(from Stories Fiorentine by Franco Torrini)

In the mid-thirteenth century, when Florence is in full growth, with Dante and Giotto in the city, it is possible to find the basis for the birth of the Republic of Florence with the government of the large corporations then in existence. The nobles are relegated to the background by the wealthy merchants of the people: merchants, bankers, small and great craftsmen belonging to the guilds of the various workers of the time or the called "Arts". Well-being spreads and the city becomes great, one hundred thousand inhabitants are estimated, a real record for the Middle Ages.

...

Thus was born in 1252, the Golden Fiorino weighing gr. 3,5 of pure gold which will become for more than three centuries one of the few gold coins to have an exchange rate on the medieval European market and beyond.

...

The minting of the Gold Florin takes advantage of the existing Mint which was born in 1237 as a service for wealthy citizens who wanted to convert their physical coin transactions into gold, in addition to the preponderant minting of the most popular silver coinage.

... In this organizational, physical and intellectual context, the Gold Florin prospered and circulated for a long time. For almost three hundred years, between 1252 and 1533, when Alexander I de 'Medici, son of the great Cosimo, decreed the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the coinage was changed.

...

The Gold Florin survived the plague epidemic but, as we have seen before, not at the behest of Alessandro I de 'Medici who practically decreed its end with the advent of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1533. The indelible memory of a gold coin that for over three hundred years has supported and implemented in its central part the Renaissance of Florence. From there was born the popular saying: a gold florin today to have a thousand tomorrow.