Art Patronage, Family, and Gender in Renaissance Florence

This book examines the multi-media art patronage of three generations of the Tornabuoni family, who commissioned works from innovative artists, such as Sandro Botticelli and Rosso Fiorentino. Best known for commissioning the fresco cycle in Santa Maria Novella by Domenico Ghirlandaio, a key monument of the Florentine Renaissance, the Tornabuoni ordered a number of still-surviving art works, inspired by their commitment to family, knowledge of ancient literature, music, love, loss, and religious devotion. This extensive body of work makes the Tornabuoni a critically important family of early modern art patrons. However, they are further distinguished by the numerous objects they commissioned to honor female relations who served in different family roles, thus deepening understanding of Florentine Renaissance gender relations. Maria DePrano presents a comprehensive picture of how one Florentine family commissioned art to gain recognition in their society, revere God, honor family members, especially women, and memorialize deceased loved ones.

• Expands scholarly dialogue of family art patronage for art historians and historians
• Illustrates how fifteenth-century Florentine families used art to honor or remember female relatives and contributes to scholarly discussion of place of women in Italian Renaissance society, demonstrating that not just brides and new mothers were honored with art in fifteenth-century Florentine society
• Demonstrates that women were honored with art of the same quality (artistic and material) and intellectual rigor as the men in the family commissioned for themselves
• Expands primary published source material on the Tornabuoni family and contributes to primary source material for material culture studies