What would it matter to them if every rich man set aside a thousand lira a year to encourage art?

Five centuries have passed since the artistic movement of Florence shone forth, and to this very day it remains the abundant wellspring from whose pure streams Europe drinks — and behind her, the whole world.

History has recorded no genuine artistic movement that gave such good fruits as this one. The first credit for it belongs to the Medici princes, who ruled Florence and knew, while they held power, how to employ their wealth to bring art to life: they took the artists under their wing and assigned them generous stipends for life, on condition that they produce the finest and most perfect artistic work... And hence their tradition, known to this day, shows itself with ardor in their artistic creation and their yearning — always — to create the better and the best.

Florence's artistic renaissance took the form of a contest in building the most magnificent and most splendid cathedrals. In the days of Prince Cosimo de' Medici one of the cathedrals required a door of brass, so a competition was held among the artists, and the one who shone in it was a young artist named Ghiberti; Cosimo guaranteed him his material livelihood, on condition that he enlist all his talents and artistic powers for the work.

And when he lay on his deathbed, the door not yet finished, Prince Cosimo summoned his son Lorenzo, the heir apparent, and charged him with the duties of rule. The last thing he said to him was: I commend Ghiberti to your good care — see to it that he lacks for nothing!

In this pampered, cherishing atmosphere art flourished in Florence: the artist, well fed and easy in mind about his material lot, gave himself to production with all diligence and devotion... In this atmosphere Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci and others grew up... and the gardens of Florence, its buildings and its squares, were heaped with the immortal masterpieces that now fill the museums of the world.

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I recalled all this yesterday, when I visited our autumn exhibition. I had hoped to see the names of our rich pinned to the paintings and the statues as the mark of their purchase (if not, good Lord, out of appreciation of them, then at least by way of encouragement); but their aloofness from this atmosphere, and their absorption in their own worldly affairs, disappointed my hope. And I asked myself, with a choking pang: what would it matter to our millionaires — and they are not few, God be praised — what would it matter to them if each one of them set aside only a thousand lira a year to encourage an artist?

I touch and feel the harsh straits that grip the community of artists in our country. Nor do I yet know how their artistic gifts can put forth leaves and blossom in the depths of want and wretchedness, in an atmosphere menaced by penury and hunger?!

Our rich, sunk in their luxury and their airs of importance, need someone to shake them and rouse their consciences to some of their duties as citizens. This homeland has a sacred claim upon them, part of which is a tender regard for art and the people of art. Perhaps that regard will prove, tomorrow, the finest of the deeds that history records in their name.

Would that our rich might read the lives of the Medici princes — perhaps among them is one who will take heed and follow the example.