Botticelli and the bonfire of vanities

Masterpieces by Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Piero del Pollaiolo,the Della Robbia family,and Lorenzo di Credi -the cream of Renaissance artists- show how the modern banking system developed in parallel alongside the most important artistic flowering in the history of the Western world.

Money and Beauty. Bankers, Botticelli and the Bonfire of the Vanities is an exhibition organized by the Palazzo Strozzi that recounts the birth of our modern banking system and of the economic boom that it triggered, providing a reconstruction of European life and the continent's economy from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Visitors can delve into the daily life of the families that controlled the banking system and go on a journey to the roots of Florentine power in Europe.

The show also explores the economic mechanisms which allowed the Florentines to dominate the world of trade and business 500 years before modern communication methods were invented, and in so doing, to finance the Renaissance.

Date: until January 22.
Place: Palazzo Strozzi. p.zza Strozzi 50123 Firenze. Italy
Opening hours: from Friday to Wednesday from 9am to 8pm. Thursdays from 9am to 11pm.