In "The Patron's Payoff", Jonathan Nelson and Richard Zeckhauser apply the innovative methods of information economics to the study of art. Their findings, written in highly accessible prose, are surprising and important. Building on three economic concepts - signaling, signposting and stretching - the book develops the first systematic methodology for assessing the meaning of art patronage and provides a broad and useful framework for understanding how works of art functioned in Renaissance Italy. The authors discuss how patrons used conspicuous commissions to establish and signal their wealth and status, and the book explores the impact that individual works had on society. The ways in which artists met their patrons' needs for self-promotion dramatically affected the nature and appearance of paintings, sculptures, and buildings. "The Patron's Payoff" presents a new conceptual structure that allows readers to explore the relationships among the main players in the commissioning game - patrons, artists and audiences - and to understand how commissioned art transmits information. This book facilitates comparisons of art from different periods and shows the interplay of artists and patrons working to produce mutual benefits subject to an array of limiting factors. The authors engage several art historians to look at what economic models reveal about the material culture of Italy, ca. 1300-1600, and beyond. Their case studies address such topics as private chapels and their decorations, donor portraits, and private palaces. In addition to the authors, the contributors are Molly Bourne, Kelley Helmstutler Di Dio, Thomas J. Loughman, and Larry Silver.
Pt. I The commissioning game 15
Ch. 1 Main players : patrons, artists, and audiences 17
Ch. 2 Analytic framework : benefits, costs, and constraints 37
Ch. 3 Theories of distinction : magnificence and signaling 67
Ch. 4 Selecting and magnifying information : signposting and stretching 85
Pt. II The patron's payoff 111
Ch. 5 Private chapels in Florence : a paradise for signalers Jonathan K. Nelson by Richard J. Zeckhauser 113
Ch. 6 Commissioning familial remembrance in fourteenth-century Florence : signaling Alberti patronage at the Church of Santa Croce by Thomas J. Loughman 133
Ch. 7 Signs of success : Leone Leoni's signposting in sixteenth-century Milan by Kelley Helmstutler Di Dio 149
Ch. 8 Mantegna's Madonna della Vittoria and the rewriting of Gonzaga history by Molly Bourne 166
Ch. 9 Image is everything : visual art as self-advertising (Europe and America) by Larry Silver
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