Combining social and art history, this study creates a portrait of a 15th-century Florentine artist and his patrons. The author constructs biographies of such famous patrons as Cosimo de Medici in order to demonstrate the degree to which artistic production was tied to politics and economics.

Most studies of Renaissance patronage in the arts deal with a particular patron and the artists who worked for him. John Spencer reverses this approach by focusing on one 15th century Florentine artist, Andrea del Castagno, and his patrons. Combining social and art history, Spencer casts new light on both the career of Castagno and on the nature of art patronage in the early Renaissance. Through archival research, Spencer creates a portrait of Castagno's patronage as a web, at the centre of which was Cosimo de Medici, who constituted the focal point of a network of business partnerships, real estate transactions, loans and special privileges in which the artist's patrons were enmeshed. The author constructs partial biographies of unknown and lesser-known patrons to show the relation of these patrons to each other and to the artist, demonstrating the degree to which artistic production in Renaissance Italy was tied to politics and economics.