IT Governance in the School of Professional and Continuing Education Dissertation

IT Governance in the School of Professional and Continuing Education Of ABC University - Dissertation Example The world of business is becoming more and more digital, computer-based, and interconnected by a network and accessible to the national and global communities. It is imperative for an organization like the ABC University to see the value of Information Technology (IT) as a strategic resource so that all investments related to IT will have maximum returns in terms of increasing the value of the school in the minds of society. Nicholas Carr (2003, p.1), Harvard Business Review Editor, believes that as a result of ready availability of IT resources, the key purpose of IT has ceased to be for purposes of discovering opportunities and gaining competitive advantages. Instead, he says it should â€Å"focus on reducing risk† (p.1). This means having good governance of security for the data and minimizing costs of maintaining and utilizing IT for strategy development. Rajiv Kohli and Sarv Devaraj (2004, p. 53) recommended 4 phases that will give value to IT, and called it the AIAC Fram ework. This stood for the processes of Alignment, Involvement, Analysis, and Communication. Details of the each process are shown in the appended AIAC Framework Model. See Figure 1. In the course of research, analysis, and planning, the ABC University IT Governance will be reviewed in terms of the processes in this framework. Although there are many other frameworks that are available, the AIAC will be utilized primarily because it aims to quantify the value of IT governance. However, there will be modifications to include those recommended by other frameworks and are not found in the ALAC framework. Information technology serves the role of a strategic partner instead of only a technology provider. The IT Governance Institute (ITGI, 2003) believes that effective IT Governance helps to ensure that IT supports business goals and optimizes business

Quality Management Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Quality Management - Research Paper Example Due to heavy losses incurred in the past five months, the bookshop is undergoing a change in management structure. The change is to take effect from next month and it will only involve the replacement of the accountant. Leadership team: The management team involved in implementing the success of the bookshop is the priest who is the chief executive officer. The manager is the chairman of the senior youth group of the church. Finally the accountant is any qualified senior youth member. The priest is the chief executive of the bookshop. His responsibility is overseeing the running of the business from the management to the actual transactions. He is the chief advisor to the manager. He authorizes orders and co-sign major documents together with the manager. He chairs all executive meetings of the bookshop. The manager is the authoritative head of the bookshop. His responsibility ranges from decision making to planning. He is involved in the daily running of the business at the management level. He oversees all the operations of the bookshop and he is the reporting figure of the bookshop. The accountant records every transaction in the bookshop. He is responsible for all the bookkeeping in the bookshop. He ensures all the legal regulations of operating a bookshop are followed. He updates the inventory control ledgers and advice on order quantities and periods. Culture: The culture of the senior youth bookshop is the principles, integrity and values. The value of the bookshop is the customers, staff members and all the other stakeholders. The Principles are to offer the best customer service and products. Also to ensure the books and products offered are the best quality available in the market. The integrity of the bookshop is charging fair prices and fair business practices. The changes needed are: (1) restructuring the management structure. (2) Improving the selling strategies of the bookshop. Existing improvement initiatives: The initiatives are to improve

The Dead Mens Path Theme Analysis Religion Essay

The Dead Mens Path Theme Analysis Religion Essay Dead Mens Path is a short story written in 1972 by African Author Chinua Achebe. It is about Michael Obi, a young and energetic man excited about all things modern who is just assigned a position to run a traditional school. Not long into the job, he finds that along with his misguided zeal, ignoring the traditions of his people can have great consequences. Obi is a bright and enthusiastic young man who is excited to find out that he will be the new headmaster of a school that has been in desperate need of help for some time. Obi was considered a pivotal teacher and he and his wife are both forward thinking and eager to share the modern life with everyone. Chinua Achebe shows the Obis modern enthusiasm by writing: We shall do our best, she Obis wife) replied. We shall have such beautiful gardens and everything will be just modern and delightful He also shows Obis views of the traditionalist people by attacking their character referring to them as, these old and superannuated people in the teaching field. Of his two goals for the school, one was to make the grounds a place of beauty. An upcoming inspection was the perfect motivation to begin what he thought to be great improvements. In time the gardens blossomed with beautiful red and yellow flowers. As Obi is admiring his work, he comes across an old woman from the village who walks str aight across the flowers onto what Obe discovers to be an old faint almost unused path. Obi speaks to a teacher and finds out exactly what the path was used for. It amazes me, said Obi to one of the teachers who had been three years in the school, that you people allowed the villagers to make use of this footpath. It is simply incredible. He shook his head. The path, the teacher said apologetically, appears to be very important to them. Although it is hardly used, it connects the village shrine with their place of burial. Obi didnt care about the reason and for fear that the coming inspector may see people on school grounds who didnt belong, demanded that the footpath be closed off immediately regardless of warnings from the teacher. The path was then blocked with heavy logs and reinforced with barbed wire. A priest was sent by the outraged villagers to try and talk some sense into Obi, pressing upon him the significance that the path has not to just the villagers, but also the dead who walk the path.Look here my son, this path was here before you were born and before your father was born. The whole life of the village depends on it. Our dead relatives depart by it and our ancestors visit us by it. But most important, it is the path of children coming in to be born. Obi rejected the priests words and in mocking replied to him Dead men dont walk. he dismissed his ancestry and instead chose the modern way. The path remained blocked and a few days later a village woman died in childbirth. The villagers took that as a sign that if the path remains blocked they would suffer great misfortune. Believing that the mother would be unable to rest in peace and the child unable to walk the path and enter the world, the villagers became agitated and tore down a school building as well as everything used to block the path and the flowers planted to impress the inspector. When the inspector finally arrived, he was presented with grounds that were completely destroyed along w ith a headmaster who thought only about himself and erasing the past to become modern. In the story, with the descriptions of the pretentious headmaster and his lack of respect for the elders and their traditions the narrator clearly has taken sides with the villagers. Chinua Achebe writes, The whole purpose of our school is to eradicate such beliefs as that. Dead men do not require footpaths. The whole idea is just fantastic. Our duty is to teach your children to laugh at such ideas. The main point in question in the story is in reference to the villagers beliefs and customs and the importance it held in their lives. Obi was wrong in his thinking and in his methods, believing that he can just cut the people off from what in our time would be considered a funeral. When it comes to the destruction and rejection of something that was and is important to people such as traditions no matter how old the customs may be, nobody has the right to negate a persons background and nobody has the ability to remove a persons belief and substitute it with their own. An unfamiliar cul tures belief may seem fanciful but to those who believe it, it is as much a vital part of their lives as technology is in ours. The heart of a persons belief is in having faith although what you believe can never be proven. What happens in death is a perfect example of this. Nobody alive can know what happens after death so we are left with our imaginations to hope that our loved ones are in a better place rather than in the ground or left as ashes. People need that faith to carry on because at times the thought of never again seeing those people can be unbearable. Our ancestors traditions and customs are important because the only knowledge we have of things we have no proof on is in the things passed down for generations. Just as the story explained, the villagers were so strong in their beliefs of the path that when it became blocked they attacked the school and everything that was blocking the sacred path: The beautiful hedges were torn up not just near the path but right around the schoolflowers trampledone of the school buildings torn down The importance of a persons culture is more than just the faith of a single person, it connects a group of people who believe alike and allows them to work together with the same end results. As stated in Achebes Dead Mens Path, contemporary community shouldnt do as Obi and try to eradicate the core of a peoples beliefs which, with his mocking reply to the priest is just what he tried to do. Our duty is to teach your children to laugh at such ideas. It is important to remember and to honor traditions. Many people fight to keep their traditions alive, whether its an old woman making her 80th annual pilgrimage to a Mexican cemetery to light a candle at Dona Candelaria de Sapiens grave or Native American tribe members dressed in full ceremonial clothing dancing to celebrate the coming rain. In Achebes story, the people fought to keep the path free so that those who pass on can rest in peace and the traditions of the vill agers can carry on for generations to come, far beyond the lives of the priests, villagers and Obi.

