklediğimi bulamadım.
Mizahi bir üslupla zaman zaman araya giren yazar ise “eh” durumu kurtaramadı.
Çok uzun olmamasına rağmen (belki kısa tutulması da sebep olmuştur) önemli önemsiz ayırdını güçleştirecek şekilde isimler, mekanlar, olaylar boca edilmiş. Takibi güç, keyifli değil. Günümüzle kıyaslanabilecek şekilde insanların güç, para, inanç ve iktidar ilişkilerine dair şeyler okumak hoşuma gitse de beklediğimi bulamadım.
Mizahi bir üslupla zaman zaman araya giren yazar ise “eh” durumu kurtaramadı.
June 19, 2022
"Nothing is really beautiful unless it is useless; everything useful is ugly, for it expresses a need, and the needs of man are ignoble and disgusting, like his poor weak nature." - Theophile Gautier
Capitalism, as we know it: the Medicis invented it, the British proliferated it, and the modern day wizards perfected it by eliminating the redundancies of religion, patriotism, and morality. Whatever Gautier says remains true but capitalism is the only example of a thing whose beauty waxes with its utility. Some may disagree and call it ugliness, but all beholders' eyes are free to judge for themselves.
To read about the Medicis is to understand the bilateral relationship between money and politics, to understand the desperation and the corresponding scale of propaganda, and to realise the masquerade of what they call democracy. The subject of the Medicis and their impact on the Renaissance Italy needs much greater depth than this book goes into. Though there is a concise history of the period 1397-1494 with all the major actors of the drama in it, there was much found wanting. I reached this book following the trail of Botticelli, whose works have arrested my attention for the past few weeks, one embellishes the cover of this book. My search for beauty continues.
Capitalism, as we know it: the Medicis invented it, the British proliferated it, and the modern day wizards perfected it by eliminating the redundancies of religion, patriotism, and morality. Whatever Gautier says remains true but capitalism is the only example of a thing whose beauty waxes with its utility. Some may disagree and call it ugliness, but all beholders' eyes are free to judge for themselves.
To read about the Medicis is to understand the bilateral relationship between money and politics, to understand the desperation and the corresponding scale of propaganda, and to realise the masquerade of what they call democracy. The subject of the Medicis and their impact on the Renaissance Italy needs much greater depth than this book goes into. Though there is a concise history of the period 1397-1494 with all the major actors of the drama in it, there was much found wanting. I reached this book following the trail of Botticelli, whose works have arrested my attention for the past few weeks, one embellishes the cover of this book. My search for beauty continues.
January 26, 2021
I love this book. Explaining the complexity of the Italian banking system during the Renaissance is no small feat and making it entertaining? I don't know how he did it. Worth it for the first few chapters alone that delve into how people in the Renaissance really thought about god, society, money, banking, art, and their eternal souls.
January 21, 2025
Rich in detail and astute observations, but at times meandering. Though it aims to combine finance, politics and art for the complete Medici picture, I found the art exploration could have been deeper.
June 4, 2022
Splendid. I love a good book to nerd out over Florence with.
April 3, 2023
Interesting book general rather than chronological- good insight into Medici lives and times
November 6, 2014
It's a good, concise overview of how the Medicis operated and came to power (and lost it) in Florence. What it lacks was a little bit more context. While keeping the focus entirely on the Medicis made it easier to follow on a number of levels, I do wish we had heard a little more about the other players in Italy - especially the Popes, figures like Savonarola, and the artists they employed.
The other thing I had an issue with was Parks' writing style. He likes short sentences. A lot. He uses them. Often. And it grates. Makes it hard to get into. Bothered me. Considerably.
I guess he thinks it sounds a little more conversational, but seriously, there is nothing wrong with a sentence that has more than 4 words in it. And it really disrupts the rhythm of the book, rather than make it easier to read. Thankfully the whole book isn't like that, but there are seriously long stretches of absurdly short sentences and sentence fragments that are totally jarring and remove me from the world of the Medicis.
