So much for the shop methods. Now for him who makes shops possible—the patron. A wealthy Florentine as naturally wanted to invest in a frescoed chapel as a wealthy American does in a fleet of motor cars. Considering the changed value of money, one indulgence was about as costly as the other. But the Florentine never quite regarded paintings as luxuries. They were necessary to him. He loved them. They enhanced his prestige in this world and improved his chances in the next. Then to beautify a church was really to magnify the liberty and prosperity of Florence, which largely derived from the Holy See. Recall that every Florentine was born a Catholic, baptized in the fair Church of St. John with the name of a saint. This saint, he believed, could aid him morally and materially, was in every sense his celestial patron. It paid to do the saint honor, and that could best be done through the painter’s art. The poorest man might have a small portrait of his patron, a rich man might endow a chapel and cause all his patron’s miracles to be pictured on the wall. Think also that every altar—a dozen or more in every large church—was a shrine[1], containing the bread and wine that by the never-ceasing miracle of the Mass became the Saviour’s body and blood; and was also a reliquary or tomb, containing in whole or part the body of some saint. Every altar then, and every chapel inclosing one, cried out for a twofold interpretation of its meaning. Everything about the Eucharist had to be explained (involving pretty nearly all of Biblical history), and the particular relic required similar illumination. Since many of the faithful could not read, and the Catholic Church has ever been merciful as regards sermonizing, these explanations of the altar as miracle shrine of Our Lord and as tomb of a particular saint were best made pictorially, and generally were so made.