Without patrons and their financial resources, most of the art of early modern Europe would never have come into existence.¹ Patronage not only controlled how much art and literature was produced at that time, but influenced its content and style. During the Middle Ages, the patron-client relationship had attained an intellectual level where, by the dawn of the early modern era, the typical patron was capable of expressing specifically his or her expectations for the finished artistic product and possessed a clear understanding of the technological aspects of that product’s completion. The client, on the other hand, had arrived at...

The early years of the sixteenth century ushered Poland into its Golden Age. When King Sigismund I¹ ascended the throne in 1506, he infused Polish politics with a vigour and flair that secured Poland² a place on the highest rung of European monarchies.³ Sigismund was a firm governor and an astute negotiator who organized the defence of his vast borders and pursued a policy of peace at home. He was also a refined and learned man who promoted a cultural life among his magnates. Sigismund brought the institution of artistic patronage on the Italian model to Poland by employing artists...

In order to advance themselves both individually and collectively, that is, to find stable employment and to promote the acceptance of the transnational community of humanist scholars to which they belonged, the young poets needed to attract and retain patrons, and to win over the literate public. Humanism was still on the margins of intellectual life in northern and central Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century, as it had been earlier south of the Alps. In central Europe, despite the efforts of the previous generation of the GermanWanderpoeten, the youngpoetae, such as Rudolf Agricola Junior, Valentin...

The patrons of the lay intellectuals were, in a sense, repaid for their patronage by the intellectuals’ glorification of them in their works. The patron supported the poets with the expectation of being honoured in their writings, and the poets cultivated patrons by flattering them in print. Panegyric poetry, therefore, is an unadulterated manifestation of the client-patron relationship. But, in praising their patrons, the humanist poets of central Europe went beyond a skilful use of the traditional formulas for the laudation of a person with the view to evoking admiration for that person on the part of the audience, and...

Maximilian I exploited the medium of print to create a program, in German and in Latin, ofGedechtnus(public relations propaganda) designed to spread and perpetuate his fame. He was the proverbial patron of literature and art, in prompting such poets as Conrad Celtis (recipient of his support as professor of poetry and rhetoric at the University of Vienna) and Riccardus Bartholinus (chaplain to his adviser, Cardinal Matthäus Lang) to celebrate his deeds in classically inspired verses, with the latter creating a national epic in his honour (Austriados, 1516). Maximilian even composed his own texts, such as the chivalricWhite...

By the time they reached the height of their careers, Rudolf Agricola Junior, Valentin Eck, and Leonard Cox had managed to connect themselves with the most powerful dignitaries in the Jagiellonian realms. Observing the constraints of decorum in respect to their patrons, they had presented an image of themselves as industrious and learned, and as pious Christian scholars. They had created an identity for themselves as members of an elite group offering a distinguished pedagogy, based on Christian morality and classical learning, that, although perhaps new, was succinct and effective. In their panegyric writings, they had, in expressing praise of...