This chapter examines three Renaissance social and cultural types, the merchant, the courtier, and the artist, the latter category encompassing not only painters, sculptors, and architects but also performance artists and skilled artisans and makers. The chapter uses self-descriptive writings produced by members of these professional groups to draw out their collective identities and value systems. Merchants are studied through the Florentine tradition of merchant ‘family books’, as well as in the more literary writings of Leon Battista Alberti and Benedetto Cotrugli, while the ethos of courtiers is examined through the justly famous analysis of Baldassare Castiglione. Where artists are concerned, an initial section on painters and sculptors, drawing on the writings of Giorgio Vasari, is followed by a discussion of lesser-known writings by court professionals, from dance masters to horse trainers to specialists associated with the arts of the table, such as cooks, stewards, and virtuoso carvers. The chapter argues that the much-studied rise of painting and sculpture from a lowly craft status to that of liberal arts was one instance of a broader phenomenon.