Tim Parks: Medici Money: Banking, metaphysics and art in fifteenth-century Florence

Tuscans and, 28

see also accounting

banks, falling trade and failures of, 173

Baptistery, 54, 56 , 57–59

Barcelona, 22, 135, 174

Bardi, Alessandro, 168

Bardi, Bartolomeo de’, 83, 111

Bardi, Benedetto di Lippaccio de’, 38, 47

Bardi, Gualterotto de’, 111

Bardi, Ilarione di Lippaccio de’, 39, 47, 52, 83, 111

Bardi, Ubertino de’, 42, 83, 111

Bardi bank, 6, 48, 118

Bardi family, 154, 162

Giovanni de’ Medici and, 6

as partners in Medici bank, 38–39, 83

removed from Medici bank, 111

Baroncelli, Bernardo di Bandini, 214, 216–17, 229

Baroncelli, Pierantonio di Bandini, 214

barons, 49

Bartolomeo, Fra, 237 , 238

Basle, 116

Medici bank branch in, 113

Beaufort, Henry, 24

Becchi, Gentile, 188

Benci, Giovanni d’Amerigo, 64, 66, 76–77, 112, 115, 116, 149, 170, 198, 242

Benedict XIII, Pope, 51

Bernardino di Siena, 103, 116, 131

Bernardino of Feltre, 13

Bible, 93

bills of exchange ( cambiale ), 5–6, 48

description of, 40–41

in exchange deals, 40–46

stare sugli avvisi and, 47

Birth of John the Baptist (Ghirlandaio), 166 , 169

bishops, 20, 68, 113

Bisticci, Vespasiano da, 122, 127, 140

blasphemers, 14

Boccaccio, Giovanni, 7–8, 10, 51, 55–57

Boni, Gentile di Baldassarre, 38

bookkeeping, see accounting

Borromei, Carlo, 205

Borromei family, 205

Botticelli, Sandro, 186, 187, 209, 218, 225

Bracciolini, Poggio, 55, 119–20, 121

Brancacci, Felice, 74

British Empire, 121

Bronzino, Agnolo, 27

Bruges, 20–21, 25, 44, 72, 110–11, 113, 118, 204, 214

Medici bank branch in, 114, 116, 120, 135, 174–77, 179, 197, 198, 213, 220, 228, 229, 231–32

Brunelleschi, Filippo, 5, 85, 89, 122–23, 124

Bruni, Leonardo, 55, 185

Bueri family, 162

Burckhardt, Jakob, 17, 65

Burgundy, 174, 196–97

burial, denied to usurers, 10

Calderoni, Anselmo, 106–7

cambiale, see bills of exchange

cambio secco (dry exchanges), 45–46

Canigiani, Gherardo, 181–82, 213–14

cardinals, 20, 49, 113

Carmignuola, Francesco, 79, 84

Carnival, Lorenzo de’ Medici’s bawdy songs composed for, 209–10, 239

Castagno, Andrea del, 218

Castro, Giovanni da, 195

catasto (wealth tax), 73, 81–83, 85

Cavalcanti family, 83

celibacy, vows of, 64, 68

Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, 175–77, 178, 182–83, 197, 214–15, 229

Charles VIII, King of France, 244–45

children, illegitimate, 64–65

Christian gentleman, 121

Christianity:

East-West schism in, 116, 134–35

fundamentalism in, 234–36

humanism’s relationship to, 57, 92–93

political patronage and, 124

purpose of art in, 124–25

see also Eastern Church; religious confraternities; Roman Church

Christians, banned from pawnbroking, 31

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 55, 62, 116, 159, 172

Città di Castello, 203

Clothmakers’ Guild (Arte di Por San Maria), 33

coinage:

kings’ heads on, 12, 17

quattrino bianco , 226

trimming of, 43

see also florins, Florentine; piccioli

collecting habit, psychology of, 5

Commentary on My Sonnets (Medici), 241

compromisers, fundamentalists and, 23

condottieri (mercenary warlords), 78–79, 84, 86, 89, 116, 164, 220, 223

function of, 72–73

Constance Church Council (1414), 51–52, 55

Constantine the Great, 93

Constantinople, 21, 73, 135, 147, 229

Coronation of the Virgin, The (Angelico), 125, 126

Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance (Kent), 108

Cosma, Saint, 91, 125, 126 , 133

Cossa, Baldassarre, see Giovanni XXIII, Pope

Cotswolds, 22, 44, 136, 198

Councils:

