VIDEO / A master goldsmith from the Chianti shows how the Florin was made

Articolo disponibile anche in: Italian

A video that exhibits all the craftsmanship of the goldsmith Mauro Bandinelli, from the Chianti area. Here you can see how he creates faithful reproductions of the Fiorino (Florin), the ancient gold currency of Florence, using the ancient coinage technique.

“The Fiorino – explains Bandinelli – is the gold coin that was minted in Florence in 1252 and, thanks to the growing power of the city’s banks, became the preferred currency of exchange in Europe until the Renaissance.The name comes from the lily depicted on the coin, the floral symbol which represented Florence. On the other side there’s the icon of St. John the Baptist, patron and protector of the city”.

“By using the image of the saint, the Florentines wanted to show their good faith – he concludes – to maintain the purity of the 24-karat gold and the weight of 3.54 grams. There was an old saying in Florence, “San Giovanni non vuole inganni” (Saint John doesn’t accept trickery). Even Dante Alighieri mentioned forgery in his Comedy: in the XXX canto of the “Inferno”, the forger Gianni Schicchi de “Cavalcanti once discovered, was burned in his castle””.

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