Be a Medici — New Patrons for a New Renaissance

By Robert Wallace, Guest Editorial

Modern historians credit the Dark Age as a time of substantial progress, but no one is campaigning to rename it the Bright Age either. Western nations produce geniuses daily, yet no written record survives from these five centuries.

Nationalists should place more stock in Petrarch and Gibbon than rootless modern academics. For us, Western civilization is not merely a corpse warranting examination. Its spectacular art, music, and literature fill our lives with meaning and purpose—the collective achievement of the dead form a living identity.

Civilizations cannot hope to preserve their heritage and grow through its example without a general feeling of personal ownership. What is worthier of pride than our Renaissance culture of Europe? I have no compunction about calling what came before the Dark Age because those centuries fell colossally short of our potential.

The approaching Dark Age could be final. Western nations worldwide face invasion from hostile or apathetic foreigners by elites who despise natives for being born. Is there any future for our descendants if nationalists do not gain significant influence in this decade?

Urgency is required, and the task is achievable given public support for nationalist policies. After all, it only took one wealthy, enlightened, and motivated family to revive our civilization and lift it to its zenith: the Medicis. From 1434 to 1737, the Medici family ruled Florence and made it the cultural center of Europe, inaugurating the Renaissance — i.e., the rebirth of Classical Civilization in the West. The Medici were patrons of such artists as Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, and Rubens. We owe them Michelangelo’s David and Raphael’s School of Athens.

The Medicis were also patrons of learning. After the fall of Constantinople, they provided refuge for Greek scholars and patronage for Italian scholars who revived the study of the Greek classics in the West. Thus we also owe them our awareness of Homer, Plato, and Thucydides. Galileo was a beneficiary of Medici patronage, serving as a tutor to several generations of Medici children.

The House of Medici began as a textile and banking enterprise. They were outstanding capitalists, but politics was their priority. Through their financial empire, they made the Florentine Republic their dominion. They often paid for influence, and we’re fortunate they did. The Medicis were wise enough to ignore pretentious moralizing in their pursuit of progress.

Here is the crucial point: We must be Medicis in philanthropy. The Medicis privatized the patronage of the arts, but by the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the funding of cultural projects largely passed to taxpayers. Yet Western nationalists do not control a single government and will remain stateless for many years. Therefore, like the Renaissance, our rebirth can only begin through institutions that rely on charity.

The Medicis invented modern philanthropy. American elites donate to institutions that serve their interests and pressure one another to do so. They monopolize influence through their thriving philanthropic culture. It is how our enemies and allies control governments and how we would gain power. Our nation’s existence should not depend on non-profit organizations, but we must play this game until we win enough authority to rewrite its rules.

Since rallying a new Renaissance is impossible without restoring and protecting political liberty, be a Medici as a patron of the Free Expression Foundation. The entire nation is on trial, and Glen Allen is defending the people as America’s lawyer. Please contact FEF to learn more about its plans, including Glen’s crucial support of the January 6th defendants, and give generously today.