Compare and Contrast how Thomas Hardy and Charlotte Perkins Gilman :: English Literature

Compare and Contrast how Thomas Hardy and Charlotte Perkins Gilman present the situation, behaviour and attitude of the women in the stories The Withered Arm and Turned. Explain what motivates these characters to behave as they do. Thomas Cookes Compare and Contrast how Thomas Hardy and Charlotte Perkins Gilman present the situation, behaviour and attitude of the women in the stories 'The Withered Arm' and 'Turned'. Explain what motivates these characters to behave as they do. Hardy and Gilman both share a similarity of characters and theme in their short stories. Both focus particularly on the female characters and the ways in which the other characters react and behave towards them throughout the stories. Both stories have two strong main female characters and two weaker more naÃÆ'Â ¯ve but also lead female characters. The way these characters interact with each other is very similar in both stories, how Marion and Rhoda seem to almost mother Gerta and Mrs. Lodge as they appear to have a kind of power over the two younger women. Although it can be argued that in the case of Mrs. Lodge, she has Rhoda's ex lover as her husband and this could be looked upon that she has an advantage over Rhoda. She feels as though Gertrude is 'closing doors' between herself and Farmer Lodge that finally there is no chance of rekindling the old flames she once had with him or for Farmer Lodge to make 'any reparation' for what he did to her. Both the elder women also have greater knowledge of men and how the world works, even if Mrs. Lodge is what is called a 'lady complete' she is still unaware of how society works and is treated. Both Rhoda and Marion are women who refuse to conform to how society expects them to act and behave. This is obvious when Marion takes in Gerta after discovering her husband to be having relations with the girl. Most women of the time would have taken back their husband and banished the girl, and although this is Marion's instinct she knows deep down this is wrong. Rhoda is similar to Gerta; she also had a sexual relationship outside of marriage with Mr. Lodge and bore a child from it, but yet still continues to hold her head high and not disappears in society as many women of the time would have done. In a way this difference between these two similar characters is kind of ironic as Marion has to deal with her husband having relations outside marriage with a girl, whereas Rhoda is a woman who had sexual relations outside marriage. Compare and Contrast how Thomas Hardy and Charlotte Perkins Gilman :: English Literature Compare and Contrast how Thomas Hardy and Charlotte Perkins Gilman present the situation, behaviour and attitude of the women in the stories The Withered Arm and Turned. Explain what motivates these characters to behave as they do. Thomas Cookes Compare and Contrast how Thomas Hardy and Charlotte Perkins Gilman present the situation, behaviour and attitude of the women in the stories 'The Withered Arm' and 'Turned'. Explain what motivates these characters to behave as they do. Hardy and Gilman both share a similarity of characters and theme in their short stories. Both focus particularly on the female characters and the ways in which the other characters react and behave towards them throughout the stories. Both stories have two strong main female characters and two weaker more naÃÆ'Â ¯ve but also lead female characters. The way these characters interact with each other is very similar in both stories, how Marion and Rhoda seem to almost mother Gerta and Mrs. Lodge as they appear to have a kind of power over the two younger women. Although it can be argued that in the case of Mrs. Lodge, she has Rhoda's ex lover as her husband and this could be looked upon that she has an advantage over Rhoda. She feels as though Gertrude is 'closing doors' between herself and Farmer Lodge that finally there is no chance of rekindling the old flames she once had with him or for Farmer Lodge to make 'any reparation' for what he did to her. Both the elder women also have greater knowledge of men and how the world works, even if Mrs. Lodge is what is called a 'lady complete' she is still unaware of how society works and is treated. Both Rhoda and Marion are women who refuse to conform to how society expects them to act and behave. This is obvious when Marion takes in Gerta after discovering her husband to be having relations with the girl. Most women of the time would have taken back their husband and banished the girl, and although this is Marion's instinct she knows deep down this is wrong. Rhoda is similar to Gerta; she also had a sexual relationship outside of marriage with Mr. Lodge and bore a child from it, but yet still continues to hold her head high and not disappears in society as many women of the time would have done. In a way this difference between these two similar characters is kind of ironic as Marion has to deal with her husband having relations outside marriage with a girl, whereas Rhoda is a woman who had sexual relations outside marriage.

Convictions Paper

Convictions 1 Convictions Ohio Christian University CM3000 – Christian Excellence Convictions 2 We all live our lives according to our set of personal convictions. Personal convictions are the blueprints that guide us down the path of life. We generally obtain our core convictions during childhood based on our culture, where we live and our religious beliefs. It is probably safe to say that no two people will have the exact same convictions because each of our experiences and backgrounds vary in some manner.When thinking about convictions, I am reminded of the following scripture; â€Å"One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind† (Romans 14:5). Although the Bible does not specifically mention convictions, I am sure that Paul was talking about each person’s individual convictions. In the book Christian Excellence Alternative To Success written by Jon Johnston, he tells us that there are four pitfall concerning convictions that we have to be aware of: 1. Superstitious Convictions 2. Convictions that attract attention for selfish egos . Convictions generated by an unwillingness to change 4. Convictions that are negative Convictions 3 Convictions that are Superstitious As a professed Christian, I have often been guilty of looking at horoscopes and once for a lark, going to a psychic. However; even when I was indulging in each of these activities I felt a little squeamish. I was taught to believe that God alone knows our futures. By reading the horoscopes and going to the psychic, I was not being true to my religious convictions. As Christians, we have to be careful to stay away from anything that opposes biblical teaching.When we indulge in something that is superstitious it advocates faith in something other than God, and it is a form of divination. We cannot determine God's will for our lives through horoscopes or psychics. As Christians, we are to read the Bibl e and pray to God in order to gain wisdom and guidance. Convictions that Attract attention for a selfish ego Matthew 6: 16-18 states, â€Å"â€Å"Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting.Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. â€Å"But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you,† (King James). For me, this is the essence of not attracting attention for a selfish ego. Everything that we do should be for the Glory of God and not the approval of man. When we live by convictions based on what man thinks, we open our heart to sin, including the sin of egotism.Lucifer, who was one on God’s most glorious creations, fell from grace due to his ego. Convictions 4 When we allow ourselves to be reeled in by our egos, we put ourselves in the â€Å"first place† that belongs only to God. In effect we are separating ourselves from depending on God. I have to be very careful of using the words I and me. I have overcome a lot of issues and now have a great life. However; I try and always remember to leave ego out and remember that it was by and thru the Grace of God. Convictions generated by Unwillingness to ChangeIn the textbook Christian Excellence Johnston says, â€Å"Today, some of us slide into a â€Å"conviction rut† in order to avoid facing change† (p. 132). My Father was 32 years older than my Mother. I was born when my father was 52 and my sister when he was 56. My Father was born in 1910 and had grown up thru the depression and under conditions that were vastly different from my sister and I. My Father had to make many changes in his thoughts, actions and attitudes to ensure that he was able to be the best Father in the world.This included g oing places he was not used to and participating in activities foreign to him so that we could navigate a modern life. I am absolutely certain this was difficult for him, but because of the love he felt for us he was willing to change. Often when people are unable to accept change, they become isolated. I don’t think by making changes in our lives we have to go against God. Titus 3:5 states, â€Å"He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,† (King James).The scripture speaks of renewal and regeneration