Cosimo and Lorenzo de' Medici
Cosimo and Lorenzo de' Medici were the patrons of dozens of artists and humanists who spearheaded the Renaissance. At his father's death, Cosimo inherited the largest fortune in Tuscany (179,221 florins or about $2.76 billion today), and soon he proved fully fit to carry on the far-flung enterprises of his firm. Cosimo was more than a great banker; he owned and managed extensive farms and oversaw the manufacture of silk and woolen goods. He also found time left for politics; becoming the de-facto ruler of Florence by winning (or forcing) the support of influential families through his loans. He won the support of the clergy through his gifts, and easily reconciled the citizens to his rule through public benefactions of unprecedented scope and generosity. He was normally humane, mild, forgiving, reticent and yet known for his dry wit. He was generous to the poor, paid the taxes of impoverished friends, and hid his charity, like his power, in a gracious anonymity. In the humanities, he spent a large part of his fortune collecting classic texts, so that the most costly cargoes of his ships were in many cases manuscripts carried from Greece or Alexandria. But most importantly, in the arts, he was the patron of Brunellesco and Bartolomeo in architecture, of Donatello and della Robbia in Sculpture, of Fra Lippi, Fra Angelico, and others in painting. After his death, he earned the cognomen of Pater Patriae, Father of His Country—but his power, generosity, and influence of genius were to be topped by his grandson Lorenzo. After Cosimo's death, under Lorenzo's leadership, Florence became more powerful and influential than ever. Thanks to him, all art (painting in particular) was catapulted and sent on the trajectory that would reach its peak in Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael after Lorenzo's death. Lorenzo was a poet himself; his verses restored to the Italian language the literary primacy that Dante had established and the humanists had overthrown (they preferred Latin). Furthermore, his versatility was legendary, he was a humorist with Pulci, a poet with Politian, a scholar with Landino, a philosopher with Ficino, a mystic with Pico, an esthete with Botticelli, a musician with Squarcialupi, an the biggest party-lover of his age. This was the golden age of Florence. Never since the days of Augustus had genius found such an audience, such stimulating competition, and such liberty. For this and much more, Lorenzo earned the cognomen of "il Magnifico".
Source: Durant, Will. The Story of Civilization, Vol. 5: The Renaissance, A History of Civilization in Italy from the Birth of Petrarch to the Death of Titian, 1304–1576. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953.
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!