THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS OF ARLINGTON



ARCHITECTURAL PATRONAGE IN THE FIFTEENTH AND EARLY
SIXTEENTH CENTURIES

                 DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY



                          BY

                      JASON CARR




                   ARLINGTON, TEXAS

                     DECEMBER 1993




     The renaissance is defined by the presence of
several different factors:  the rekindled interest in
Greek letters and philosophy, Roman visual arts and
architecture, humanism, and other elements, depending
on which scholar one adopts.  The underlying reality
that makes all of this enlightenment possible is that
there was, in some locations in Italy, sufficient money
and leisure available to a select group of families and
businessmen to adopt a lifestyle of conspicuous
consumption.<1>  This luxury allowed the moneyed
people to study, or support those who studied the past. 
All this was only necessary to the amalgam, though, and
not the catalyst that set the renaissance in motion. 
That catalyst was class-consciousness of the nouveau
riche.<2>
      The intellectual environment for the renaissance
was not particularly revolutionary, it even was not
particularly pronounced in Italy.  There is even some
question about whether the Italian Renaissance
represented some radical break in European culture (and
therefore deserves its own "period," or if it was a
progression growing out of, among other phenomena, the
so-called Twelfth-Century Renaissance).  Consideration
of the studied thought of John of Salisbury, Bernard of
Clairvaux, or Abelard (and Heloise for that matter)
will convince the historian that the Italian
Renaissance was not a sudden intellectual mutation.<3> 
It was merely a quickening of pre-existing tendencies
that were exacerbated by factors such as the printing
press.  As Anthony Smith points out in his comparison
of the effects of computers on modern publishing and
the press on Renaissance publishing, the technology "is
a convenient demarcator of change for the observer
attempting to analyze a mass of interconnected
events."<4>
     The great families were just beginning to try to
justify their newfound influence, and the papacy was
convinced that Rome was a terrible mess and should be
rebuilt.  Simplistically, the great patronages in the
Renaissance break down into two parts:  Florence and
the Medici, and Rome and the Papacy.  It should prove
possible to demonstrate parallels between these two
patronages that will demonstrate their common grounding
in the need to raise the social and political
respectability of their respective stations.
     Cosimo de Medici initiated the greatness of his
line in a new way altogether -- not by acquiring real
estate and serfs after the feudal model, but by
moneylending and commerce.  The family was not
immediately off to an auspicious start culturally;
Cosimo is said to have been rather simple and
uncultured.<5>   The stigma attached to commerce and
finance by the nobility was no small concern.  The
ownership and stewardship was the traditional and
accepted way to gain prestige.  The Medici had no such
traditional holdings.<6>  In such circumstances it is
not surprising that one would attempt to buy into the
lifestyle of the aristocracy, even if one could not buy
the attendant respect.  Villas, gardens, and junior-
grade "courts" would be the immediate result of the
need to adopt a more upscale lifestyle.
     Another factor may be important here:  there may
not have been a monolithic, homogenous aristocratic
culture for the emerging high bourgeois to buy into.  
The Black Death had seriously depopulated Europe and
generally trashed the social fabric of Europe.<7>  The
result could have been social chaos.   Cosimo and
others like him may have very well been redefining
Italian court culture in something of a vacuum. 
Indeed, renaissance "refashioning," self-creation, is a
topic of much study by modern feminist historians.<8> 
Under these circumstances it is possible to forgive a
bit of pretension, a healthy dose of braggadocio and
swagger.  The participants, far from being shallow
solipsists, would have been noble and heroic self-
creators, shaping their own existence in the face of
chaos and death.  
     At this time, when the moneyed but uncultured
bourgeois were paying for art and architecture, the
relatively low position of the architect in society may
have been somewhat to the architect's advantage. 
Although the architect was not regarded as a member of
polite society (until
Alberti or
thereabouts), neither
was the patron in a
position to dictate
design or content.<9> 
The patron simply did
not have the background
to make a contribution.
     At any rate,
Cosimo amassed enough
money to build a
formidable collection
of minds.  Premier in
this collection was
Marsilio Ficino.<10> 
It is likely that this happy patronage of Ficino was to
shape the tastes of the day, due to his interest in
Greek translations and philosophy and all things
classical.<11>       As long as the influence of Greek
thought is being considered, it should also be noted
that Cosimo's influence ensured that the 1439 church
council meeting between the Eastern and Western
Catholic churches would take place in Florence.  The
main effect of this happy circumstance, at least from a
secular point of view, was an influx of Greek scholars
from the East.<12>
       There is also some indication that Florentine
architecture and art were primed by this meeting much
in the same way that modern cities regularly spend
millions to give themselves facelifts before a major
media event.<13>  
     "The emperor of Constantinople had done
     everything to put on display the riches of
     Eastern Culture, and the pope was bound to
     show himself his equal, so that while
     Traversari competed with Bessarion and
     Pletho, the brush, the needle, and the chisel
     were busy all over Florence."<14>
     Even though we was certainly instrumental, our
hero Cosimo was not singlehandedly causing the entire
phenomenon of Florentine
rebirth:  he was just at
the center of it. 
Individual churches and
orders were busy
commissioning art, as
well. (Ghiberti's doors
for the baptistery and
Brunelleschi's Loggia for
the Foundling Hospital
are examples of work
being done at this
time).<15>  Nor were the
Medici's enemies content to stay on the sideline:  the
Pazzi Chapel (with its architectural focus located
humanistically over the congregation of Pazzi
communicants  rather than the altar) was an example of
a non-Medici project.<16>  In an anecdote that
reveals much about Renaissance life in particular, and
patronage in particular, the chapel facade remains
unfinished to this day because the Pazzi fled Florence
after the aborted dual
High Mass assassination
attempt on the Medici
heirs.  
     The whole city was
very self-aware of its
centrality to the new
rebirth.  Had it not been
for the return of the
papacy to it's old power
base in Rome (and some Medici financial problems at the
opening of the fifteenth century) Florence may have
remained the center of renaissance activity.
     The Medici were, however, still very high profile. 
Their house in Florence, the Palazzo Medici by
Michelozzo would provide the basic pattern for palazzi
for the next two centuries.<17>  Perhaps more
important than the Florentine artifacts themselves was
the effect of the Florentine aesthetic and mindset on
the popes who lived, visited and studied in
Florence.<18> Florence
prided itself on being a
safe and welcoming haven
for the papacy during
disturbances in the
Eternal City.  The
cultural influence that
Florence exercised over
Rome might remind one of
the statement that Greece
Conquered her conquerors. 

