2019, Art and Politics in the Modern Period. Conference Proceedings, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, 2019, 17-24. ISBN 978-953-175-643-3, 2019

The main issue addressed in this paper is the strategy used by Giorgio Vasari, as a striving young artist from the Medici circle, to establish himself as court painter. This ambition can be discerned from the letters he wrote to Ottaviano de’ Medici in 1534, and to Pietro Aretino in 1536, in which he solicited the position of the Medici court artist. He used flattery, self-praise, and the notion of competition between the artists in which he proved superior to others working alongside him on important state commissions. In order to disengage himself from other artists, and to establish his position in an unstable social context, in these letters he compared himself to Apelles and his patron and lord Alessandro de’ Medici to Alexander the Great.

In his life of Jacopo Rustici, Vasari gives us a poignant, though veiled, description of his position vis-à-vis the Medici rulers of Florence by whom he was employed, constrained, for reasons of family obligations, to play the role of courtier/painter at the court of Cosimo deí Medici, to the detriment of his own artistic ambitions: ! Giovan Francesco, besides being of a noble family, had the means to live hon ourably, and therefore practiced art more for his own delight and from desire of glory than for gain. And, to tell the truth of the matter, those craftsmen who have as their ultimate and principal end gain and profit, and not honour and glory, rarely become very excellent, even although they may have good and beautiful genius; besides which, labouring for a livelihood, as very many do who are weighed down by poverty and their families, and working not by inclination, when the mind and the will are drawn to it, but by necessity from morning till night, is a life not for men who have honour and glory as their aim, but for hacks, as they are called, and manual labourers, for the reason that good works do not get done without first having been well considered for a long time. 1 ! Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, trans. by 1 Gaston de Vere (London: Macmillan, 1912-1915), vol. 8, 109-129. ! ! 2 covering his eyes, in order that, in entering by that gate, he might not see the sub urb and his own houses all pulled down. Wherefore the guards at the gate, seeing him thus muffled up, asked him what that meant, and, having heard from him why he had so covered his face, they laughed at him. Lorenzo, after being a few months in Florence, returned to France, taking his mother with him; and there he still lives and labours.

In his life of Jacopo Rustici, Vasari gives us a poignant, though veiled, description of his position vis-à-vis the Medici rulers of Florence by whom he was employed, constrained, for reasons of family obligations, to play the role of courtier/painter at the court of Cosimo deí Medici, to the detriment of his own artistic ambitions: " Giovan Francesco, besides being of a noble family, had the means to live hon ourably, and therefore practiced art more for his own delight and from desire of glory than for gain. And, to tell the truth of the matter, those craftsmen who have as their ultimate and principal end gain and profit, and not honour and glory, rarely become very excellent, even although they may have good and beautiful genius; besides which, labouring for a livelihood, as very many do who are weighed down by poverty and their families, and working not by inclination, when the mind and the will are drawn to it, but by necessity from morning till night, is a life not for men who have honour and glory as their aim, but for hacks, as they are called, and manual labourers, for the reason that good works do not get done without first having been well considered for a long time. 1 " He has become, in service to his Medici masters, a mere coverer of walls, a decorator.

European History Quarterly, 2019

In the dictionaries there is a common definition of art as ‘‘the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.’’ Even in this very simple definition, it can be seen a necessity for the existence of an artist who is creating the art. When it is again looked at the definition of the artist, it says that the artist is ‘‘a person who practices or performs any of the creative arts.’’ As you can see while the very definition art was signifying the artist, the definition of the artist signifies the art. However, in this paper what it is wanted to do is to show the role and importance of another figure -of course without regretting the role, importance, environment and atmosphere of the art and artist- it is the role of the patrons in the artistic expression. It will be seen how important the impacts of the patrons and their positions in the rest of the paper. While demonstrating their impacts on the artist and naturally on the art, it will also be discussed the political, social, economic and philosophical atmosphere of the artists and patrons. In his book, Şair ve Patron, Halil İnalcık claims that together with the rising merchant class and decentralization in the west, it could be seen different power centers and different artistic expressions growing around those centers but in the east, such a kind of economic and political decentralization did not happen therefore the artistic expression had grown around one center which was depending on the land and agricultural production. His claim helped me to chose a specific period while investigating the role and impact of the patrons; it is apparently the Renaissance period which is witnessing the rise of mercantilism, decline of the church authority and increase of the city states and small principles all around Europe. And lastly, when it is chosen the Renaissance as the period to investigate the role and impacts of the patrons in the artistic expression under, it is appeared as a natural outcome of the period; the Medici Family that is the most effective and powerful patron of the period. While investigating their patronage, I have chosen a chronological methodology which will help us to see the reasons and background of the Renaissance art and Medici patronage.