<P> In some countries the term is used to describe political patronage, which is the use of state resources to reward individuals for their electoral support . Some patronage systems are legal, as in the Canadian tradition of the Prime Minister to appoint senators and the heads of a number of commissions and agencies; in many cases, these appointments go to people who have supported the political party of the Prime Minister . As well, the term may refer to a type of corruption or favoritism in which a party in power rewards groups, families, ethnicities for their electoral support using illegal gifts or fraudulently awarded appointments or government contracts . </P> <P> From the ancient world onward, patronage of the arts was important in art history . It is known in greatest detail in reference to medieval and Renaissance Europe, though patronage can also be traced in feudal Japan, the traditional Southeast Asian kingdoms, and elsewhere--art patronage tended to arise wherever a royal or imperial system and an aristocracy dominated a society and controlled a significant share of resources . Samuel Johnson defined a patron as "one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help". </P> <P> Rulers, nobles and very wealthy people used patronage of the arts to endorse their political ambitions, social positions, and prestige . That is, patrons operated as sponsors . Most languages other than English still use the term mecenate, derived from the name of Gaius Maecenas, generous friend and adviser to the Roman Emperor Augustus . Some patrons, such as the Medici of Florence, used artistic patronage to "cleanse" wealth that was perceived as ill - gotten through usury . Art patronage was especially important in the creation of religious art . The Roman Catholic Church and later Protestant groups sponsored art and architecture, as seen in churches, cathedrals, painting, sculpture and handicrafts . </P> <P> While sponsorship of artists and the commissioning of artwork is the best - known aspect of the patronage system, other disciplines also benefited from patronage, including those who studied natural philosophy (pre-modern science), musicians, writers, philosophers, alchemists, astrologers, and other scholars . Artists as diverse and important as Chrétien de Troyes, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, William Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson all sought and enjoyed the support of noble or ecclesiastical patrons . Figures as late as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven also participated in the system to some degree; it was only with the rise of bourgeois and capitalist social forms in the middle 19th century that European culture moved away from its patronage system to the more publicly supported system of museums, theaters, mass audiences and mass consumption that is familiar in the contemporary world . </P>

Who provided the most financial support for musicians and composers during the middle ages