and they both require change. We have to be able to change our attitudes in order to ge Convictions 5 along with others. Johnston is not saying that we have to change our values, but we have to be willing to adapt ourselves to situations. In the textbook, he gave an example of how some were not willing to accept new medical advances. I am one who believes tha t God provides the knowledge available to Doctors to save lives. Accepting the benefits of medical technology is a form of being able to accept change.The Jews wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because they were unable to accept change. They were unable to move beyond the life of slavery and cruel masters to the lives that God had ordained them. Their inability to accept change induced them to be grumblers and complainers. It literally isolated them from God. Convictions that are Negative In the course of life, I have heard dialogue from some Christians and thought to myself, â€Å"they do not inspire anyone to become a Christian. † This was due to their negativity. It seemed as if everything was a sin.They treated everyone else as a condemned sinner not worthy of God’s love. Alfred A. Montapert said, â€Å"Avoid destructive thinking. Improper negative thoughts sink people. A ship can sail around the world many, many times, but just let enough water get into the ship and it will sink. Just so with the human mind. Let enough negative thoughts or improper thoughts get into the human mind and the person sinks just like a ship† (worldofquotes. com). Jesus encountered many negative people even while he was attempting to save them from sin.Even one of the men hanging on the cross with Jesus instead of asking for mercy, went to his death a pathetic and negative person. When we are negative, are hearts are heartened to good news. I think this is a sin. The Bible admonishes us to â€Å"In the same way, let your light shine Convictions 6 before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven,(Matthew 5:16). As Christians one of our primary roles is to lead others to Christ. When we are negative and sour faced we are unable to do that.In closing, although we all do have different convictions, If we are Christian, we have a common denominator, Jesus Christ. I think we have to occasionally examine our convictions and dete rmine if they are Christ like. We have to determine if we have wrapped ourselves in a self-righteous cloak of convictions that is more worldly than Godly. Convictions 7 References Johnston, J. (1996). Christian Excellence Alternative To Success. Second Edition. JKO Publishing. Franklin, Tn. World of Quotes. Retrieved March 2012. Alfred A. Montepert. http://www. worldofquotes. com/Negative: Convictions Paper Convictions 1 Convictions Ohio Christian University CM3000 – Christian Excellence Convictions 2 We all live our lives according to our set of personal convictions. Personal convictions are the blueprints that guide us down the path of life. We generally obtain our core convictions during childhood based on our culture, where we live and our religious beliefs. It is probably safe to say that no two people will have the exact same convictions because each of our experiences and backgrounds vary in some manner.When thinking about convictions, I am reminded of the following scripture; â€Å"One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind† (Romans 14:5). Although the Bible does not specifically mention convictions, I am sure that Paul was talking about each person’s individual convictions. In the book Christian Excellence Alternative To Success written by Jon Johnston, he tells us that there are four pitfall concerning convictions that we have to be aware of: 1. Superstitious Convictions 2. Convictions that attract attention for selfish egos . Convictions generated by an unwillingness to change 4. Convictions that are negative Convictions 3 Convictions that are Superstitious As a professed Christian, I have often been guilty of looking at horoscopes and once for a lark, going to a psychic. However; even when I was indulging in each of these activities I felt a little squeamish. I was taught to believe that God alone knows our futures. By reading the horoscopes and going to the psychic, I was not being true to my religious convictions. As Christians, we have to be careful to stay away from anything that opposes biblical teaching.When we indulge in something that is superstitious it advocates faith in something other than God, and it is a form of divination. We cannot determine God's will for our lives through horoscopes or psychics. As Christians, we are to read the Bibl e and pray to God in order to gain wisdom and guidance. Convictions that Attract attention for a selfish ego Matthew 6: 16-18 states, â€Å"â€Å"Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting.Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. â€Å"But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you,† (King James). For me, this is the essence of not attracting attention for a selfish ego. Everything that we do should be for the Glory of God and not the approval of man. When we live by convictions based on what man thinks, we open our heart to sin, including the sin of egotism.Lucifer, who was one on God’s most glorious creations, fell from grace due to his ego. Convictions 4 When we allow ourselves to be reeled in by our egos, we put ourselves in the â€Å"first place† that belongs only to God. In effect we are separating ourselves from depending on God. I have to be very careful of using the words I and me. I have overcome a lot of issues and now have a great life. However; I try and always remember to leave ego out and remember that it was by and thru the Grace of God. Convictions generated by Unwillingness to ChangeIn the textbook Christian Excellence Johnston says, â€Å"Today, some of us slide into a â€Å"conviction rut† in order to avoid facing change† (p. 132). My Father was 32 years older than my Mother. I was born when my father was 52 and my sister when he was 56. My Father was born in 1910 and had grown up thru the depression and under conditions that were vastly different from my sister and I. My Father had to make many changes in his thoughts, actions and attitudes to ensure that he was able to be the best Father in the world.This included g oing places he was not used to and participating in activities foreign to him so that we could navigate a modern life. I am absolutely certain this was difficult for him, but because of the love he felt for us he was willing to change. Often when people are unable to accept change, they become isolated. I don’t think by making changes in our lives we have to go against God. Titus 3:5 states, â€Å"He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,† (King James).The scripture speaks of renewal and regeneration and they both require change. We have to be able to change our attitudes in order to ge Convictions 5 along with others. Johnston is not saying that we have to change our values, but we have to be willing to adapt ourselves to situations. In the textbook, he gave an example of how some were not willing to accept new medical advances. I am one who believes tha t God provides the knowledge available to Doctors to save lives. Accepting the benefits of medical technology is a form of being able to accept change.The Jews wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because they were unable to accept change. They were unable to move beyond the life of slavery and cruel masters to the lives that God had ordained them. Their inability to accept change induced them to be grumblers and complainers. It literally isolated them from God. Convictions that are Negative In the course of life, I have heard dialogue from some Christians and thought to myself, â€Å"they do not inspire anyone to become a Christian. † This was due to their negativity. It seemed as if everything was a sin.They treated everyone else as a condemned sinner not worthy of God’s love. Alfred A. Montapert said, â€Å"Avoid destructive thinking. Improper negative thoughts sink people. A ship can sail around the world many, many times, but just let enough water get into the ship and it will sink. Just so with the human mind. Let enough negative thoughts or improper thoughts get into the human mind and the person sinks just like a ship† (worldofquotes. com). Jesus encountered many negative people even while he was attempting to save them from sin.Even one of the men hanging on the cross with Jesus instead of asking for mercy, went to his death a pathetic and negative person. When we are negative, are hearts are heartened to good news. I think this is a sin. The Bible admonishes us to â€Å"In the same way, let your light shine Convictions 6 before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven,(Matthew 5:16). As Christians one of our primary roles is to lead others to Christ. When we are negative and sour faced we are unable to do that.In closing, although we all do have different convictions, If we are Christian, we have a common denominator, Jesus Christ. I think we have to occasionally examine our convictions and dete rmine if they are Christ like. We have to determine if we have wrapped ourselves in a self-righteous cloak of convictions that is more worldly than Godly. Convictions 7 References Johnston, J. (1996). Christian Excellence Alternative To Success. Second Edition. JKO Publishing. Franklin, Tn. World of Quotes. Retrieved March 2012. Alfred A. Montepert. http://www. worldofquotes. com/Negative:

