Rarely—in fact, almost never—great patrons of the arts have undertaken to write retrospective reviews of their projects and achievements. Active people, from Caesar to the village doctors of recent times, described their activities and their achievements, believing that if these achievements were not properly described by them, they would not remain long in the memory of posterity, despite the fact that they fully deserve it . People with the gift of self-expression, including writers, poets, painters and sculptors, turned (especially after artistic and literary activity was elevated to the rank of High Art by the Renaissance) to autobiography and self-interpretation whenever they feared that their works were , by their very essence, isolated and crystallized manifestations of a continuous creative process - will not be able to convey to descendants in a generalized form what they wanted to express in these works. A completely different matter is a patron of the arts, that is, a person whose prestige and initiative contribute to the creation of works of literature and art. Among such patrons of the arts we find a high church hierarch, a secular ruler, an aristocrat, and a plutocrat. From the point of view of such a patron, a work of art should praise the patron, and not vice versa. Adrians and Maximilians, Levs and Yudin, Jean de Bery and Lorenzo de' Medici decided for themselves what they wanted from art and literature, they themselves chose the creators, they themselves took part in the development of creative programs, they themselves approved or criticized the execution of their orders and they themselves paid - or not paid the bills. At the same time, they instructed their courtiers and secretaries to compile all sorts of lists and registers, and their historiographers, poets and humanists to create panegyrics and interpretations and describe their philanthropic activities. It took special circumstances and a unique combination of personal qualities for the works written by Suger to appear, The Abbot of Saint-Denis, which time has kindly preserved for us.

Edited by: Erwin Panofsiky. Abbot Suger of St. Denis.In: Meaning in the Visual Arts. N.Y., 1957. Translation and comments: Panasiev A.N.