The answer is: The Medicis became church leaders and pushed the church to support art.
The Medici turn out to be leaders of Christendom over their two well-known 16th century popes, Leo X and Clement VII. They were large supporters of the arts who ordered masterpieces for instance, Michelangelo's The Last Judgment; though, their supremacies accorded with dilemmas for the Vatican, together with Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation and the notorious sack of Rome in 1527.