     For example, Pope
Eugenius IV, having
witnessed the Florentine
frescoes and baptistery doors ordered some in the same
fashion for St Peter's upon his return to Rome.  The
subject matter, of course, was the beneficence of the
pope himself.  Here again we have the phenomenon of a
newly-empowered figure highly concerned with rising to
a social and political position.  The papacy did not,
of course, come out of nowhere in the manner of the
Medicis, but the
Byzantine Captivity had
certainly degraded its
power and prestige.  A
strong showing had to
be made.  Nicholas V
stormed into Rome with
an ambitious building
plan.  Spiro Kostof
suggests that Nicholas
V touched off a
building spree in the
mid-fifteenth century that would not slow down until
the mid-seventeenth century.<19>  It was important
for the city to regain her dignity; the Council of
Florence in 1439 and the fall of Constantinople in 1453
focused all Christian attention on her Rome as a
second-chair player.  Nicholas V revamped an old
aqueduct, initiated a street modernizing program and
planned to rebuild the Leonine City.<20>  To his
discredit, he allowed the cannibalization of ancient
monuments to these ends.<21>  A few years later this
dangerous trend would be somewhat reversed as Paul II
would undertake to repair and restore ancient triumphal
arches.<22>
     The next major spurt of papal patronage occurred
under Sixtus IV, after whom the Sistine Chapel is
named.  In addition to this project, Sixtus IV and his
cardinals were in a war of ego to see who could restore
as many old structures as possible in as grand a style
as possible.  Apparently a massive selloff of church-
held jewelry helped sponsor the popes outlay of cash
for this self-destructive competition.<23>  This
marks the beginning of a downhill slide (including the
Borgia Popes) that would not be reversed until the
glorious papacy of Julius II.  
     To give proper credit to the otherwise-maligned
papacy of Alexander VI, he did oversee the splendid
refurbishment of the papal apartment on the top of
Hadrian's Tomb/Castel St Angelo as well as the handy
"popeduct" (as opposed to aqueduct) that linked St.
Angelo and the Vatican palace.<24>
     Finally
Julius II arrived
at the papacy. 
This was to be the
high point of
papal patronage. 
It was Julius II
who carried
through the threat
to destroy and
rebuild Old St.
Peter's; surely a
move that caused
consternation even
given the old basilica's sorry condition.  The
structure was in ancient and difficult to keep in
repair.  Julius II's ambitious plans to renovate this
most famous basilica would have profound effects on
theology, as students of the Reformation know.  The
building of the Cortile de Belvedere and the onset of
the construction of New St Peter's was too much for the
papal coffer.  Julius II authorized the sale of
indulgences in order to cover some of the costs of
replacing old Saint Peter's (the dome was particularly
costly).   These indulgences were partly the target of
Luther's Ninety-Five theses at Wittenberg.<25>
     Oddly enough, even though Julius II commissioned
much architectural work, he may not have made it too
easy on his artists.  Michelangelo, while unwillingly
painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, was
apparently broke from having to pay for supplies and
assistants from a meager advance (Michelangelo,
obsessively generous to his relatives, was unable to
assist a family member who needed money at the
time).<26>  
     This need for more substantial advances may
account for the large number of unfinished renaissance
projects.  The artist would be unable to continue his
project for lack of money and so would take another
commission just to stay afloat.<27>
     The other major contribution of Julius II would be
the ambitious plans for the Via Giulia.  The anti-
medieval straightness and "planned-ness" of the Via
Giulia and its regulated building height standards must
have been a radical departure for the time.  There is
some opinion that the centerpiece, the Palace of
Justice, symbolized for Julius II the range of his
papal privilege and power over the secular
government.<28>  
     Although the papacy, as handed down to Julius II
was not suffering from the same kind of image problems
as those facing Nicholas V before him, Julius II
certainly had as far-reaching an agenda.  One of the
great burdens of Michelangelo's life was to be the
monstrous tomb for Julius II, complete with forty
monumental statues.<29><30>  There is some evidence
that the great central space of the new St Peter's, as
commissioned from Bramante, was made to accommodate
Julius' huge tomb.<31>  
     The next major benefactor after Julius II would be
Leo X, a Medici.  At this point a developing trend
becomes more clear: city planning as a form of familial
glorification.  Julius II's Via Giulia was apparently a
rational piece of design by Bramante;  Leo X's new road
off of the Piazza del Popolo was drawn up so that it
would run by his Palazzo.<32>  This seems to mark the
definite end of a trend one which had in fact died out
earlier.  Nicholas V and his type seemed to be trying
to increase the power of the papacy, and incidentally,
themselves.  The later Popes seem to be using the
Papacy as an means to that familial narcissism.  The
papacy had become a prize, a goose laying golden eggs
for the family who controlled the position.  No longer
was there a struggle to raise a family's status through
the papacy.  By definition, those who got the office
were already members of the privileged, powerful class. 

