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概括：As Italy and much of Europe struggle with their finances, the city of Florence has staged an art exhibition looking at the critical — and controversial — role that financial institutions have played for centuries.
听写方式：全文听写
Hints:
Florence
the Catholic Church
Renaissance
Sylvia Poggioli
usury
Christendom
Jew
"Money and Beauty"
florin
Tim Parks
St. John
Baptist
If you traced the history of banking, the centuries of financial developments that proceeded this awkward moment, your journey would surely require a stop in Florence. Long ago, the city's merchants got around the Catholic Church's ban on money lending and ended up bankrolling the Renaissance. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli takes us to an exhibit there. With the Bible explicitly condemning usury, throughout medieval Christendom, the lending of money had been relegated to Jews, one of the few professions they were allowed to practice. But in Florence, ingenious merchants turned the city into a laboratory and invented the financial instruments of international trade. The exhibit "Money and Beauty" starts with a small coin - the florin, named after the city. It was first minted in 1252 and by the end of the century it was in use all over Europe. In the audio guide to the show, one of the curators of the exhibit, British writer Tim Parks, says the imagery on the gold coin is important. "On one side the lily of Florence, on the other St. John the Baptist - civic identity and religious belief fused in cash."