named Agostino Chigi (1466–1520) decided to build a new home for himself that was to be the most splendid in Rome. A banker to popes and kings, Chigi’s modus operandi was to lend money and, in return, obtain monopolies for such things as importation of grain or production of alum from mines. He often accepted jewelry for “security.” He was in a sense a pawnbroker and a wheeler-dealer who struct...
