To whom should we ascribe the great flowering of the arts in Renaissance Italy? Scholars have attributed great importance to the role played by patrons, arguing that some should even be regarded as artists in their own right. This approach is challenged by Jill Burke.

"Changing Patrons combines visual analysis with techniques from history and anthropology to propose new interpretations of the art created by, among others, Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, and Raphael. Genuinely interdisciplinary, the book also casts light on broad issues of identity, power relations, and the visual arts in Florence, the cradle of Renaissance.