A sinecure is an office, carrying a salary or otherwise generating income, that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service. The term originated in the medieval church, where it signified a post without any responsibility for the "cure [care] of souls", the regular liturgical and pastoral functions of a cleric, but came to be applied to any post, secular or ecclesiastical, that involved little or no actual work. Sinecures have historically provided a potent tool for governments or monarchs to distribute patronage, while recipients are able to store up titles and easy salaries.
Girolamo and cardinal Marco Cornaro investing Marco, abbot of Carrara, with his benefice. Titian, c. 1520
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that princes, popes, and other wealthy and influential people have provided to artists such as musicians, painters, and sculptors. It can also refer to the right of bestowing offices or church benefices, the business given to a store by a regular customer, and the guardianship of saints. The word patron derives from the Latin patronus ('patron'), one who gives benefits to his clients.
Le Baron de Besenval dans son salon de compagnie at the Hôtel de Besenval, by Henri-Pierre Danloux (1791). As in the field of the arts, the baron was also a patron in the field of botany. In 1782, Pierre-Joseph Buc'hoz named a plant after the baron to thank him for his support. This plant had already received its scientific name a few years earlier and is therefore not known today as Besenvalia senegalensis but as Oncoba spinosa.
19th-century Japanese vase bearing the Imperial chrysanthemum, showing that it was commissioned by the Imperial family
A "Thank you for your patronage" message (in the sense "Thank you for being our customer") from Orologio Restaurant in the Alphabet City area of the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City