of 100, 148–49, 158, 199–200

of the Commune, 95, 96, 137, 139, 141, 143, 145, 147–48, 200, 212

of the People, 95, 96, 137, 139, 141, 143, 145, 147–48, 200, 212

Counter-Reformation, 9, 243, 246

courtiers, 49, 65

credit:

Florence as center of international web of, 2

letters of, 6, 21, 25, 111, 135–36, 229–31

crusades, 121, 176, 194

Curia, see popes

currency:

for accounting, 36–37

for international exchange deals, 113

intrinsic value and, 12–13, 32

currency exchange:

banking profits derived from, 40–46, 91–92, 174

dry, 45–46, 104

between florins and piccioli , 31–35

Geneva as center for, 112–13

as source of Medici family’s wealth, 40, 44, 91–92

warnings and, 47

Damiano, Saint, 91

Dante Alighieri, 5, 13–14, 15, 26, 59, 83, 207

daughters, nephews given hereditary precedent over, 205–6

Davanzati, Riccardo, 135

David (Donatello), 102 , 103

debt bonds, 80–81

Decameron (Boccaccio), 10, 51, 53–54

Della famiglia (Alberti), 26

democracy, 162

consensus and persuasion and, 88–89

money and, 159

official vs. unofficial shifts of power in, 91

pretense and, 138, 142, 143, 149, 200

referendums and, 95

two-party, 149

see also political power

De mulieribus claris (Boccaccio), 55

denari a fiorino , 37

deposit accounts, 6

Depositary of the Papal Chamber, 47

Dialogue on Liberty (Rinuccini), 227

discretionary deposits, 50, 79, 171

description of, 22–25

Divina commedia (Dante), 13–14, 26, 59, 207

doge, of Venice, 87

Dominic, Saint, 123–24, 125

Dominican order, 80–81, 122–24, 134

Donatello, 56 , 58–59, 85, 102 , 103, 116, 131, 132 , 133

Donati, Lucrezia, 189–90, 193, 201, 209, 241

Donation of Constantine, 93

double-entry bookkeeping, 5, 33–34, 37

dowries, 9, 19–20, 154, 161–62

dry exchanges ( cambio secco ), 45–46, 104

ducats, Venetian, 43, 90, 92

duomo , 8, 29, 85, 89, 104, 122–23, 124, 206, 214–17, 242

Dwerg, Hermann, 24

Eastern Church, 116, 134–35, 140

education, 158–60

Edward III, King of England, 6

Edward IV, King of England, 179–83, 214

Eight of the Guard, see otto di guardia

England, usury legalized in, 243

English Cotswolds, see Cotswolds

Este, Borso d’, 163–64

Eugenius IV, Pope, 93, 97, 98, 100, 113, 116, 122, 123, 125, 127

exchange, see bills of exchange; currency exchange

Exchangers’ Guild (Arte di Cambio):

grounds for expulsion from, 30, 43

maximum time for exchange deals set by, 41–42

pawnbrokers barred from, 31

reputation of, 11

written transactions as rule of, 29–30

excommunication, 33, 87, 151

of Lorenzo de’ Medici, 218

as threat, 20, 104, 113, 148, 195, 196–97, 205

Eyck, Jan van, 176

Faenza, lord of, 78

family, as social unit, 26–28

Ferrante, King of Naples, 190, 205, 222–23, 245

Ferrara, marquis of, 97

feudal law, 6, 16

Ficino, Marsilio, 185, 206–9, 210–11, 236

fiorino di suggello , 43

Flanders, 20, 21

Flanders grossi , 114

Florence:

advisory bodies of, 94–95, 137

artists of, 225

bank failures in, 173, 240

banking authority in, see Exchangers’ Guild

banking neighborhood of, 29

Cosimo de’ Medici exiled from, 3, 94–100