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The Reading Images Project |
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The Reading Images Project |
Patronage
For most of western history, including during the Renaissance, works of art were rarely generated spontaneously by artists. Instead, patrons decided they wanted a work, sought out an artist that pleased them, and made a contract with him to produce the work. Such contracts as have survived from the Renaissance typically show patrons exercising considerable control over how images appeared: the scale, materials, iconography, and occasionally even the style of works could be laid out in contracts.
The Patron of the School of Athens
The School of Athens was commissioned by Pope Julius II as part of an entire room decoration in the Stanza della Segnatura, which was the pope's private library.
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Raphael, Julius II,
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Julius
II (1443-1513)
Born Giuliano della Rovere, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, Julius II was a Franciscan friar elevated to the rank of cardinal at the age of 27 by his uncle. He was elected pope in 1503 and set as his primary goal consolidating the secular authority of the Church in Italy. Much of his reign was occupied in warfare; papal forces subdued Cesare Borgia (son of Julius's detested predecessor, Alexander VI, who ruled 1492-1503) in his bid to dominate central Italy and overthrew tyrants in Perugia and Bologna. The pope also made shrewd alliances that curtailed Venetian hegemony in the north. Julius II was a notable patron of the arts as well. Like his uncle, he was preoccupied with giving Rome a grandeur appropriate to its place as the seat of Christianity, and his patronage resulted in some of the most significant works of the High Renaissance. He initiated the rebuilding of St. Peter's under the direction of Bramante, commissioned Michelangelo to make him a grand tomb and to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and employed Raphael, not only to decorate his private apartments in the Vatican, but also to make an altarpiece to hang over his tomb. |
Other Biographies:
Palimpsest (student work from the University of Maryland University College, European Division)
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