Overall, though, it's a good book with some good insights, but it's not as comprehensive as I had hoped, with stylistic choices that I seriously question.
The other thing I had an issue with was Parks' writing style. He likes short sentences. A lot. He uses them. Often. And it grates. Makes it hard to get into. Bothered me. Considerably.
I guess he thinks it sounds a little more conversational, but seriously, there is nothing wrong with a sentence that has more than 4 words in it. And it really disrupts the rhythm of the book, rather than make it easier to read. Thankfully the whole book isn't like that, but there are seriously long stretches of absurdly short sentences and sentence fragments that are totally jarring and remove me from the world of the Medicis.
Overall, though, it's a good book with some good insights, but it's not as comprehensive as I had hoped, with stylistic choices that I seriously question.
January 24, 2022
I’ve been pretty fascinated with the Medici history of late and hoped to learn more by reading this book. While it did have interesting nuggets- I personally found it hard to follow with limited background knowledge. It jumps around a bit.
January 9, 2022
Zaman zaman biraz insanın kafasını karıştırsa da,eğer gücün ve paranın dünle dansını öğrenmek istiyorsanız bu kitabı okumalısınız.Farklı bir bakış açısı sunuyor.
January 20, 2023
The skeleton of the books is not prominent. For some chapters, main ideas from each paragraph is hard to be spotted and connection in-between is not strong. Thus often after one chapter, I still couldn’t understand what was happening. With better organisation, I think the delivery of the message would be more efficient.
This book seems to lean towards the analysis of certain phenomenon while inserting some historical context. The historical events are described here and there without chronological orders or consistency only to serve the analysis of certain phenomenon. If without any previous knowledge of the Medici family, I think it’s definitely not a book to start with…Because you couldn’t understand the evidence used to support the main ideas so well.
Still I learned some interesting facts:
-like how florins and the silver coins are actually two currencies. At the beginning, they couldn’t even the exchanged then only late after they could be exchanged.
-how banking works at the time and where some modern banking concepts come from: cheque, exchange rate, interest rate, religion’s stand on banking ( how Christian we’re banned from banking at one point and only Jewish left in this sinful event) , how trade of alum, wool, import/export, tax, corruption event in Papal States were the backbone of the banking at the time.
-there’s some books recommended too which I bookmarked (it’s very strange to encounter book review in the middle of a chapter as I thought the writer is supposed to digest the research he did then offer an elaboration and analysis after comparing all literature )
So on page107-108
1. The rise and decline of the Medici bank - Raymond de roover (on banking)
2.The Government of Florence Under the Medici by Nocoli Rubenstain (on governing)
3. Cosimo de’Medici and the Florentine Renaissance by Dale Jent (on cosimo’s stand on religion humanism and art)
This book seems to lean towards the analysis of certain phenomenon while inserting some historical context. The historical events are described here and there without chronological orders or consistency only to serve the analysis of certain phenomenon. If without any previous knowledge of the Medici family, I think it’s definitely not a book to start with…Because you couldn’t understand the evidence used to support the main ideas so well.
Still I learned some interesting facts:
-like how florins and the silver coins are actually two currencies. At the beginning, they couldn’t even the exchanged then only late after they could be exchanged.
-how banking works at the time and where some modern banking concepts come from: cheque, exchange rate, interest rate, religion’s stand on banking ( how Christian we’re banned from banking at one point and only Jewish left in this sinful event) , how trade of alum, wool, import/export, tax, corruption event in Papal States were the backbone of the banking at the time.
-there’s some books recommended too which I bookmarked (it’s very strange to encounter book review in the middle of a chapter as I thought the writer is supposed to digest the research he did then offer an elaboration and analysis after comparing all literature )
So on page107-108
1. The rise and decline of the Medici bank - Raymond de roover (on banking)
2.The Government of Florence Under the Medici by Nocoli Rubenstain (on governing)
3. Cosimo de’Medici and the Florentine Renaissance by Dale Jent (on cosimo’s stand on religion humanism and art)
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