Lorenzo Ghiberti: Famous Renaissance Artists

Katherine Mills
Renaissance History Essay 2
November 3, 2014
Professor McClure

INSERT INTERESTING TITLE HERE Widely known as the first great art historian, in his Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari goes into great detail on the lives of many famous Renaissance artists, including Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, and Leonardo da Vinci. In his biographies of these artists, one of the most interesting ideas that Vasari explores is the relationship between the artists and their patrons. Because artists needed to earn a living, they relied on commissions, and patronages, and as a result, many different types of relationships emerged between artists and their various patrons. Patrons could range from wealthy individuals and families, to city governments,
Spending forty years working on the doors, Vasari depicts Ghiberti as mainly being under the patronage of the city of Florence. Ghiberti is a good example of how it was not just wealthy families or individuals who commissioned works of art for themselves. Unlike Donatello and Leonardo, Ghiberti did not seem to do as much art for individuals, instead, he did more public pieces, and was most frequently commissioned to do works for the city of Florence. For instance, after being commissioned to create the doors, he was commissioned by the Merchants Guild of Florence to make a bronze statue of John the Baptist for one of the niches outside Orsanmichele, and was later asked by more guilds to make statues for their niches. As Ghiberti 's reputation grew throughout Italy, he was commissioned more and more for projects outside Florence, such as when the Signoria of Siena hired him to make several scenes from the life of John the Baptist for them, after seeing his work in Florence. Later, Ghiberti was commissioned to make a memorial for a bishop of Florence, and was even commissioned by the
According to Vasari, the Medici family were Donatello 's main patrons. He did much work for them, for instance, a bronze head of Cosimo de Medici 's wife, as well as various sculptures for the Medici palace. Vasari paints this relationship as one of mutual respect and appreciation "Cosimo thought so highly of Donatello 's talent that he kept him continually occupied; and in return Donatello loved Cosimo so well that he could understand all he wanted, from the slightest sign, and never disappointed him" (180). The relationship between Donatello and the Medici was so strong that even as Cosimo was dying, he still wanted to ensure that the artist would be provided for, so he put him in the care of his son Piero, who provided him with a steady income, showing that the bond between the artist and patron stretched beyond just a mere business relationship. Not only did Donatello do work for the Medici while under their patronage, but they also supported him by helping him gain other commissions, for instance, when he was commissioned to do a bronze head for a Genoese merchant, according to Vasari, "Donatello obtained the commission through Cosimo 's recommendation" (180), showing that even when an artist had a patron, they were not necessarily limited to only doing work for that