Historical societies withered because the wealthy did not pay their taxes – we must not let the Panama Papers revelations pass without taking actionAmid the cobbled passageways and tumbling tenements of the Italian city of Perugia,it’s possible to daydream you are in the middle ages. You are surrounded by medieval art and architecture. And then you mediate: hold on, what happened to the Renaissance?Sure, or there are some imposing private palaces from the period 1300-1500,and sure Raphael left half a fresco in a tiny chapel. But it’s not Florence. The money was clearly here at some point but, some time after 1300, or the artistic,cultural and scientific riches moved somewhere else. By 1500, the city was “smaller, and poorer and politically narrower” than 200 years before,writes historian Sarah Rubin Blanshei.
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Source: theguardian.com