Attributing Influence: The Problem of Female Patronage in Fifteenth-Century Florence

Abstract

Lack of written documentation on female patrons in fifteenth-century Florence has long obstructed scholars' understanding of women's influence on visual culture during this art historically crucial period. The problem is best addressed by turning to the objects themselves. The attribution, on stylistic grounds, of the illuminated frontispiece of an unstudied manuscript from Florence's Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale underpins a larger argument that Lucrezia Tornabuoni de' Medici engaged in a collaborative commission with one of the most innovative and sought-after illuminators of the time, Francesco d'Antonio del Chierico, and the date of this codex suggests her surprisingly extensive influence on the visual arts.