Around one hundred works coming from the greatest museums in the world – masterpieces by Botticelli, Beato Angelico, the della Robbia family, Verrocchio, Lorenzo di Credi, Piero del Pollaiolo, Hans Memmling - along with books and financial reports, safes, bags, keys, locks, scales for gold and precious stones, will be on show at Palazzo Strozzi until the 22nd January 2012 to express the close relationship between the Florentine artistic civilization of the Renaissance and the complex financial events of those times, through a fascinating historical journey marked by the increasing importance of the florin, the economic speculation, up to the criticism of luxury and the bonfire of the vanities.

This period goes from 1252, when the first gold florin  - now welcoming visitors in the first hall - was minted, until the death of Botticelli, in 1510. The exhibition is called Money and Beauty. Bankers, Botticelli and the Bonfire of the Vanities. It is promoted and organised by the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, the Superintendence for the Polo Museale of the City of Florence, along with the Florence Municipality, the Province of Florence and the Region of Tuscany. The exhibition is curated by art historian Ludovica Sebregondi and by writer Tim Parks, in cooperation with other specialists. 

The exhibition itinerary will include eight different sections: The Florin as the Image of Florence in the World; The Art (and Mystery) of Money Exchange; The International Trade; Voyages and Goods; Sumptuary Laws, Bankers and Artists, The Crisis. The most famous families of bankers, such as the Medicis, the Bardis, the Peruzzis, the Gondis and the Cambinis, will be in the limelight, being the main protagonists of the link between arts, money and beauty. As far as the banker's trade is concerned, the exhibition will also focus on Flemish artists, as documented by the meticulous works by Jan Provoost and Marinus van Reymerswaele on show.

However, the paintings by Sandro Botticelli will surely be the main feature of the whole exhibition - from his early works inspired by his Maestro Filippo Lippi, through his passionate participation in the Neoplatonism promoted by Lorenzo de’ Medici, with its extraordinary myths, up to the restless religious expressions of his art and his extreme decision to support  the moral rigour imposed by the burning, successful sermons by friar Girolamo Savonarola in the Church of San Marco. 

INFO: Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi (Palazzo Strozzi Foundation) (Tel.+39 055 2645155; www.palazzostrozzi.org; Opening times: every day; 9.00am-8.00pm; Thursdays: 9.00am -10.00pm).