     If there is some sense, some order to patronage in
the remainder of the sixteenth century it centers on
the seemingly neverending projects on the Vatican.  The
project would eat up the rest of the century and even
some of the next.  It lasted so long that the building
would see the fundamental underpinnings of the
classical "revival" change into something strange and
troubling.
     Here the renaissance starts to wind down, or to
feed on itself in a self-mocking act of cannibalism. 
Architecture remains structurally sound but appears to
be pre-ruined, or at least be in the process of
mutating.  There was a sense of self-mockery, of self-
effacing humor in this new architecture.  Inherent in
this self-mockery was the insinuation that all lesser
forms deserved even more contempt.
     Those who had been social-climbing were now
marking time in silks and gold.  Some would see the
Mannerism that infiltrated and subverted the High
Renaissance to be a pose or an exercise in
preciousness.  It is instead like the relationship of
Hellenic to Hellenistic.  The balance, the ideal, the
power that had been sought after by merchants and popes
had been realized and so the rigidly formulaic
renaissance building was outmoded.  The self-conscious
nouveau riche had achieved real status by virtue of
time and title.  The renaissance had run its course,
served its purpose.  



WORKS CITED

Cox-Rearick, Janet.  Dynasty and Destiny in Medici
     Art:  Pontormo, Leo X, and the two Cosimos. 
     Princeton:  Princeton University, 1984.

