During the medieval period, the torch lit by the Greeks, carried on by the Romans, had been rejected. Medieval values instead elevate the spiritual and denounced the flesh. Then, in the mid 14 th century, Petrarch, an Italian poet and scholar of Latin, was able to reconcile Christianity, classic Roman and Greek in his writings, and revive interest in what had been dismissed as the pagan past. The started the period called the Renaissance- or rebirth. The city-state of Florence was a city on the rise. Urbanization was experienced by all Italian cities at this time. Florence had seen an explosion in international trade and innovations in finance. Extraordinary wealth accumulated in Florence during this period among a growing middle and upper class of merchants and bankers. A new class of merchants replaced the old noble families as the centre of power, developing a complex, barely democratic social structure that hung in a careful balance. With the accumulation of wealth often comes a desire to use it to enjoy the pleasures of life. Art and architecture helped define the relationships between individuals and the bewildering array of civic, professional and religious institutions that made up the fabric of Florentine society. Thanks to the city’s newfound wealth, impressive communal building projects were undertaken.
The city of Florence was a self-governed independent state, however, the Medici banking family unofficially ruled the city. The dynasty that they formed commissioned a vast array of paintings, sculptures and architecture, and their generosity and competitive nature ensured the city’s status as the artistic centre of Europe during the fifteenth century and beyond.
Patronage and the status of the artist have evolved a great deal over the period, form and motives of them have changed in accordance with wider social and economic contexts. Literary meaning of Patronage is the commissioning or purchasing of works of art by an individual, group or state. There were many different possible motives for becoming a patron. Private patronage can be for pleasure, commemoration and investment prestige. Group patronage for corporate identity, power, competitiveness or devotion. Church patronage for the glory of God, private devotion or simply for stating the status of the church as a political force. The history of patronage runs in parallel with the history of ascendant monarchs, religions, merchant classes and the artists as individuals. It was during the Renaissance that a new form of patronage emerged: lay patrons increasingly exerted their influence over artistic production. And donor portraits became common. Secular patronage and the emergence of wealthy merchant-patrons changed demand, and the artist became a creative ally to the patron. For the first time, artistic skills was believed to be God-given and the artist’s fame was often promoted.
The development of art academies was evidence and a further force for the rise in artist’s status. The whole concept of the artist genius has been subjected to systematic critique. The idea that the artist is an autonomous creator, a completely free agent, serves to obscure the fact that everybody’s consciousness is shaped by pre-existing socially constructed codes of meaning.
Artist’s status somehow took the form of a unified development that can be traced in a linear fashion. On the contrary, not only did the conditions of artistic practice differ from country to country but also even within Italy we need to distinguish between different social contexts. Florence saw itself as the ideal state, a place where freedom of the individual was guaranteed.
A letter that we could use as an evidence of asserting individual reputation during Renaissance period is the one written in 1470 by Francessco Del Cossa to the Duke, in which the artist complains that with series of fresco paintings at the Schifanoia Palace, regardless of reputation, every artist is paid the same rate per square. However, Cossa did not succeed in obtaining the higher rate that he claimed was his due, We can alternatively see this as a demonstration of the relative lowly status of a painter who cannot expect his patron to regard him anything better than a decorator.
The changes in the status of the artist during the Renaissance represented a shift away from the craft tradition. The emergence of the academy as the new form of institution encouraged a new conception of the artist as a learned individual who had made a serious study of his are. The most successful architects, at least in the past had to be simultaneously both structural engineers and risk-takers. One of the first examples was celebrated architect, Filippo Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi, who was a goldsmith, architect, engineer, sculptor and mathematician, as an artist, discovered the principles of linear perspective. In a remarkable feat of engineering, he managed to erect what is still the largest masonry dome in the world.
In most Italian cities during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the activities of artist and craftsmen were regulated by guilds, which monitored standards of work and endeavoured to control competition by outsiders. Sculptors could be members of Goldsmiths, stonemasons, or carpenters guilds, depending on the materials they used and the city they lived in. During the Renaissance in Florence there were seven major guilds (known as arti maggiori), five middle guilds (arti mediane) and nine minor guilds (arti minori) which competed with each other to gain commissions and status. The rivalry between guilds extended to the status of the artists they employed,.
