Lorenzo The Magnificent - Research Paper Example

I believe this to be a possibility because of the many works of art, sculpture and architecture that are being made during this period. Much of this beauty only exists because it was commissioned by the wealthy ruling families of Italy. People such as myself, Lorenzo Medici, commission artwork not only to promote culture and the arts in my city, but also to show off the material wealth my family commands. The types of works I commission demonstrate the recent advancements that have taken place in architecture and art as well as convey a sense of the impression I wish to make upon my neighbors and associates.

Having been raised in a family already strongly committed to the arts, I hope to one day be remembered as one of art’s finest patrons but remain somewhat fearful that it is other areas of my life history will focus upon. The physical world I knew while growing up went a long way toward fostering my love of the arts, but it also helped shape my personality in other ways. In our Florentine society, it is necessary for princes who can afford it to build huge residential palaces, villas, fortresses, governmental buildings, churches and convents that we can then fill with statuary, paintings, sculptures, brilliantly performed original pieces of music and other fine works of art.

This is how we demonstrate our status in our very class-conscious society. “Art historians bury the why – and hence the sociology – by their excessive emphasis on questions of form and style. Most of the great building projects of the Italian Renaissance … had behind them the urge to exhibit now: to exhibit an identity, to show the power or piety of the man and his family dynasty, and to carve out a space in the city that would belong to that name, that individual and dynasty, for all times” (Martines, 1979: 236).

These sentiments applied equally to other commissioned works of art as well. At three stories tall, the family’s Medici Palace in