Professor Piccolomini addresses UNYP students

Professor Manfredi Piccolomini, CUNY, President and Cultural Director of the Medici Archive Project, gave a lecture on "The Medici Banking System" in which he put into historical context the recent financial crisis. The Medici and their city, Florence, played a major role in the birth of modern capitalism and in the shaping of banking systems. While on a much smaller scale, Renaissance banking and finance faced many of the problems that plague the current system and Professor Piccolomini described how similar issues were handled under a largely different ethical climate over five hundred years ago. Professor Piccolomini argued that while capitalism is the best possible system for the creation of wealth for the majority of the people it is not perfect, and that it must be regulated to prevent abuses. Moreover regulations need enforcement. Lack of enforcement accounts for a majority of the current problems because regulations are based on unrealistic and abstract ethical concepts that hinder the ability of the judiciary to act effectively.