Renaissance Connection

£ = A few flakes of gold
££ = Gold halos only
£££ = Gold halos and some sky
££££ = Gold halos and losts of sky
£££££ = Gold from top to bottom

My lord, no one has asked me to make a tempera painting in...well, it seems like a hundred years. But I am honored to do so for you. I shall depict our blessed Virgin and her child in all their glory...or at least, in as much glory as you can afford. How much gold leaf can you afford?

I'll pay you ££££ for the altarpiece, but I want gold halos on Mary, Jesus, plus some angels and four saints. And gold sky and ground. And the whole piece has to be at least two feet square.

Monna Margherita, that is a lot of gold. Perhaps we can make the ground a nice brown instead of gold?

No, I want gold from top to bottom, to show all of Florence that I am a success in this world, and yet truly devoted to meeting God in the next world.

All right, gold from top to bottom, but let's make it smaller. One square foot.

Fine. And I want it in writing.

Two Months Later

Jester Gold symbolizes heaven, so the more gold leaf used, the more heavenly the scene. And the more gold used, the richer the patron must be. It's a clever way to show off your wealth—and everyone who saw the painting knew how to interpret that!

But this Jacopo guy actually lived one hundred and fifty years earlier. By 1500, few artists were using tempera. And this isn't even Jacopo di Cione you're looking at. There are no portraits of Jacopo. Like most Renaissance artists, he probably wasn't rich or famous enough to have a portrait made and of course, cameras didn't exist 500 years ago.