Economic Activity as Reflected in Painting:

ECONOMIC ACTIVITY AS REFLECTED IN PAINTING: THE CONTRASTING VIEWS OF ECONOMISTS AND ART HISTORIANS [1] Manuel Santos-Redondo Universidad Complutense de Madrid [las diferencias con respecto al Documento de Trabajo disponible en la Web estan subrayadas] 1. Introduction The Moneychanger and his Wife is probably the picture most widely used to illustrate economic activity, and so it is (supposedly) well known by economists, managers, and accountants. The accounting book which appears in the picture is the origin of former AECA (Spanish Association of Accounting and Business Administration) logotype. It is a Flemish painting from the early 16th century. Not so many economists are, however, aware that there are two different versions of this picture: one by Quentin Massys, painted about 1514 (now in Paris, the Louvre), and another by Marinus (Claeszon) van Reymerswaele, painted in 1539 (now in Madrid, in the Prado). There are significant changes between the two versions. This being the Scholastic period and also the epoch of the commercial revolution in Europe, we would expect this picture to have some sort of economic meaning, and for the changes in the pictures to reflect these changes in economic activity and economic thought. We will argue in this paper that there does exist such a meaning; and that also the very important changes between Massys’s and Reymerswaele’s pictures have much to do with the economic changes in Europe in the beginning of the 16th century. Most art historians have seen in Massys' and Reymerswaele's paintings a satirical and moralising symbolism, The Money Changer and his Wife being the representation of greed. Others think that the picture shows economic activity in a respectable way. Flanders at that time was the centre of a flourishing industrial and commercial activity, and also was the centre of a mercantile trade in works of art. Both things led to a representation of the professional activity of moneychangers, goldsmiths, and bankers in a way that shows those activities as respectable professions. The second view is the one implicitly shared by economists when choosing this picture to illustrate many books on economics or business. Some scholars have proposed more subtle interpretations. Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson, the historian of economic thought who first aroused the interest of economists in the Spanish Scholastics of â€Å"School of Salamanca†, considers Massys' painting to be an illustration of the intention of Scholastics to make compatible the commercial customs of the time with Church doctrine on usury. According to her interpretation, Massys' painting would mean the money lender working and, at the same time, discussing with his wife the fairness of a particular commercial deal, helped by the religious book his wife is reading. It is important to notice that, 25 years on, the book in Reymerswaele’ painting is no longer a religious work but an accounting book. But art historians claim that there is still some symbolism in the painting which gives it a moralising and satirical intent. According to them, this symbolism was clear to contemporaries but not to us; or sometimes would have been intentionally difficult to notice for those contemporaries who were not in the same religious group as the painter or his client. For instance, the long, curved fingers of the bourgeois couple allegedly represented avarice. But Reymerswaele painted the fingers of Saint Jerome in the same way , so it must have an aesthetic intention and not a symbolic one. In the process of reviewing the different interpretations provided by art historians of this picture and other similar ones, we shall see that they are consistent with the views that most art historians share about the economy (as Hayek points out in his chapter of The fatal conceit, 1988, â€Å"The Mysterious World of Trade and Money†) rather than based on any objective interpretation of the painting and history. Thus, while the picture shows commercial and financial activity to be a normal, respectable occupation, most art historians see a moralizing and satirical intention. My view is that art historians’ prejudice towards commercial and financial activity leads them to a wrong interpretation of the paintings. When the painters wanted to be satirical and moralizing, they did it in a way that is clearly recognizable by us today. And that this is not the case with the The Moneychanger and his Wife, in either the version of Massys or that of Reymerswaele. 2. Quentin Massys Let us start with Quentin Massys,[2] The Moneychanger and his Wife, dated 1514. Figure 1]. It is probably derided from a lost work by Jan van Eyck, c. 1440. [3] On the table are placed coins, a set of scales, and various other tools of their trade. (â€Å"various other tokens of their wealth†, says the art historian Jean-Claude Frere, 1997, p. 186. This is our first difference in interpretation). The man is wei ghing gold coins with great care. At that time, coins with the same face value varied in the amount of gold they contained (and therefore in their real exchange value), because it was a normal practice to file them down, clip them, or to shake them together in a bag in order to collect the gold dust they produced. So, the moneychanger is simply going about his business, not counting his money as a miser would do. And, if you look at his face, it is not the face of a miser, but the face of a concentrating working man, carefully carrying out his job. His wife is looking at the coins and scales too; but she has a book in her hands. The book is a religious one, an illustrated â€Å"book of hours†. Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson, the historian of economic thought who first brought economists attention to the Spanish Scholastics of the â€Å"School of Salamanca†, considers Massys painting an illustration of the intention of the Scholastics to make compatible the commercial practices of their time with the Church's doctrine on usury. According to her interpretation, Massys painting portrays the money lender at work and, at the same time, discussing with his wife the fairness of a particular commercial deal, helped by consulting the religious book his wife is reading. [4] Many other interpretations of Massys’s work consider this picture as to be a oralizing one, in a much stronger sense than that of Grice-Hutchinson's view. The Encarta Encyclopedia says: â€Å"In The Moneychanger and his Wife, the subtly hinted conflict between avarice and prayer represented in the couple illustrates a new satirical quality in his paintings. â€Å"[5] (It is curious that the â€Å"Web Gallery of Art†, together with the Encarta article, provides this contradictory explanation: â€Å"The painting remains in the Flemish tradition of van Eyck, with the addition of a profane sense of beauty, sign of a new world†). [6] Another scholar says this about Massys: â€Å"Painters also began to treat new subjects. Men like Quentin Massys, for example, played an active role in the intellectual life of their cities and began to mirror the ethical concerns expressed by humanist thinkers with new paintings that used secular scenes to impart moralizing messages. Vivid tableaux warned against gambling, lust, and other vices. â€Å"[7] At the bottom of the painting there is a circular mirror; we can see the tiny figure of a man wearing a turban. [Figure 2] For some reason, the following is the explanation of the art historian Jean-Claude Frere: â€Å"a side window, under which we can just make out the tiny figure of a thief. He would seem to be spying on the couple as they count their gold, while they would seem to be oblivious to his presence, blinded by their greed†. [8] Let us leave aside the greed and concentrate on the tiny man. Is he a thief? I don't know. But I'm sure he is not â€Å"spying on the couple as they count their gold†: I am not an art historian, but it seems clear to me that the man is inside the room, he is reading a book and looking out of the window to the street. In think that this is not a casual mistake: it is consistent with art historians’ interpretation. Symbolism, a source of moralistic interpretation My view is that art historians explanation of The Moneychanger and his Wife as a satirical work containing symbolic allusions hidden from contemporary observers, is merely a reflection of their own prejudices concerning certain economic activities. Let us consider the serious arguments supporting the symbolic explanations of paintings of the Flemish Renaissance, in order to be able to judge when a painting has this meaning and when has not. The famous art historian Erwin Panofsky held that the Early Flemish painters had to reconcile the â€Å"new naturalism† with a thousand years of Christian tradition. Based on St. Tomas Aquinas, who thought that physical objects were â€Å"corporeal metaphors for spiritual things†, Panofsky (Early Netherlandish Painting, 1953) maintains that â€Å"in early Flemish painting the method of disguised symbolism was applied to each and every object, man made or natural†. [9] There are other historical sources that point to a symbolic meaning in the painting of Quentin Massys. In his painting Portrait of a Merchant and his Partner,[10] [Figure 3] there is a clearly legible inscription, in French: â€Å"L'avaricieux n'est jamais rempli d'argent†¦ N'ayez point souci des richesses injustes, car elles ne vous profiteront en rien au jour de la visitation et de la vengeance. Soyez donc sans avarice†. This is a paraphrase of the Gospel of St Luke, ch. XII, 15, 21-34; Saint Matthew, ch. VI, 19-21. Jean Cailleux says that the main character in the painting â€Å"est soumis a la parole evangelique. Il est vraiment fidele dans les richesses injustes. Il ne cede pas a la sollicitacion du Tentateur qui, derriere lui, le visage tordu par lavarice et la soif du lucre, lui propose des comptes fantastiques†. 