giotto's frescoes brought him immortality and undying fame to the chapel of the bardi.hey, and families like them, were moneylenders to the popes and kings of europe. they were the pioneers of the new world of international finance, and the coinage of florence-- the gold florin-- became the common currency of christendom. even john the baptist-- the saint of the desert and the enemy of luxury-- is depicted surrounded by gold florins on the cover of a book containing the rules of the coin makers. but if the prosperity of florence was owed to the bankers, the rebirth of its intellectual energy came from a rediscovery of classical culture. without ever leaving santa croce, we can move into the world of the renaissance with this tomb of leonardo bruni, longtime chancellor of florence, who died in 1444. this was the florence of humanists, the students of the classics, of the knowledge and the wisdom of the ancient world. they went right back to the great greek philosophers. he also wrote a history of florence, starting with roman times. and in this great work, he put histori