In 1418 one of the major guilds, the Wool merchant’s Guild ( Arte della Lana) took charge of commissioning a dome for the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and announced a competition. This time unlike with the bronze North Doors of the Baptistery, Brunelleschi beat Ghiberti to the prize. The dome’s monumental scale meant the domination of religion during the fifteenth century and the competition between neighbouring Italian cities, particularly Pisa and Siena reveals a great deal about its social and historical context. Its existence not only demonstrates the importance of commercial patrons such as the Wool Guild, but also reveals the tremendous status some Renaissance artists enjoyed. Nonetheless, Brunelleschi’s mysterious design piqued their imagination—perhaps because they already knew this buffoon and babbler to be a genius. As a boy, during his goldsmith’s apprenticeship, he had mastered drawing and painting, wood carving, sculpture in silver and bronze, stone setting, niello, and enamel work. Later he studied optics and tinkered endlessly with wheels, gears, weights, and motion, building a number of ingenious clocks, including what may have been one of the first alarm clocks in history. Applying his theoretical and mechanical knowledge to observation of the natural world, he single-handedly worked out the rules of linear perspective. He’d just spent several years in Rome measuring and sketching the ancient monuments and noting, in cipher, their architectural secrets. Renaissance biographer Giorgio Vasari wrote that in order to solve the problem of how to build the dome on the cathedral, Brunelleschi familiarised himself with Roman construction techniques and, in particular, investigated the colossal span and height of the dome of the Pantheon in Rome . Perhaps Brunellesch’s greatest feat of engineering was raising the dome without the need for wooden centring. It was only with the use of modern industrial material six centuries later with the Millenium Dome in London, that wider vaults were raised. The form of a building largely dependent upon the architect’s understanding of the qualities of materials, the limitations and the possibilities of techniques and processes.
The emergence of the new, elevated conception of the artist institutionalized by the academy, was part of a wider cultural context in which it took place. The intellectual movement known as “humanism” played a key role here, it can bebroadly defined as the revival of the interest in classical literature and learning. For artists this not only meant that they might have received commissions for monuments commemorating famous men but also made it conceivable for them to attain comparable fame themselves. In the first place, Humanism encouraged emulation of ancient models in art. The rediscovery of ancient art in Italy during Renaissance parallels the revival of ancient literature.
Brunelleschi is credited with mapping rules of linear perspective, recognising the Classical Orders of architecture, engineering a hoist to carry incredible weight’s for the dome’s construction and spanning the drum with the dome itself. The completion of the dome secured his fame and fortune, not only as a master mason but also as an innovative engineer with mathematical ingenuity and aesthetic version. The dome is an enduring monument to the civic pride of the city and arguably, still creates the most magnificent silhouette in Italy. It would revolutionise dome construction, and a commission for the Medici Family church, San Lorenzo, predictably followed.
Brunelleschi’s body lies in the crypt of Florence Cathedral, a great honour for a great Renaissance man and a mark of the changing status of the artist in this period. Thousands of mourners paid their respect at his funeral held in Santa Maria del Fiore itself, and on his marble slab is the inscription “here lies the body of the great ingenious man Fillipo Brunelleschi of Florence”.
The Early Renaissance period witnessed the growing status of the artist and biographies were a response to this new interest in them as individuals. Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, in particular, helped to turn artists-previously considered society only as skilled artisans- into something more like modern celebrities when it was published in 1550.
The famously androgynous bronze David, 1420-1440 was commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici from Renaissance sculptor Donatello. According to the story from the Old Testament, David is young shepherd boy who, against all odds, defeats the giant Goliath with a single stone to the head. He then beheads Goliath in a final act of triumph. For the Florentines, this story was of great importance as it reflects their own political position as a small state, which would nevertheless triumph against adversity.
However, Donatello’s rendering of the subject was radical and new in a variety of ways: the figure’s nakedness-heightened by his flamboyant hat and boots- set him apart from other fifteenth-century depictions of the same subject. The hat itself was a deviation from the usual iconography of the young shepherd boy, and the way the toes on David’s left foot caress Goliath’s heavy head. David’s musculature is reminiscent in the Classical male nude, as early renaissance was highly inspired by classical characteristics. The surface texture is smooth and highly light-reflective on account of its dark-bronze medium, the patina of which seems to suit the nature of his victorious and heroic stance. Despite the youth’s defiant hand on his hip, the overall impression is harmonious and static.
Cosimo di’ Medici acceptance of this break with tradition reveals the family’s liberal attitude towards the arts. The Medici wanted to be known as intellectual leaders and despite the religious subject matter, this commission was certainly evidence that their interest in humanism and Neo-Platonism meant more to them than the furore this particular David caused.
Furthermore, as the first freestanding nude bronze since antiquity, David was capable of being seen as an emblematic new man- a naked and individual figure, breaking completely with medieval tradition. Its placement, too, is revealing. This particular symbolic defender of the city was tucked away n the private courtyard of the Medici palace- perhaps because it was considered too shocking to be shown in public- it somehow expressed quite ambition, only in the safety of their home.
The status of the artist had increased exponentially since the medieval period, and the success of Vasari’s Lives of the Artists was testament to public interest in the individual characters and achievements of artists. For example, Vasari describes the day when the grouchy Donatello pushed his own bronze handiwork over a parapet wall onto the street below, and, rather than punishing him, Cosimo di’ Medici declared “one must treat these people of extraordinary genius as if they were celestial spirits, not as if they are beasts of burden”