11] Painting and Economic Activity at Flanders We can expect the Flemish painters to be familiar with market oriented economic activity and the money world, because of the society in which they lived. Flanders at that time was the center of a flourishing industrial and commercial world, and also was the center of a mercantile trade of works of art. Both things led to a representation of the professional activity of moneychan gers, goldsmiths, and bankers in a way that shows those activities as respectable ones. Most Flemish artists were familiar with this world because of their own craft of painting, which was indeed market oriented. Massys was the most important of Antwerp painters of his time; and this means his shop was an example of how artistic production was organized in Antwerp, and formerly in Bruges. It is not at all odd that Flemish painters should portray business people. Massys worked for religious confraternities, and also painted portraits and other profane subjects, sometimes satirical, in response to commissions from humanists and scholars. Frere says that Massys was â€Å"perfectly attuned to the new mercantile conception of art. Antwerp was already established as an active and liberal center for trade in art† (1997, p. 186). Both Antwerp and Bruges had a regulated guild system for painters at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is important to notice not only the art of the painter, but also the evolution of the master's workshop. At the beginning of the Renaissance, training in a craft took place in workshops regulated by civic authorities: apprenticeship was followed by admission to a guild. By the end of the century, â€Å"workshops had become more like shops nowadays, turning out goods for a flourishing private market accountable to no one. And change came without a defining moment and without artists missing a beat. Workshop assistants had certain preparatory tasks, including grinding pigments, laying grounds, and the transfer of under-drawings. Experienced assistants took on subsidiary passages, including background or stock figures. Assistants also made copies to keep pace with demand, and they had access to the master's designs once they set up for themselves. Workshop copies ranged from straightforward replicas to transpositions into other media and from large commissions to private, devotional images. â€Å"[12] The conventional portrait of a rich man But this familiarity of artists with a commercial society does not lead them automatically to portray business people in their trade, as â€Å"occupational portraits†: the common way to portray a business man was in a way that showed him as a religious man, or as an intellectual in his house, surrounded by works of art and literature. The best known example is The Arnolfini Portrait by van Eyck, but there are many others. In the triptych The Last Judgement, painted in 1480 by the Flemish painter, working in Bruges, Hans Memling, we can see the portraits of Tomaso Portinari and his wife, naked inside the scales; and those of Angiolo Tani and his wife, Catarina Tanagli, kneeling on the floor at prayer. [Figure 4] Both Portinari and Tani were important business men working in Bruges branch of the Medici company. In the Italian Renaissance, Lorenzo de Medici is portrayed as one of the Magi in Gozzoli’s Journey of the Magi, 1459. 13] It was quite common to include the donors' portrait in a religious scene. Tomaso Portinari and his wife, Maria Baroncelli, were also directly portrayed by Memling, at prayer. [14] (The fact that Antwerp was a rapidly enriched city and lacked a traditional aristocracy, may well have been an important reason for the artist representing economic activity in the portraits of businessmen , instead of the traditional â€Å"rich and cultured† portrait). 3. Marinus van Reymerswaele Let us now move on to the other version of the portrait and to a different year. Marinus van Reymerswaele[15] The Moneychanger and his Wife, [Figure 5] painted in 1539, is inspired by Massys. [16] This is the explanation of the painting provided by the Spanish Association of Accounting and Business Administration, AECA, which in 1979 chose as the symbol of the association a section this painting. [Figure 6] â€Å"The painting which has inspired our logotype is internationally famous as an image of financial activity during the Renaissance: it shows a scene typical of the counting house of a banker of the period. The subject of the pair of moneychangers shows us a new profession which has appeared in the period, a profession related to the world of finance, taxes and commercial accounts. Reymerswaele adapts the subject of the banker and his wife from Massys’s painting now in the Louvre in Paris. In Reymerswaele’s painting, the bourgeois married couple are seen counting out gold and silver coins, and the husband is weighing them with great care in a small set of scales, since most of them would be clipped or scraped. The coins are probably the product of tax-collection, an exchange of foreign currency or the repaying of a loan. This would imply the use of the abacus which the banker has at his right on the table, and then the setting out of accounts in the accounts book which the wife is holding in her delicate fine hands. â€Å"[17] Compare the explanation of this picture given by the AECA with the moralistic and over-sophisticated explanations of the art historians. The changes Between 1514 and 1539, many things have changed. In particular, the accelerated growth of the economy that stemmed from the discovery and colonization of the New World, and the religious transformation known as Lutheran Reformation. Reymerswaele was himself involved in the Lutheran Reformation. (We know that in 1567, being an old man, he took part in the sack of Middelburg cathedral, and was severely punished (six years of banishment and public humiliation). Reymerswaele specialized in everyday scenes of flourishing Flanders, with great realism, which gives his works a considerable documentary interest. (Paintings by masters of Northern Renaissance realism often recorded official contracts or acts. The Lawyer's Office, 1545, by Reymerswaele, [Figure 7] is a remarkable example of this practice. Recent research has demonstrated that the documents, which form the background of the painting, refer to an actual lawsuit begun in 1526 in the town of Reymerswaele on the North Sea). [18] His subjects were businessmen: usurers, notaries, tax gatherers; but what could be seen as â€Å"occupational portraits† are always stressed as moralizing: Another art historian says â€Å"usuriers, changeurs, avocats, notaires, percepteurs d'impots, monde apre et rapace de l'argent toujours plus puissant dans le metropole enrichie. †¦ ] L'art de Marinus [Reymerswaele] presente une accentuation presque caricaturale, qui donne a l'ouvre sa portee moralisante† (Philippot, 1994, p. 173). Puyvelde considers that, in the genre painting by Marinus van Reymerswaele, the realist portrait turns into a caricature of rapacious and greedy businessmen. In Reymerswaele The Moneychanger and his Wife, he says, â€Å"l'esprit de lucre est plus nettement marque dans les physionomies et les doigts maigres† (Puyvelde, p. 13; we will turn to the fingers latter). The study of the gold coins that appear in the painting shows that â€Å"the coins are mostly Italian and are all of types minted before 1520† (Puyvelde, p. 17). This could mean that the painting is a trial effort done by Reymerswaele, before his first clearly datable painting, Saint Jerome, of 1521. The importance of Puyvelde's argument is not the exact date, which I cannot dispute, but the fact that Puyvelde considers The Money changer and his Wife closer to a portrait than to a satire, as ompared to later works by Marinus: later in his career, Reymerswaele would have abandoned portraiture and turned to satire and caricature (â€Å"pamphlet†, says Puyvelde). [19] The public appears to have had a preference for satire, and Marinus sought to satisfy the public with pleasant humorous pictures which enjoyed great popularity among collectors of the period. Other paintings contain inscriptions which refer to the taxes charged on beer, wine or fish. In one of the copies or i mitations