29 April, 09:07
The flourishing of art and science during the Renaissance is often portrayed as a natural outpouring of human genius. Yet the real reason was far more cynical: massive amounts of surplus money needed to be disposed of, and it had to be redirected urgently to prevent devaluation.
In other words, to preserve the margins of their wealth, the oligarchs of that era "recycled" capital by investing it in the construction of expensive cathedrals, churches, and fortresses — seeking to avoid a collapse in the value of their loans.
The Fall of Constantinople and the Capital Glut
When the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453, the familiar trade routes between Europe and the East were severed. Italian city-states — Venice, Genoa, Florence — suddenly found themselves sitting on vast piles of accumulated capital with sharply reduced opportunities for its traditional turnover.
At that moment, humanity had no real need for new cathedrals, paintings, or scientific treatises.
There was no pressing social demand for art or knowledge: agriculture dominated the economy, and the standard of living for the majority remained extremely low.
The merchant elites faced a choice:
to squander their excess money on useless but safe projects,
to push it into the real economy and crash profit margins,
or to trigger wars — the traditional method of "burning off" surplus wealth through destruction.
The Italian merchants made the best of these bad options: they funneled their capital into the construction of cathedrals, patronage of artists, funding of universities, and financing of expeditions in search of new maritime routes.
Art and Science as a Way to Recycle Money
The construction of massive cathedrals — for example, Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence — consumed enormous funds, creating demand for engineers, architects, and artists. Support for scholars and teachers laid the intellectual groundwork for future breakthroughs.
Funding expeditions like Columbus's voyage not only led to geographic discoveries but also opened new trade routes and new markets.
As ironic as it may sound, art and science became parasites of the trading economy — not in a negative sense, but as an inevitable form of processing surplus resources. The oligarchs simply skimmed the froth off their wealth.
Thus, in the absence of a conscious social demand, progress emerged as a byproduct of the forced recycling of money.
One might say that this was the first time humanity stumbled upon the concept of a "loss economy" — where money is deliberately spent simply to maintain the balance between the obscenely rich and the poor, preventing the so-called "laws of the market" from enforcing a correction.
Agrarian Powers and Successful Trade
Interestingly, the most commercially developed countries — Italy, the Netherlands, France — also became leading agrarian powers.
They did not merely invest in agriculture as a business but turned it into an art form.
Their ability to balance between rich trade and sustainable agriculture allowed them to control cash flows and avoid capital devaluation disasters.
War as an Alternative Path of Capital "Recycling"
Not all states chose peaceful ways. Many directed their surplus resources toward aggression and conquest:
the European wars of the 16th–18th centuries,
colonial campaigns,
piracy and the creation of overseas empires.
War has always been — and remains — an alternative method for recycling excess wealth, only far more destructive and bloody than art or science.
Venice and Genoa: Divergent Paths of "Recycling"
An interesting divergence occurred in how the major trading empires of that time handled their "freed" capital:
Venice bet on military buildup. It heavily invested in fortifications and pursued diplomatic projects in the East, particularly trying to turn Muscovy into its stronghold against both the Ottoman Empire and the rising influence of Rome. The construction of the kremlins (fortresses) in Muscovy was directly influenced by Venetian fortification schools — and financed by Venetian capital.
Genoa took the opposite route: rather than waging wars, it financed a geographic breakthrough. It was Genoese bankers who funded Christopher Columbus’s expedition, sparking European expansion into the New World.
At first glance, both strategies aimed at the same goal — the recycling of surplus capital — but their historical outcomes differed dramatically.
Venice fortified the Old World, while Genoa opened the door to a New World.
Though in the end, Napoleon would put an end to the ambitions of both oligarchies.
Conclusion
The Renaissance did not happen because wealthy elites suddenly realized the profound value of art and science.
No!
The Renaissance became possible because rich merchants, trying to save their fortunes from devaluation, essentially threw their money onto a bonfire — and by doing so, they inadvertently financed progress.
Thus, progress emerged as a byproduct of desperate financial recycling.
In a way, the world owes the Ottomans a strange debt of gratitude: by choking off the old trade flows, they forced the trading elites of Europe into a cynical calculation — to get rid of surplus wealth. And thankfully, not all of that wealth was spent on wars. Some of it gave birth to an age of genius.