Medici patronage system

Timeline

1. 1434–1464Florence · TuscanyCosimo used Medici Bank wealth to fund building projects such as the San Marco monastery and San Lorenzo church, engaged artists such as Donatello and Brunelleschi, and protected humanist scholars such as Marsilio Ficino, forming a patronage model combining public and private spheres.
2. 1469–1492Florence · TuscanyLorenzo gathered poets, philosophers, and artists at villas such as Careggi, vigorously sponsoring Botticelli, the Verrocchio workshop, and Platonic Academy-style scholarly activities; Medici patronage became the symbolic power culture of the High Renaissance in Florence.
3. 1494Florence · TuscanyAmid the Italian Wars, French forces advanced south, Piero de' Medici lost power, and the family went into exile; the republican government led by Savonarola interrupted the existing patronage channels, and the Medici system as Florence's dominant cultural organizational form temporarily collapsed.