of The Lawyer's Office, titled The Notary's Study, the document the notary is reading has been deciphered: it appears to be a parody of legal slang. Even the signature on the document in French reads â€Å"Notaire infame et faussaire†. [20] Usually museum guides reflect the views of art historians. Referring to Reymerswaele The Moneychanger and his Wife, a guide to the Prado says: â€Å"In this painting we find all the characteristics of Northern European painters: minute detail, fine quality raw material, an empirical approach to reality, and above all, the naked sordidness with which Van Reymerswaele approaches one of the principal evils of his time: usury, the greater of all possible sins in a commercial society such as Flanders. Corruption and fraud affected all levels of society, even the clergy, producing a critical reaction on the part of writers, theologians and artists. â€Å"[21] Reymerswaele was not the only painter who developed Massys portraits; several other Flemish painters did. Again, there are significant differences in their style, differences which influence the overall â€Å"tone† of the picture either as â€Å"occupational portrait† or â€Å"caricature†. My point is that a common spectator of today can spot the difference. Corneille van der Capelle painted Le Percepteur d'impots et son Garant and Le Percepteur d'impots et sa Femme,[22] [Figure 8] in which we can notice a real, kind portrait of the businessmen, quite far from any caricature. But, even given the very different styles, I find no moral satire in Reymerswaele The Moneychanger and his Wife, as compared to his other works. In Reymerswaele version, the religious book has disappeared. This is an obvious change, since Marinus was a Protestant and wouldn't have accepted any other religious book for daily reading than the bible. But there is no bible in Marinus painting. Instead, there is a hand-written book, with no illustrations, which seems to be an accounting book. The characters in Reymerswaele painting are most elegant, with luxurious clothes, and long, delicate fingers. This is also thought by some scholars to be satirical: â€Å"Long, curved fingers were, in XVI century, a sign of greed or avarice, so an apparently domestic subject can also be full of moral meaning†. [23] Long, curved fingers and noses use to represent Jews and, by extension, greed or avarice in Christian iconography. It may be important to notice that Jews played an important role in Antwerp’s economic activity. The money market was controlled by the Italian Lombards, and Jews could only act as minor money-lenders. The Jews lent mainly small amounts of money for shorter periods of time to less wealthy people such as butchers and bakers. Scarcity was an excellent situation for Jewish money-lenders. As a consequence, the y had many clients among the common people who probably had great difficulties in paying them back. This fact may have reinforced the strong anti-Semitism prevalent at that time. There were a massacre of Jews in Antwerp in 1350, and then many Spanish and Portuguese â€Å"marranos† came to settle there after 1492 and 1497, expelled from Spain and Portugal. [24] I haven’t fully explored yet the possibility of the satirical portraits being racist or anti-Semitic). But the long fingers can imply other things: they can be an esthetic technique to make people appear more mystical, unmaterialistic, attractive. We could interpret thus the fingers of Reymerswaele’ Saint Jerome, in 1521. [Figure 9] And Saint Jerome transmits you the idea of ascetic sanctity, the antithesis of greed. Although, again, some scholar says that Reymerswaele painting of Saint Jerome is â€Å"stressing the crabbedness of scholarship†. Even if that is correct, it would not be the crabbedness of greed). To me, the long, curved fingers of the moneychanger and his beautiful wife imply simply elegance. This is my personal impression. If I then look at other paintings by Reymerswaele, for instance, the two Tax Gatherers (also The Misers), described by the same scholar as â€Å"exceedingly ugly and covetous†, I don't need to be his contemporary to notice the satirical meaning. [25] After comparing their clever interpretations with what a spectator sees in these pictures, I would recommend that the meaning of a painting, as given by art historians, not be accepted uncritically: their judgments appear to be based upon certain prejudices, in this case concerning commercial and financial practices, rather than any objective analysis of the painting. 4. Other Flemish â€Å"occupational portraits† If you look at other paintings of the same school, it is easy to find examples of â€Å"good†, non critical or satirical, representation of moneychangers, goldsmiths, and bankers. Adriaen Isenbrant Man Weighing Gold (c. 1518),[26] [Figure 10] is described in this way by Jean E. Wilson: â€Å"This sensitive portrait of a banker or, perhaps, a moneychanger reveals the sitter's evident pride in his occupation. The portrait also serves as an example of the widening interest in portraiture, which had gradually extended to members of the business sector† (Wilson 1998, p. 196). But another scholar points out that â€Å"the act of weighing coins may allude both to the man's profession and to his contemplation of higher values, comparable to Saint Michael's weighing of souls on Judgment Day†. [27] In Hieronimous Bosch's The Table of the Deadly Sins,[28] 1480, [Figure 11] avarice is shown as a judge who is being bribed. This is completely different from the activity of the banker: what Bosch shows us is not a profit-seeking commercial practice which is therefore sinful, but an act of corruption which would be taken to be immoral equally in a commercially oriented society or in an ideal world described by Scholastic theologians. Another example of an â€Å"occupational portrait† is the Portrait of a Merchant [Figure 12] by Jean Gossaert (c. 1530),[29] thought to be a portrait of Jeronimus Sandelin, a real merchant from Zealand, in Flanders. There is nothing satirical about it: it is a purely â€Å"occupational portrait†. But the National Gallery of Art Brief Guide says this: â€Å"the sitter's furtive glance and prim mouth are enough to inform us of the insecurity and apprehension that haunted bankers in the 1530s, when the prevailing moral attitude was summed up by the Dutch humanist Erasmus, who asked, â€Å"When did avarice reign more largely and less punished? â€Å"[30] St. Eloy (Eligius) in His Shop, 1449, by Petrus Christus,[31] [Figure 13] is the clear representation of a goldsmith working in his shop and attending two clients: a rich, well-born bridal couple. It seems to be a representation of the goldsmith's trade, with the excuse of the portrait of a saint (hardly a subtle ploy, since St. Eloy is the patron of goldsmith's guild). The goldsmith sits behind a window sill extended to form a table, a pair of jeweler's scales in one hand, a ring in the other. Only his halo suggests that the painting deals with legend. On the right is a display of examples of the goldsmith's craft. The picture may very well have been painted for a goldsmith's guild (the one in Antwerp). St. Eligius is the Patron of metalworkers. As a maker of reliquaries he has become one of the most popular saints of the Christian West. Eligius (also known as Eloy) was born around 590 near Limoges in France. He became an extremely skillful metalsmith and was appointed master of the mint under King Clothar of the Franks. Eligius developed a close friendship with the King and his reputation as an outstanding metalsmith became widespread. It is important to notice that most prominent features in the life of St. Eligius can be seen both as indications of sanctity and the best professional characteristics of a good goldsmith. In the goldsmith's trade, skills were as important as reliability, as Adam Smith notices in Wealth of Nations: â€Å"The wages of goldsmiths and jewelers are every-where superior to those of many other workmen, not only of equal, but of much superior ingenuity; on account of the precious materials with they are intrusted†. [32] Eligius is praised for both qualities. From his biography, we can see how important this reliability of his goldsmith was, for the king to become Eligius' protector: â€Å"The king gave Eligius a great weight of gold. Eligius began the work immediately and from that which he had taken for a single piece of work, he was able to make two. Incredibly, he could do it all from the same weight for he had accomplished the work commissioned from him without any fraud or mixture of siliquae, or any other fraudulence. Not claiming fragments bitten off by the file or using the devouring flame of the furnace for an excuse. â€Å"[33] The portrait Saint Eligius by Petrus Christus is a fine example of the â€Å"occupational portrait†, describing a goldsmith's shop, the only religious connection being the halo and the fact than the saint is the patron of the guild. The true â€Å"moralizing† pictures of the Flemish School Look at the painting The Ill-Matched Lovers, c. 1520, [Figure 14] by Quentin Massys:[34] again you don't need to be a contemporary of his to notice the satirical intention. (It is important to notice that the theme of love between the old and the young was extremely popular in sixteenth century, and we can agree that both the popularity and the moral view has changed on this subject in modern times. The meaning of the painting, however, hasn't changed at all, because the artist doesn't paint the old man with tenderness and love and mature elegance, but as undignified uncontrolled, despicable desire). There are other paintings by Marinus which shows a clearly satirical approach, or at least an ugly expression which does not imply pride in the profession: see The Lawyer’s Office, 1545, and The Misers [Figure 15] (also known, in different versions, as The Tax Gatherers or The tax gatherer and his guarantor). This one shows â€Å"two tax collectors, or rather a treasurer, or an administrator with his clerk, the collector with a winking grimace†¦. The treasurer enters in a book the sums received for the taxes†¦ with his right hand counts and weighs the coins†¦ â€Å"[35] Both of them look clearly satirical for a modern observer. 