[DoingIsLearning]

> Need people like that today.

Florentine maecenas were no different from billionaires today chasing each other in space races.

They didn't sponsor artists for the sake of art but rather as a display of wealth and power.

Edit: I am clarifying intention here, it does not mean that the side effects don't have a net positive, but they are unlikely to come from a purely altruistic place.

[dr_dshiv]

Cynicism aside, the renaissance was a real phenomenon. Among many other things, Cosimo Medici restarted the Academy, hiring the philosopher Marsilio Ficino to translate Plato (which had been lost to the west for nearly 1000 years), Plotinus, Hermes Trismegistus, etc. The reintroduction of classical ideas and modes of thought had a profound impact on the development of Europe over the next 200 years.

Meanwhile, many of Ficino’s own philosophical books remain untranslated today…

(Btw, if this is anyone else’s interest, I’ve helped to translate Ficino’s philosophy of pleasure: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RZYHWmptuPbpZcUbDdqNvBJD...)

[HeckFeck]

We can never know the exact intention of anyone, especially figures long in the past.

I find it hard to believe that wealthy eccentrics didn't (or don't) enjoy things for their own sake. If you have a pile of money and the chance to create something great, that'd fill you with wild excitement I can only imagine.

[VoodooJuJu]

Although many so-called "nobles" certainly funded the arts for such vain purposes, I guarantee that many other nobles were funding art for its own noble sake.

[bazoom42]

> They didn't sponsor artists for the sake of art but rather as a display of wealth and power.

Perhaps, but we still got the art.

[recuter]

Pardon me, so? Back to the dark ages?