Dimensions
144 x 223 x 27mm
Banking, metaphysics and art in fifteenth-century Florence . . .
The fascinating, frequently bloody story of The Medici family and the dramatic development and collapse of their bank.
The Medici faced two apparently insuperable problems: how did a banker deal with that fact that the Church regarded interest as a sin and had made it illegal? How, in a small republic like Florence, could he avoid having his wealth taken away by taxation? But the bank became indispensable to the Church. And the family completely subverted Florence's claims to being democratic. They ran the city.
'Medici Money' explores a crucial moment in the passage from the Middle Ages to the Modern World, a moment when our own attitudes to money and morals were being formed. To read this book is to understand how much the Renaissance has to tell us about our own world.
'Medici Money' is one of the launch titles in a new series, Atlas Books, edited by James Atlas. Atlas Books pairs fine writers with stories of the economic forces that have shaped the world, in a new genre - the business book as literature.
