In this first comprehensive study of patrons in the Italian quattrocento, Mary Hollingsworth shows how the patron--rather than the artist--carefully controlled both subject and medium in artistic creation. In a competitive and violent age, she explains, image and ostentation were essential statements of the patron's power. As a result, perceived cost became more important than artistic quality (and buildings, bronze, or tapestry were considered more eloquent statements than cheaper marble or fresco). Artists in the early Renaissance were employed as craftsmen, Hollingsworth concludes, and only late in the century did their relations with patrons start to adopt a pattern we might recognize today. "Many readers, specialists and nonspecialists alike, will welcome this book as a reliable and straightforward introduction to an important and interesting subject."-- Literary Review "A synthesis of the current state of knowledge about Renaissance patronage... The author is particularly well qualified to assess the amount of personal involvement of patrons, and she emphasizes the extent to which Lorenzo de Medici, Ercole d'Este, and Federigo da Montefeltro, as well as several Popes, can be considered their own 'architects.'"-- Apollo