You are here: Home | Exhibitions | Money and Beauty. Bankers, Botticelli and the Bonfire of the Vanities | Exhibition walkthrough
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Introduction
You are about to take a journey to the origins of modern banking
No bankers, no Renaissance. It wasn’t just the vast sums of money these men invested in paintings and palazzi, they constantly had to worry about the Church’s disapproval. Any interest-bearing
loan was evil, unnatural—usurers went to hell. In response, these rich Christian men tied themselves in knots to invent profitable loans that didn’t involve interest. They appeased the Church with donations, and discovered that art, which they could buy with money, created a value beyond money; art brought social prestige—and it might also make the Church more comfortable. Some
churchmen were delighted to accept bankers’ money. Others, like Savonarola, would accept no compromise.
On this journey, you will have two guides. Art historian Ludovica Sebregondi, author of Iconography of Girolamo Savonarola, 1495-1998, and Tim Parks, writer, translator and author of Medici Money. Banking, Metaphysics and Art in Fifteenth-century Florence. Their voices form a ‘duet’, in which they present different—and sometimes opposing—views of the exhibition’s content.
No bankers, no Renaissance. It wasn’t just the vast sums of money these men invested in paintings and palazzi, they constantly had to worry about the Church’s disapproval. Any interest-bearing
loan was evil, unnatural—usurers went to hell. In response, these rich Christian men tied themselves in knots to invent profitable loans that didn’t involve interest. They appeased the Church with donations, and discovered that art, which they could buy with money, created a value beyond money; art brought social prestige—and it might also make the Church more comfortable. Some
churchmen were delighted to accept bankers’ money. Others, like Savonarola, would accept no compromise.
On this journey, you will have two guides. Art historian Ludovica Sebregondi, author of Iconography of Girolamo Savonarola, 1495-1998, and Tim Parks, writer, translator and author of Medici Money. Banking, Metaphysics and Art in Fifteenth-century Florence. Their voices form a ‘duet’, in which they present different—and sometimes opposing—views of the exhibition’s content.
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