'Pecunia non olet. The bankers of ancient Rome', this is the theme of the exhibition set up at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The currency, symbol of power and prosperity, and all the professions that gravitated around it is the common thread of the exhibition, curated by Novella Lapini. The exhibition starts today July 4th and will continue until September 17th.
Pecunia not olet
About 50 works on display, also coming from Italian and European museums, as well as from important private collections. The exhibition, in five sections, tells the economic evolution of primitive Roman society, characterized by a pre-monetary economy, to that of republican and therefore imperial Rome, an era in which the various figures active in the Roman bank established themselves. 'Pecunia non olet' it also tells the story of some of the operators of the Roman banking world such as Daphnus. In the scene carved on his altar, the latter shows himself in work clothes, while directing an auction in the sumptuous market built by Nero, or Caecilius Iucundus, which shows his Pompeian house and his private archive.
The last section of the itinerary is dedicated to the transformations of Roman society starting from the middle of the XNUMXnd century AD, when with the contraction of trade also the banking professions lost their specialization and gradually disappeared. As pointed out by director of the Uffizi Eike Schmidt the exhibition “is the first to deal with a very important theme of the social history of classical antiquity such as the economy of ancient Rome. Economy on which today's one is based, together with the figures that were born around it, professionalism that still persist today". The full professor of Roman history at theUniversity of Florence Giovanni Alberto Cecconi underlined that the exhibition "helps to understand the complexity of the Roman imperial economy from different angles". The contents are linked to the desire to show what is a little-known aspect of Roman society, the world of banking and the financial sphere of the time.
(Images official page Uffizi Gallery)
