The fact that the right climate was created in Florence for the development of the Renaissance did not mean, however, that the three artists who initiated the innovations met with a high level of success, and the cause was mainly the lack of openness to the new on the part of the patrons: Masaccio did not work for prestigious patrons (his only major patron in Florence was the merchant Felice Brancacci), Donatello for a time had to work in Padua, Brunelleschi lost the 1401 competition, won by Ghiberti, because patrons were not yet “ready” for the innovative charge of his work, and he saw some projects refused.
The fact that the right climate was created in Florence for the development of the Renaissance did not mean, however, that the three artists who initiated the innovations met with a high level of success, and the cause was mainly the lack of openness to the new on the part of the patrons: Masaccio did not work for prestigious patrons (his only major patron in Florence was the merchant Felice Brancacci), Donatello for a time had to work in Padua, Brunelleschi lost the 1401 competition, won by Ghiberti, because patrons were not yet “ready” for the innovative charge of his work, and he saw some projects refused. And Beato Angelico himself had to propose the novelties of his art gradually to his patrons who were still tied to late Gothic stylistic features. We should not forget, for example, that in 1423, a full seven years after the creation of Donatello’s Renaissance San Giorgio (Florence, Bargello Museum) and while Masaccio was busy in the Brancacci Chapel, Gentile da Fabriano produced his masterpiece, the Adoration of the Magi, one of the pinnacles of international Gothic.