Description
In about 1293 AD, an assemblage of merchants and guilds took control of the city of Florence, overthrowing a divided and warring oligarchy who had long dominated it.
At that time the merchants, tradesmen and entrepreneurs – the bourgeois – reorganized the city for commerce, setting the stage for the Italian Renaissance. And it’s telling that rather than displaying their portraits, the men who accomplished this chose to display commercial symbols in the great buildings of Florence
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The bourgeois coup d’etat of Florence is an almost forgotten historical moment, but it’s an important one for us, as we face our own opportunity to reorganize the world for commerce.