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The patrons in Renaissance Italy included "corporate patrons" -- city governments, religious institutions and orders, and "'confaternities'" -- and "private patrons," such as merchants, humanists, aristocrats, rulers, patrician families, and a handful of artists, as well (9). Among private patrons could be found "'urbanized elites,'" who felt compelled to use means of conspicuous consumption -- in this case "conspicuous commissions" to help them "'formulate the ideological confirmation of \[their\] class," for they lacked "'the tangible evidence of status that the northern feudal nobility could take for granted'" (Goldthwaite, qtd. in Nelson, 4). In the commissioning game then, relationships among patrons featured a high level of competition and reflected a sort of dance in which players used art commissions to position themselves higher on the rung of socioeconomic and cultural status. The socioeconomic "situation in Italy provided a special incentive for those with disposable wealth to enhance their reputation through artistic commissions. This enhancement would be the patron's payoff" (10). With these weighty incentives, their status and reputation at stake in the commissions game, patrons assumed a great deal of creative power over the production of works of art. "The patron," notes Nelson et al., had "a unique and leading role, \[...often 'generating'\] the original idea or seed for a building" or another art piece" (18). They wielded both "carrots and sticks" to influence the artists they commissioned to produce high-quality work that would reflect positively on their own sense of sophistication, status, and wealth; and throughout the creative process they used their financial and social power over the artists they employed to ensure that the art they produced represented these attributes.

I have already suggested that the primary incentive for the patron in the commissions game was status. This payoff, an indispensible reward in Renaissance Italy, encapsulated other related and complementary benefits. Commissioning a work of art that properly broadcasted a patron's wealth and status could enhance a patron's reputation, public image, and prestige and distinguish him from citizens of lesser status (5). A commission for such durable commissions as works of art and architecture could also help a patron to assert and define his legacy, leading to lasting reputation and prestige and perhaps benefits to his progeny. While commissioning a piece of art "rarely \[led to\] financial gain" (5) and in fact cost the patron a great deal of material output (for employing the artist, materials, etc.), the product had the potential to bring about financial rewards down the line, and, in fact, "the financial cost of a commission brought its own benefit" because it signaled the wealth of the patron and distinguished him from those who could not afford such a commission (37), thus enhancing the patron's social and socioeconomic status. The indirect material benefits of commissioning a piece, referenced above, included economic payoffs deriving from the signaling of political connections in the art work, such as tax breaks or political appointments, and the development of a reputation as a trustworthy investment (50). The major costs for the commissioning patron were usually social in nature, and were "incurred when the message received from a work of art differed from the patron's expectation" (52).

Patrons employed such strategies as "signaling, stretching, and signposting" in the works they commissioned as means to enhance their status payoff from the commissions. Patrons "signaled" their status, wealth, culture, and taste with various creative adornments and accoutrements, as well as simply the quality of the work, in their commissions. "The key to signaling was differential costs, which ensured that a work of art \[was\] not cheap talk" and would distinguish the patron from those of lesser status (77). "The greater the differential costs of signals, whether because of monetary cost, status constraints, or requirements of taste or erudition, the more a particular commission separated one from the others" (80). Signaling could also help patrons instill "trust" in their customers. For example, Renaissance Italian pharmacists with fancy and elaborate containers "conveyed a reassuring message about the pharmacist" (74).

The commissions game in Renaissance Italy was notable for its drive for "magnificence" in art. Attributes of magnificence - splendor, beauty, glorification, and sumptuousness -- signaled "distinction" in status, prestige, and wealth. Signaling magnificence allowed patrons to "distinguish themselves from those of lower status" and fulfilled "a social obligation" to behave in a manner becoming for their class (67). "Magnificence" required not only "sumptuousness," but "worthiness," as well, worthiness comprising "ornament, size, excellence of materials, \[...\] the perpetual duration of the work," "grand scale and noteworthy beauty," and "fit," or the art work's ability to 'be adapted to the dignity of the owner'" (71-71). The ambition for distinction fostered the phenomenon of "self-fashioning," a practice similar to advertising the positive characteristics one wanted to promote about oneself and one's lifestyle. Distinction and signaling required that "viewers appreciate the criteria used to \[...\] commission works of art" (69); only with this appreciation could the communication of differential costs be realized. And, of course, differential cost was paramount: A work of art only signals status if it shows you can afford what very few can (76-80).