De la Croix, Horst, and Richard Tansey.  Gardner's Art
     Through the Ages.  San Diego:  Oxford University
     Press, 1986.

Gibbord, Vernon.  Architecture Source Book.  Secaucus,
     New York:  Quarto, 1988.

Goldberg, Edward L.  After Vasari:  History, Art,
     and Patronage in Late Medici Florence. 
     Princeton:   Princeton University, 1988.

Howard, Deborah.  Jacopo Sansovino:  Architecture
     and Patronage in Renaissance Venice.  New
     Haven:  Yale university Press, 1975.

Kostof, Spiro.  A History of Architecture: 
     Settings and Rituals.  New York:  Oxford,
     1985

Lightbrown, R. W.  Donatello and Michelozzo:  an
     Artistic Partnership and its Patrons in the
     Early Renaissance.  Vol. 1,  Text.  London: 
     Henry Miller, 1980.

McLaren, Robert Bruce.  The World of Philosophy. 
     Chicago:  Nelson-Hall, 1985.

Menen, Aubrey.  Art and Money: an Irreverent
     History.  New York:  McGraw-Hill, 1980. 

Smith, Anthony.  Goodbye Gutenberg:  The Newspaper
     Revolution of the 1980s.  Oxford, Oxford
     University Press, 1981.  

University of St Thomas Art Department.  Builders
     and Humanists:  the Renaissance Popes as
     Patrons of the Arts.  Houston:  ,1966

Zervas, Diane Finiello.  The Parte Guelfa,
     Brunelleschi & Donatello.  Locust Valley, New
     York:  J. J Augustin, 1987.


                        NOTES



<1>To commit an anachronism against Thorston Velben of
some five hundred years!

<2>This group will be here understood to include the
traditionally wealthy but recently empowered.  

<3>A good starting place to begin on the Twelfth-
Century Renaissance would be Bernard of Clairvaux: 
Selected Works, edited by John Farina and The Letters
of Abelard and Heloise, translated by Betty Radice.  

<4>Anthony Smith, Goodbye Gutenberg:  The Newspaper
Revolution of the 1980s (Oxford:  Oxford University
Press, 1981), 4.

<5>Aubrey Menen, Art and Money: an Irreverent History
(New York:  McGraw-Hill, 1980) page 46.  


<6>Perhaps this lack of hereditary estate was the
reason for the building of the amazingly beautiful
Villa Medici (see Figure 5).

<7>For a close-up view of the effect of the Plague on
the aristocracy, see Boccaccio's Decameron.

<8>See, for example, the exchange between Robert
Finley's "The Refashioning of Martin Guerre" and
Natalie Zemon Davis' "On the Lame" in the American
Historical Review's Forum The Return of Martin Guerre.

<9>Diane Finiello Zervas, The Parte Guelfa,
Brunelleschi & Donatello, (Locust Valley, New York:  J.
J Augustin, 1987), page 5.


<10>Ibid., 48.

<11>There is speculation that the recurring Florentine
zodiacal motif (such as in the dome of the Old
Sacristy) may be directly traceable to Ficino himself. 
Apparently he had a passion for ancient astrological
systems (Janet Cox-Rearick, Dynasty and Destiny in
Medici Art:  Pontormo, Leo X, and the two Cosimos
(Princeton:  Princeton University, 1984), page 168.


<12>University of St Thomas Art Department, Builders
and Humanists:  the Renaissance Popes as Patrons of the
Arts, (Houston: privately published, 1966), page 34.


<13>University of St. Thomas, 36.

<14>Ibid.

<15>See Figure 3.

<16>See Figure 2.

<17>See Figure 4.

<18>Ibid., 37.

<19>Spiro Kostof, A History of Architecture:  Settings
and Rituals (New York:  Oxford Press, 1985), 485.  

<20>University of St. Thomas, 40.

<21>Ibid., 40.

<22>Ibid., 42.

<23>Ibid., 43.

<24>University of St. Thomas, 44.

<25>Robert Bruce McLaren, The World of Philosophy
(Chicago:  Nelson-Hall, 1983), 103-5.

<26>Menen, 68.

<27>Ibid, 54.

<28>Kostof, 488.

<29>Menen, 71-2.

<30>See Figure 6.

<31>University of St. Thomas, 45.

<32>Kostof, 490.
http://www.mousetrap.net/~mouse/uta/