5. Conclusion This paper has compared the rival interpretations provided by economists and art historians of the painting The Moneychanger and his Wife. The painting is seen as an â€Å"occupational portrait†, showing a banker in his office, carefully weighing coins simply because this is one of most prominent features of his trade. It is a clearly secular subject, much more so in Reymerwaele's version: the religious books in the woman's hands has been turned into an accounting book. We could expect Flemish painters to be familiar with market oriented economic activity and the money world, because of the society in which they lived. Flanders at that time was the center of a flourishing industrial and commercial world, and also was the center of a mercantile trade in works of art. [36] Both things led to a representation of the professional activity of moneychangers, goldsmiths, and bankers in a way that shows those activities as respectable ones. In the process of reviewing the different interpretations provided by art historians about this picture and other similar ones, we have seen that they are consistent with the views that art historians share about the economic activity, rather than based on any objective interpretation of the painting and history. Thus, while the picture shows commercial and financial activity to be a normal, respectable occupation, most art historians see a moralizing and satirical intention. This paper maintains that art historian’s prejudice towards commercial and financial activity leads them to a wrong interpretation of the paintings. LIST OF ILUSTRATIONS 1. The Moneychanger and his wife, by Quentin Matsys, 1503-1505. 2. The Last Judgement, by Hans Memling, 1480. Portrait of Angiolo Tani and his wife. 3. The Moneychanger and his wife, by Marinus van Reymerswaele, 1539. 4. Saint Jerome, by Marinus Reymerswaele. 5. Logo of the Spanish Association of Accounting and Business Administration (AECA). 6. Adriaen Isenbrant, Man Weighing Gold, fist half of the sixteenth century. 7. St. Eloy (Eligius) in His Shop, by Petrus Christus, 1449. 8. The Table of Deadly Sins, 1480, by Hieronimous Bosch. 9. Portrait of a Merchant, by Jean Gossaert, c. 1530. 10. The Ill-Matched Lovers, by Quentin Mastsys. 11. The Misers, or The moneylenders, by Marinus van Reymerswaele, 1545. 12. Marinus van Reymerswaele, Two Tax-Gatherers, 15–, National Gallery, London. [Yamey, p. 52, Plate XVI] 13. Marinus van Reymerswaele, Two Tax-Collectors, 15–, Alte Pinakotheck, Munich. [Yamey, p. 54, 29 XVI] 14. Map of Flanders and Antwerp. 15. The Lawyer's Office, by Marinus van Reymerswaele, 1545. 16. Portrait of a Merchant and his Partner, by Quentin Metsys. 17. The taxgatherer and his Wife, by Corneille van de Capelle (Corneille de Lyon? ) BIBLIOGRAPHY Ainsworth, Maryan Wynn (et al. (1994), Les Primitifs flamands et leur temps (sous la direction de Brigitte Veronee-Verhaegen et Roger Van Schoute). Louvain-la-Neuve: La Renaissance du Livre. Benezit, E. (1976), Dectionaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs (nouvelle edition, entierement refondue, revue el corrigee sous la direction des heritiers de E. Benezit). Libraire Grund. Vol. 7. â€Å"Marinus Van Roejmerswaelen† Campbell, Lorne, et al. (1978) â€Å"Quentin Massys, Desiderius Erasmus, Pieter Gillis and Thomas More†. The Burlington Magazine, Vol. CXX, n? 908, november, pp. 716-724. Cassagnes, Sophie (2001), D’art et d’argent. Les artistes et leurs clients dans l’Europe du Nord (XIVe -XVe siecle), Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Frere, Jean-Claude (1997), Early Flemish Painting, Paris: Terrail. Friedlander, Max J. (1967) [1929] Early Netherlandish painting. Vol 1, The van Eycks–Petrus Christus, Brussels: La Connaissance, and Leyden: A. W. Sijthoff. Genaille, Robert (1967), Dictionnaire des peintres flamands et hollandais, Paris: Larousse. Grice-Hutchinson, Marjorie (1993) â€Å"Santo Tomas de Aquino en la historia del pensamiento economico†, in Ensayos sobre el pensamiento economico en Espana. This essay, lectured to receive the Honoris Causa Doctorate from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, is not in the English version of the same book). Hayek, Friedrich August (1988), The fatal conceit. The errors of socialism, London: Routledge. Chapter 6, â€Å"The Misterious World of Trade and Money†. Mackor, Adri:  "Are Marinus' Tax Collectors collecting taxes? † Bulletin du Musee National de Varsovie XXXVI (1995; n? 3-4) pp. 3-13. Mackor, Adri: â€Å"Marinus van Reymerswale: Painter, Lawyer and Iconoclast†, Oud Holland 109 (1995) pp. 191-200. Mund, Helene (1994), â€Å"La copie†, in Ainsworth (et al. ) (1994), pp. 125-141. Panofsky, Erwin (1971) [1953], Early Netherlandish painting: its origins and character (2 vols. ) London: Harper and Row. Panofsky, Erwin (1993) [1955], Meaning in the visual arts, Penguin. Philippot, Paul (1994), La peinture dans les anciens Pays-Bas. XV-XVIe siecles. Paris: Flammarion. Puyvelde, Leo van (1957), â€Å"Un Portrait de Marchand par Quentin Metsys et les Percepteurs d'Impots par Marin van Reymerswale†, Revue Belgue d'Archeologie et d'Histoire de l'Art, vol. 26, pp. 3-23. Silver, Larry (1984), The paintings of Quinten Massys with catalogue raisonne, Oxford. Montclair, N. J. : Allanheld & Schram. Smith, Adam (1976) [1776], An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Comps. R. Campbell, A. S. Skinner y W. B. Todd. Oxford : Clarendon Press. Van Houdt, Toon (1999), â€Å"The Economics of Art in Early Modern Times: Some Humanist and Scholastic Approaches†, History of Political Economy, 31(0), Supplement 1999 (Economic Engagements with Art, edited by Neil De Marchi and Craufurd D. W. Goodwin, London: Duke University Press), pages 303-31. Vanhoutte, Edward (1997), â€Å"In your seed all the nations of the Earth shall be blessed. Importance and unimportance of the Jews of Belgium from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment†,. Guest-lecture. Lancaster (UK): Lancaster University, 6 february. In . VVAA (1994), El Prado, Barcelona: Lunwerg. Wilson, Jean E. (1998), Painting in Bruges at the close of the Middle Ages. Studies in Society and Visual Culture. Pennsylvania : University Press. Yamey, Basil S. (1989), Art and Accounting, New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ———————– [1] The author wants to thank John Reeder for his useful comments. A previous version of this paper, with the title â€Å"The Moneychanger and his Wife: from Scholastics to Accounting†, is in Internet, [http://www. ucm. es/BUCM/cee/doc/00-23/0023. tm]. [2] Quentin Massys (1465/66 – 1530), also Matsys, Metsys, Metsijs, Massijs. Famous Flemish painter, the founder of the Antwerp school, he was probably born in Leuven, Belgium. He was the main painter of his epoch. [3] Yamey (1989), pp. 24, 45. [4] Grice-Hutchinson (1993), pp. 203-205. [5] â€Å"Massys, Quentinâ₠¬  Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2000, . In the same Encarta website, Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY, says that Massys painted â€Å"a witty commentary on greed. The banker's wife pretends piety by leafing through a religious book, while stealing a glance at her husband's gold. [6] â€Å"Web Gallery of Art†, . The pages says that â€Å"the comments were compiled from various sources†. [7] National Gallery of Art (Washington D. C. , USA), 2000, â€Å"Antwerp in the Early 1500s†, . [8] Jean-Claude Frere, Early Flemish Painting (1997, pp. 187-188). [9] Wilson (1998), p. 191; quoted from Panofsky, Early Netherlandish painting, 1953, p. 142. â€Å"Every perceptible thing, man made or natural, becomes a symbol of that which is not perceptible†, says Panofsky (â€Å"Abbot Suger of St-Denis†, 1946, in 1955, p. 161) following Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite. 10] Quentin Massys, Portrait of a merchant and his partner (Paris, collection M. Cailleux) . [11] Puyvelde (1957, p. 5), quoting from Jean Cailleux, Les Richesses injustes, Reforme, Paris, n? 72, 3 aout 1946. In Antwerp, a tax-collector was obliged to have a surety or guarantor, who had the right to supervise the collection of money and its recording. The tax-collector is â€Å"shown as a respectable person, accompanied by his guarantor, malicously rendered with a pronounced