Answer: Wealthy citizens have seen the possibility of supporting and sponsoring art to improve their status.
Explanation: During the Renaissance in Italian cities, powerful and wealthy traders were either city leaders or very close to them. By supporting Renaissance art and buying works of art from artists, they gained recognition and expanded their influence. This influence and status that they would have as patrons of art, they used in their business. Renaissance as a new direction in art, but also as a new world view, opened the door to those who supported it. Traders, bankers, goldsmiths, were an integral part of this new view of the world and a new way of business and life.
