Collegio del Cambio
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Transcript
Money changers were not minor shopkeepers in a commercial city. They handled currency, credit and transactions across a world where coinage varied constantly. Their guild, the Collegio del Cambio, commissioned an interior that connected finance with morality and learned culture. Perugino’s frescoes surround the room where economic disputes and professional business were conducted.
That combination matters. Renaissance banking was not presented here as a morally neutral technical service. The room surrounds money with exemplary virtues, classical figures and Christian imagery. The guild was telling clients—and perhaps itself—that financial power should sit inside a framework of civic responsibility. Whether reality always matched the decoration is another question.