scowl†. Yamey (1989, p. 54), confronts this van Puyvelde’s interpretation with other art historians’ view. 12] â€Å"The Boys in the Back Room†, written by John Haber in the Website â€Å"Postmodernism and Art History: Gallery Reviews from Around New York†. The informations refers to the exhibition â€Å"From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting†, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 1999. . [13] Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1497), Italian painter. Procession of the Magi, 1460, Medici Riccardi Palace, Florence. [14] The Triptych The Last Judgement, now in Gdansk, Narodowe Museum, was painted by Memling (also Memlinc) in 1477. Angiolo Tani is painted in the outside of the wings. Tani had been the head of the Bruges branch of Medici Bank from 1455 to 1465. Tomaso Portinari was his successor in the position. Memling, Tommaso Portinari, 1470, tempera and oil on wood, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Maria Maddalena Baroncelli (Mrs. Tomasso Portinari), 1470, tempera and oil on wood, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. For details, see Ainsworth et al. (1994), chapter â€Å"Hans Memlinc†, pp. 462-466. [15] Marinus (Claeszon) van Reymerswaele (also Roymerswaele) is a Flemish painter (c. 1495-1566). He received his first artistic training as an apprentice to an Antwerp glass painter named Simon van Daele in 1509. Known as a painter of genre and satire, Reymerswaele was famous enough to have been mentioned by the Florentin historian Guicciardini and the art historian and painter Vasari. [16] Reymerswaele (or his workshop) made a lot of copies of this subject. Puyvelde (1957, p. 15) claims that the two paintings in the Prado and the one in the Collection of the State of Babiera, signed in 1538 and 1539, are inspired by Massys The moneychanger and his wife. Puyvelde considers that most other copies are inspired by Massys Tax Gatherers. 17] â€Å"El cuadro inspirador del logotipo es conocido internacionalmente como una imagen de la actividad economica del Renacimiento, especialmente de la financiera, ya que en el se muestra una situacion caracteristica de lo que podria considerarse un banquero de la epoca. El tema de la pareja de cambistas pone de manifiesto el surgimiento de una nueva profesion renacentista relacionada con el mundo de las finanzas, de los impuestos y de las cuentas mercantiles. Marinus toma de Quintin Metsys el tema del banquero y su mujer, que se expone en el Louvre de Paris. En el cuadro de Marinus, el matrimonio burges recuenta las monedas de oro y plata y el pesa en una pequena balanza, con gran delicadeza, aquellas, ya que la mayoria de las mismas eran raspadas o recortadas. Posiblemente provendrian de una recaudacion de impuestos, de una cambio de monedas o de la devolucion de un prestamo, lo que implicaria despues controlar o calcular la operacion con el abaco que tiene a su derecha sobre la mesa y a efectuar anotaciones en el libro de Contabilidad que ella tiene entre su bellas y delicadas manos†. From AECA's Website, 1999. 18] â€Å"Recent research has demonstrated that the documents, which form the background of the painting, refer to an actual lawsuit begun in 1526 in the town of Reymerswaele on the North Sea. The suit arose between three heirs of Anthonius Willem Bouwensz and Cornelius vander Maere, the latter having purchased a salt refinery from the heirs of Anthonius. Difficulties began when Cornelius vander Maere refused to make the initial payment and subsequently had his goods seized. The legal transactions lasted until 1538, by which time the property under dispute had probably been ubmerged or destroyed by storms. Ironically, the court fees still had to be paid. † New Orleans Museum of Art, Information written by Joan G. Caldwell. [http://www. noma. org/MARINUS. HTM]. The Museum owns one of the many versions of the painting: â€Å"Several versions of this composition exist in Munich, Amsterdam, Cologne and Brussels. While the Museum's version is apparently the last in the series, it is painted with the greatest detail, thus clearly revealing the documents in the lawsuit†. [19] Puyvelde (1957), pp. 7-18; â€Å"le veritable portrait fait place a la caricature de l'homme de affaire rapace† (Puyvelde, 1957, p. 13; also, p. 20). [20] Puyvelde (1957), p. 23. [21] â€Å"Es esta tabla encontramos todas las caracteristicas de los pintores nordicos: el detallismo, las calidades materiales que se aprecian a la perfeccion, la aproximacion empirica a la realidad, y sobre todo, la sordidez descarnada con la que Van Reymerswaele aborda uno de los principales males de su epoca: la usura, el mayor pecado posible dentro de una sociedad comerciante como era la flamenca. La corrupcion y la estafa afectaban a las capas de la sociedad, llegando al clero y provocando la reaccion de escritores, teologos y artistas†. CD-ROM La Pintura en el Prado, 1996, Editorial Contrastes. [22] Corneille van der Capelle, Le Percepteur d'impots et sa Femme. Jadis Sigmaringen, Pince of Hohenzollern collection. [23] The illustrated book El Prado (Barcelona: Lunwerg, 1994), p. 389. [24] Vanhoutte (1997). [25] â€Å"Web Gallery of Art†, description of the painting The Tax Collectors, 1542 (Wood, 103,7 x 120 cm. Alte Pinakothek, Munich), : â€Å"The Tax Collectors by Marinus Van Roymerswaele appears to be a deliberate caricature; the painter's Calvinist background clearly comes through in his depicting the tax collector's greed with a fierse grimace and claw-like hands, whilst the administrator records the money in the ledger, maintaining his proper distance. Marinus van Reymerswaele was a painter of three themes, all more or less caricatural. He painted a numbe r of straightforward S. Jeromes, all derived from Durer's picture of 1521 (Lisbon) but stressing the crabbedness of scholarship. The other two themes are interdependent: two exceedingly ugly and covetous Tax Gatherers and a Banker and his Wife (the banker counting his profits). The Banker is closely related to Massys's picture of the same subject, and it may be that the Tax Gatherers derive from Massys's borrowings from the caricatures of Leonardo da Vinci. There are about thirty versions of the Tax Gatherers (the best is in London, National Gallery; another has the date 1552), and what nobody has so far explained is why so many people should want to own a picture of tax collectors (and excessively ugly ones at that) gloating over their imposts. There are also examples in the British Royal Collection and in Antwerp, Berlin, Ghent, Madrid, Munich and Vienna. † The Website says on the Welcome page that â€Å"the comments were compiled from various sources†. [26] Adriaen Isenbrant (? ) Man Weighing Gold, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Friedsam Collection. Adriaen Isenbrant is also known as Hysebrant or Ysenbrant. He was active in Bruges, 1510 – 1551. He was first mentioned in 1510 when he became a master in the Bruges painters' and saddlemakers' guild. He was recorded as a stranger, but his native town was not mentioned. Between 1516/1517 and 1547/1548 he was listed numerous times as a vinder or minor offical of the guild and in 1526/1527 and 1537/1538 was a gouverneur or financial officer. Because of the uncertainty, some authorities prefer to use the name Isenbrandt in inverted commas or with or with question mark. See the Website of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C. , [27] Bauman, G. , â€Å"Early Flemish Portraits 1425-1525†, M. M. A. Bull. XLIII, Spring 1986, pp. 46 f. On the contrary, Wehle, H. B. , and M. Salinger, M. M. A. , A Catalogue of Early Flemish, Dutch and German Paintings, 1947, pp. 100 f. , â€Å"identify the sitter as a banker or a money changer and consider the portrait to be purely secular, not a ‘donor's likeness in a religious ensemble'†. References provided by Sandra Fritz, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Central Catalog. [28] The Table of the Deadly Sins, 1480, by Hieronimous Bosch (c. 1450-1516). Oil on panel, 120 x 150 cm. Prado Museum. Bosch is the name given to the Dutch painter Hieronimus van Aeken. [29] Jan Gossaert (c. 1478 – 1532), Portrait of a Merchant, c. 1530. Oil on panel, . 636 x . 475 m Washington, National Gallery of Art, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund. [30] National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA, Brief Guide, in . [31] Petrus Christus (fl. 1444-c. 1470), St. Eloy (Eligius) in His Shop, 1449, oil on panel, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. [32] Smith (1976), I. x. b. 18. [33] The Life of St. Eligius, 588-660, paragraph 5. The Life of Eligius, bishop and confessor, was written by Dado, bishop of Rouen (his friend and contemporary). Eligius lived from 588 to 660. The full text is in . [34] Quentin Massys, Ill-Matched Lovers, c. 1520/1525, oil on panel, 0'432 x 0'630 m. National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C. Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund. [35] Marinus Van Reymerswaele, The Misers, 1531. Oil on wood. Naples, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, . [36] â€Å"Bruges et surtout Anvers ont donc cree les premiers marches publics consacres a l’art en Occident†, Cassagness (2001), p. 264.