Courts, patrons and poets

The princely courts of fifteenth-century Italy played a central role in the development of Renaissance art and culture. After a general introduction to the notion of court patronage, this book examines the phenomenon in detail through case studies of artists and musicians working in Milan under the Sforza (Leonardo, Filarete, and Josquin Desprez) and in Florence under the Medici. Later chapters show how humanist ideas were imported from the Continent to Britain, where they were absorbed and ultimately metamorphosed into the glories of Tudor and Stuart poetry and drama. The result is a stimulating study of the position of artists in society and of their changing relation to, and interaction with, their patrons.