when art became status symbol

 

essex mercenary

Sir John Hawkwood [1320-1394] "the acute" was available to the highest bidder including the Pope.

Image explanation here.

money and power

"Money to get power; power to protect money."
- Motto of the Medici family

"In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women."
- Al Pacino as Tony Montana in Scarface

distiller of alcoholic beverages

"After I'd been at work for some time, I realized that I was much influenced subconsciously by Michelangelo's walls in the staircase room of the Medici library, Florence. He achieved just the kind of feeling I'm after; he makes the viewers feel that they are trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked-up, so all they can do is butt their heads against the wall - forever."
- According to Simon Schama, that was the feeling Mark Rothko [1903-1970] wanted to give to the people who'd soon be eating in Manhattan's smartest restaurant, The Four Seasons, in the Seagram Building.

Bonfire of the Vanities

The Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola [1452-1498] preached the apocalyptic depravity of the Renaissance and upon the deathbed conversion of Lorenzo de Medici il Magnifico [1449-1492] became the defacto leader of Florence until his execution.

[The children of Florence went] door to door, collecting cosmetics, mirrors, fine clothes, and the like from Florentines who were conflicted about the humanism of the Renaissance, and the judgement of God that Savonarola told them it would bring down. 

A recipient of Medici patronage, Sandro Botticelli  [1445-1510] added several of his own works to the fires.