Customer Reviews

Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence (Enterprise)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The focus of the book is the rise, and fall, of the Medici bank, rather than the Medici themselves. However, the former explains a lot about the latter. It takes you through the founding of the business, as a not-wholly reputable business conducted by merchants and sailing very close to the winds of usury, to the over-stretching of the bank and its demise. However, by this time, the Medici had become indispensible to the financing of wars, which had enabled them to become politically very powerful. Ironically, they could now afford to neglect the very business that had initially been responsible for their power and concentrate on dynastic marriages among the nobility of Europe (by the sixteenth century, Marie and then Catherine de Medici had become queens of France).

Along the way, the reader is introduced to the scions of the Medici family, including the two best known, Cosimo (also styled pater patriae) and Lorenzo (il magnifico) and something about their patronage of the arts at the time of the Italian renaissance. Concentrating on the running of the bank, the book has fascinating insights, such the significance of natural cash imbalances in different parts of the banking empire and what thet meant for the business when it was highly risky to physically transport gold coin from one location to another in Europe.

Medici Money was well-written, easy to read and most enjoyable. Naturally, it was writen by an author, not a professional historian. Don't expect a dry, academic book with every statement footnoted to sources. Do expect the author to sometimes interject his opinions and to make statements without backing them up (we just have to trust that he has done his research thoroughly). That's a trade-off, of course, but one I would like to see occur more frequently. The non-specialist reader may well learn more about history in this way and, most importantly, be encouraged to explore history further.

Bravo, Tim Parks! It's made me want to explore your novels.

I've only read two of Tim Parks books: "Italian Neighbors" and "Italian Education". I loved both of them. I like his nonchalant style which takes the reader right to the point.

"Medici Money" was a good surprise. I had never read anything about the most famous family in Florence, so this book was a good introduction to the fortunes and misfortunes of the power and money hungry Medicis. Because I don't have a background in economics, some parts were a little more difficult to grasp for me, but otherwise it was a witty account of the Medici's bank rise and fall. I only wished it had more on the metaphysics aspect of Renaissance life and how it related to banking. I also think the book would benefit if it had more illustrations and a better genealogy table (some dates were different from the text). Overall it was a pleasant and informative read. I specially liked his suggestions in the bibliography. In sum, I enjoyed the book very much and if you're interested in learning a bit more about Renaissance and the Medici, it's a good start.

I enjoy reading about the Italian Renaissance, especially about Florence and its history. While I have read a number of good books, I would not count "Medici Money" among the best of them.

Tim Parks relates the rise and fall of the Medici family's banking business through the fifteenth century in a cynical, sarcastic tone. While he is to be given his due for not producing a fairy-tale profile of one of the most important families in Italian history, I get the impression that Parks finds very little to like about the Medici and would very much like us to share his low opinion of Lorenzo and Company.

His writing style, perhaps intended to be conversational, is littered with rhetorical questions and incomplete sentences that I found distracting ("For me or against me. Your fate. What could a banker do?"). Parks provides neither footnotes nor endnotes, and routinely quotes unnamed sources. As a result, I sometimes found it difficult to separate historical fact from author's conjecture.

Perhaps "Medici Money" is intended as a realistic counterbalance to less-critical accounts of the Medici, but I would rank it below other works on the period, such as "April Blood" and "Brunelleschi's Dome".

If your knowledge of the Medici family begins and ends with their patronage of Renaissance artists, sharp-penned writer Tim Parks has some revelations to share. True, the Medicis used the wealth they amassed from their bank to turn Florence, Italy, into the Mecca of fifteenth-century culture. Yet, the Medici clan also perfected the arts of vanquishing foes and allying with the rich and powerful to gain a stranglehold on political power - all in bold-faced defiance of Catholic Church doctrine. The Vatican held that paying or collecting so much as a penny of interest was a mortal sin. Parks' book shows you what the Medici made of that, and his arch, witty style is a joy to read. Perhaps the only caution is that this history is more a study of the spiritual and social history of Florence than a guide to the Medicis' business successes and failures. We recommend this history to anyone interested in the intersection of money, politics and religion.

