“The quantity and determination of subjects active in the field of patronage both ecclesiastical and secular,” wrote art historian Cristina Acidini, characterized Florence “at the time of the free Communes and beyond over the centuries: the civil government, the Christian church and religious orders, the arts or guilds, banks, confraternities, aristocratic and merchant families and other associative forms still exercised energetic architectural and art commissioning and in some cases conscious collecting.

It was precisely this high number of patrons endowed with character, plans and resources, and certainly in constant confrontation with each other to outdo each other, that enabled Florence to grow in power and beauty. Thanks to them, already in the Two-Thirteenth Century the foundations were laid for a thickening, in terms of artistic and book heritage, that had no equal in Europe.”