DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68073#0046
20
OLD WORLD MASTERS
ever slight, would be complete without reference to the Medici. Art,
like all other branches of learning, owed its splendid development to
their intelligent sympathy and generous patronage. The Medici
began this patronage early. Giovanni de Bicci (1360-1428), the
founder of the family, was one of the judges who selected Ghiberti
to make the Baptistery doors and Cosimo, “the Father of his Coun-
try” (1389-1464), was so liberal a patron of Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo
Lippi, Benozzo Gozzoli, Paolo Uccello, Domenico Veneziano, and
many others, that we may safely say the great flowering of Florentine
Art is almost entirely due to his taste and encouragement.
The Florentine artists, too, were greatly stirred by the meeting
of the Council of the Eastern and Western Churches, which was one
of the most important gatherings ever held anywhere in the history
of the world. This Council was invited by Cosimo to Florence and
all the dignitaries and their suites were his personal guests, entertained
by him in his various palaces and villas. Picturesque and bizarre
these dignitaries were; and the painters had full opportunity to see
them when they sat in the Duomo under Brunelleschi’s newly com-
pleted dome (then the Eighth Wonder of the World), or when they
moved about the streets with their suites.
In his delightful book, The Medici, Col. G. F. Young has called
particular attention to the importance of this great Council; how it
led Cosimo to found the Platonic Academy; and how the Fall of
Constantinople, fourteen years later, changed the world so utterly
that no such meeting could ever take place again. In part he says:
“This great gathering of 1439 in Florence had its effect also on
Art. We are often inclined to wonder where such painters as Fra
Angelico, Benozzo Gozzoli, and Gentile da Fabriano got the idea of
the gorgeous robes and strange-looking head-dresses which we see
in their pictures of Eastern subjects. It was all taken direct from the
life of Florence of this year. During that summer the inhabitants of
Florence saw a perpetual succession of grand processions and im-
posing functions in which these visitors from the East appeared in
every kind of magnificent and strange costume. Vespasiano da Bis-
ticci and other writers of the time dilate upon their rich silken robes,
OLD WORLD MASTERS
ever slight, would be complete without reference to the Medici. Art,
like all other branches of learning, owed its splendid development to
their intelligent sympathy and generous patronage. The Medici
began this patronage early. Giovanni de Bicci (1360-1428), the
founder of the family, was one of the judges who selected Ghiberti
to make the Baptistery doors and Cosimo, “the Father of his Coun-
try” (1389-1464), was so liberal a patron of Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo
Lippi, Benozzo Gozzoli, Paolo Uccello, Domenico Veneziano, and
many others, that we may safely say the great flowering of Florentine
Art is almost entirely due to his taste and encouragement.
The Florentine artists, too, were greatly stirred by the meeting
of the Council of the Eastern and Western Churches, which was one
of the most important gatherings ever held anywhere in the history
of the world. This Council was invited by Cosimo to Florence and
all the dignitaries and their suites were his personal guests, entertained
by him in his various palaces and villas. Picturesque and bizarre
these dignitaries were; and the painters had full opportunity to see
them when they sat in the Duomo under Brunelleschi’s newly com-
pleted dome (then the Eighth Wonder of the World), or when they
moved about the streets with their suites.
In his delightful book, The Medici, Col. G. F. Young has called
particular attention to the importance of this great Council; how it
led Cosimo to found the Platonic Academy; and how the Fall of
Constantinople, fourteen years later, changed the world so utterly
that no such meeting could ever take place again. In part he says:
“This great gathering of 1439 in Florence had its effect also on
Art. We are often inclined to wonder where such painters as Fra
Angelico, Benozzo Gozzoli, and Gentile da Fabriano got the idea of
the gorgeous robes and strange-looking head-dresses which we see
in their pictures of Eastern subjects. It was all taken direct from the
life of Florence of this year. During that summer the inhabitants of
Florence saw a perpetual succession of grand processions and im-
posing functions in which these visitors from the East appeared in
every kind of magnificent and strange costume. Vespasiano da Bis-
ticci and other writers of the time dilate upon their rich silken robes,