Parks' book encompasses the lives of the five heads of the Medici family, and simultaneously through the history of the city of Florence. Through the eyes of the city of Florence, we see Italy, and through slightly foggier lenses, all of Europe.

Parks clearly has a deep love and respect for the more medieval (as opposed to Renaissance) parts of his tale. If you are expecting a hagiographical account of Lorenzo the Magnificent and his great contributions to art, architecture and learning, this isn't the right book.

I picked this book up because I had an interest in the economic side of the Renaissance. For me, one of the more fun sides of history is following the dollars and cents to find an alternative rationale behind the traditional story. And in the first half of this book, Parks provides the goods.

Without talking down to the reader, he makes VERY complicated financial transactions seem simple enough that with a little extra care and attention, they are not only able to be followed, but able to be understood. The multiple types of profitable banking transations are complicated enough for a non-finance major, but when added to the necessity of covering their tracks to avoid falling afoul of Florentine law, Church law, the laws of England, Germany (and even Poland!), personal ethics and morals, and even the taxman, it is amazing that I finished the book, nonetheless enjoyed it and remember it.

The book is more or less chronological. He concentrates on five Medicis, and the chapters covering the first two, Giovanni and Cosimo, are by far the best. And if you are going to study the Medicis as bankers and politicians, rather than as art patrons, poets, and humanists, this makes sense; but it does mean that the book ends weakly. It does read a bit like "The Rise and Fall of the Medici Family", and he spares little when describing the fall. Much of the blame is placed on Lorenzo's unwillingness to learn the family trade (banking), considering it almost beneath him.

A surprise bonus in this book is the detailed account of Florentine politics during these 100 years. Parks is almost as gifted describing the complicated nature of a republic illegally ruled by an autocratic family as he is a bank illegally profiting from interest bearing loans. He falters slightly when inserting his personal opinions and when unable to refrain from making occasional comparisons to modern politics, but all-in-all, his description of the political situation is just as fascinating (and complicated) as the economic portions.

One of the problems in reading about the Renaissance, Florence and the Medicis is wading through the mounds of obsequious nonsense that has been written on these subjects, in order to get at the real nature of the people and the times. Mary McCarthy did it in The Stones of Florence and now Tim Parks has done it again, although in a totally different way. While McCarthy focused primarily on art, Parks homes in on the business dealings of the Medici family in the economic and political climate of the times. At the same time, he repeatedly contrasts their period with ours. An example:

"But the tools of persuasion that make such things (influencing public opinion) possible today-our modern media, mass production, and mass consumption-were not available to the Medici. Nor had anybody thought of the trick of allowing two apparently opposing, but secretly complicitous factions to rotate in power at the whim of a complacently 'enfranchised' population."

All in all, a thoroughly intelligent and enjoyable book.

By the way, Parks is a respected literary scholar who has written several books of literary criticism and two screamingly funny books about living in Italy: Italian Neighbors and A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusion, National Character, and...Goals! Highly recommended.

I love reading about the Medici family. This book leaves a bit to be desired. It does a poor job with its descriptions and explanations. There is a lot of background information that is needed left out, so unless you have a previous knowledge of the family it's hard to follow.

The book does have some of the best layout of the Medici bank, but could definitely be easier to follow and have better explanations.

If you're looking for a good Medici book, House of Medici is by far the best I've read, its complete and easy to read.

Reading the other reviews, I see three camps. Reviewers who wanted a serious history disliked the book for being derivative, unprofessional and jumping around among topics without covering any of them well. Reviewers who wanted a straightforward story were annoyed by the literary language and complex narrative line. Reviewers who wanted a literary evocation of the life and times of the Medici Bank liked this book a lot.

