Search for a Patron in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Author:	Wilkins, David Wilkins, Rebecca
Year:	1996
Pages:	276
ISBN:	0-7734-8867-7 978-0-7734-8867-0
Price:	$199.95

Modern studies have largely ignored the significant roles played by patrons who commissioned works in the arts during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This volume offers general studies on patronage and a series of specific illustrations of varied examples of patronage that range from ninth-century France to sixteenth-century Italy. Among the patrons considered are royalty such as King Richard II of England, Cosimo I de'Medici, and the members of the House of Savoy and others. By shedding new light on patronage, these studies assist us to understand the complex and fluid interrelationships that once motivated both patron and artist. With photographs.

Reviews

. . . an interdisciplinary collection of thirteen studies written by specialists in the history of architecture, music, literature, and the visual arts. These studies are preceded by the editors' introduction, which provides a cogent synopsis of the volume's contents, and are supported by forty black and white photographs, a bibliography, and a comprehensive and useful index. The volume is well edited, especially with regard to the frequent appearance of internal cross-references that assist the reader in drawing connections among the different studies. . . . . While each essay in this work represents a valuable addition to the literature of a specific scholarly field, as a group they contribute nicely to a more wide-ranging and diverse discussion of the complex question of patronage during the middle ages and Renaissance. . . . will undoubtedly lead even the least probing and most task-specific scholar down an interesting and eye-opening path toward seeing patronage - artistic, literary, musical, or architectural - in much broader and richer terms." - Roger J. Crum