Artists and Patrons in Renaissance Italy

CAUSES OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE

1) Proximity to Classical World and its architecture, manuscripts, sculpture, etc.

2) Urbanization in Italy encourages exchange of ideas, and provides lots of labor. 

3) Increased wealth b/c of: lucrative trade b/w E. and W.; - banking innovations (bills of exchange, double-entry bookkeeping,; more wealth per capita b/c of plague;     New attitude toward wealth;

4) “Crisis of authority” (power vacumn)

5) Fierce competition b/w city-states, b/w artists, b/w mercenaries breeds excellence

6) Extraordinary convergence of men of genius

7) Patrons invest in art/commerce/culture > land.

ARTISTS

- Emergence of “artist-as-genius” of artist as alienated, outside commentator on society

- “individualism” of each artist/humanist (Burckhardt)

- three phases of artistic development (Vasari)

- not just craftsmen or mechanics, but men (and women) of vision, inspiration; “hoc facit” vs. “hoc pincit”

- multiple talents expected and rewarded (Leonardo, Michelangelo, Brunelleschi)

PATRONS

 “patronus” is the Latin term used by the Romans to define one who protects/defends/sponsors another. Root = “pater” (father).  We have patron saints, artistic patrons, literary patrons, patron of an inn/bar, and slave patrons.  In each case, someone with more authority/wealth supervises someone else who needs help. 

Origins:

            Ancient Rome:  patrons/clients

            Medieval Feudalism:  Lord/Vassal relationships also common in Medieval Europe. Renaissance Patronage:  an unequal relationship, but masked by references to ‘loving brothers’, ‘an elder sister’, ‘cousins’, or simply ‘friends.’ 

Advantages

Types of Patrons

Royal patrons (Henry VIII Tudor, Francis I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Dukes of Burgundy)

Public institutions (Commune of Siena,

            - Ex: Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Good Gov’t and Bad Gov’t (1348) in Siena

            - Ex: Gerard David’s Judgment of Cambyses in Bruges (1498)

Corporations and Guilds

            - Wool Guild of Florence sponsors competition for doors of Baptistery

Popes (Julius II, Leo X, Clement VII)

Private individuals (Lorenzo de Medici, Agostino Chigi)