Patronage in Sixteenth-century Italy

Book excerpt: This work describes art patronage in 16th-century Italy. For example, it was the time when Julius II and Bramante embarked upon rebuilding St Peter's; Paul III commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Last Judgement; and Sixtus V and Domenico Fontana transformed the urban fabric of Rome. Other great projects included Borromeo and Pellegrino Tibaldi introducing the ideals of the Counter-Reformation in an ambitious programme of religious architecture in Milan; the centre of Venice being dramatically remodelled by the city's government and Jacopo Sansovino; wealthy Venetian patricians building beautiful villas in the Veneto from designs by Pallado, and commissioning their altarpieces and portraits from artists of the calibre of Titian and Tintoretto. At the same time, Giulio Romano built and decorated the Palazzo del Te for Federigo Gonzaga and, perhaps in the most famous partnership of all, Vasari gave visual expression to Cosimo I's ambition in an enormous programme of building and embellishment that established Florence as a centre of artistic excellence.