I fall into the last camp. The author sets out financial, metaphysical and artistic threads and weaves the story of the Medici from them. Unlike the historian, however, he does not pick the threads that explain most of the story, instead he picks the threads of most relevance to a modern reader. He invites us, to the extent it is possible, to understand why the Medici did what they did, and why it mattered, and why those same choices still matter.

The first thread is the financial imbalance in Europe, with luxury goods flowing from the East, through Italy and north to Europe. Something, trade or money, had to flow the other direction. The imbalance was exacerbated by payments to the Church in Rome. There was not enough gold and silver available to do the job, and shipping it was too dangerous. The Medici bank made large profits for three generations by working out solutions.

At the same time, Humanism is gaining force in Italy and the Dominican Order is evolving some of the changes that will give birth to the Reformation (and cause some Medici discomfort in the person of Savonarola). Urban elites are growing in wealth and power at the expense of hereditary rulers, and inequality within urban centers is turning Republican systems to autocratic ones. War is constant, chaotic and relatively benign. The lines between war, religion, commerce and politics are not only blurred, they're non-existent.

These changes are stimulating, and being stimulated by, a revolution in Art. This is not just a change in styles but a new place for Art in the economy and in social consciousness. The Renaissance is only an external social movment, individuals have to reinvent themselves in relation to family, God and State.

The author takes us through this time of exhilaration and uncertainty with a novelist's pen. But this is not a novel, it is tied to the history of the Medici. As bankers and elite churchmen, extraordinary collectors and patrons (and at least in the case of Lorenzo, talented poets), skillful players of politics both civic and feudal and above all, masterful schemers; they are perfectly placed to feel the colliding forces that made modern Europe. The conflicts they exploited for wealth, power, acclaim and beauty are with us today.

This is a wonderful book, but difficult to categorize. I sympathize with the reviewers who were looking for something more conventional. But taken on its own terms, this is a five-star book.

Parks brings us 100 years of Florentine history, from 1389 to 1494 - it's the rise and fall of the Medicis, the invention of international banking, and the Renaissance. While it's a complex book, he does well by laying out a chronology, and a chapter of "The Big Picture" in the front of the book. This telling of what he's going to tell us keeps you from getting lost during the progress of the book.

Parks has two basic principles for his theme - first, loan money and you are a usurer and condemned to Hell, unless of course, your principal client is the Pope. Second, even jumped up little money changers long for the trappings of prestige, power, and entitlement of the aristocracy, and will do a lot of foolish things to get it.

Parks has an interesting non-grammatical style, one that is much like the verbal delivery of a good lecturer. To illustrate - "The trajectory, then, is clear enough. One hundred hears. Five generations. A vertiginous rise of fortune - first economic, then political - in the hands of two most able administrators. A brief hinge period presided over by a grumpy, middle-aged man in bed. Then two and half decades of political ascendancy predicated on a wealth that is rapidly disappearing...."

Econonerds will be intrigued by the invention and use of double entry book keeping. Political wonks will like the ins and outs of a tyranny disguised as a republic. Historical dweebs will like the close interaction between five Italian states plus a swarm of small little war lord holdings. Military tacticians will be intrigued by centuries of war that were purposely fought not to be won.

I would suggest this is an intriguing book, but not one for your permanent library. Best to go to the public library for this one.

This is mainly a history of the Medici banking enterprise, and it is fascinating to learn just how the bank declined. The problem was the passing of generations of bankers who loved banking. Their successors, unfortunately, were more interested in the social aspects of belonging to the Medici banking family. This lead to their spending more time being friends with royalty and other high potentates than on the bank itself. Consequently, the Medici banking house went into decline that ultimately proved terminal.

The fate of the Medici bank has been repeated over and over in history as there are all too often cases of virtuous and hard working founders whose creations were ultimately wasted away by relatively lazy successors.

In event, this is a great book that sheds new light on a subject that had already been heavily written about.