Money is one of the strangest and most powerful of all human creations. It is at once crassly material and nebulously abstract, a source of tremendous goods and odious debts, an inspiration to self-discipline and a temptation to self-destruction. In this Study Abroad, we will go to the historical origin of our current financial system—Northern Italy—in order to try to understand money in its complex relation to a life well-lived. We will visit the world’s oldest continually operating bank in Sienna, hear from modern bankers in Milan, experience the cultural riches which the Medici and Strozzi banking dynasties brought to Florence, see Giotto discovering perspective in the frescoes of the chapel in Padua which the Scrovengi family had built as penance for their wealth acquired through usury, and finally go to the banking heart of perhaps the most unique city in the world—Venice.

May 18th - May 31st, 2026