The House of Medici, arguably Italy's best known political dynasty, provided the wherewithal to sustain the careers of some of history's greatest artists.
Over three centuries the powerful, influential and rich Tuscan family were the generous patrons of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Donatello and Fra Angelico amongst others.
Science and architecture were also beneficiaries of their largesse.
But the Medici were not all sweetness and light in their political and business dealings.
They were involved in the murder and torture of opponents and, during the latter part of their rule, persecuted Jews in Tuscany, involved themselves in arms deals and imposed crippling taxes on the people over whom they presided.
The Belgiorno-Nettiss family is not the Medici but is regarded as one of the most generous sponsors of art in Australia.
Until very recently anyway.
Franco Belgiorno-Nettiss was an Italian immigrant who made good in the mid-1950s when he set up, with Carlo Salteri, Transfield.
It was to become the largest construction and engineering firm in the southern hemisphere.
Franco was a prominent patron of the arts, establishing the Transfield Art Prize in 1959. He also helped to found the Biennale of Sydney in 1973.
His family has been supporting the contemporary arts event ever since, contributing through Transfield Holdings about six per cent of the Biennale's $10 million budget.
Luca Belgiorno-Nettiss, Franco's son, was also the event's chairman. He's also executive director of Transfield Holdings which holds a minority stake in Transfield Services.
The publicly-listed Transfield Services, manages facilities at Australian asylum-seeker detention centres in Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.
And for some artists that's been a problem.
Little-known Sydney design academic Matthew Kiem penned an open letter to visual arts teachers in January calling for a boycott of the Biennale, due to begin later in March.
Its association with a company like Transfield was ethically unacceptable, he wrote.
A few weeks later, a group of 28 artists published an open letter in support of the boycott call.
They argued that Transfield's sponsorship was providing the company with cultural capital.
The group requested the Biennale withdraw from its sponsorship arrangements with Transfield, claiming it would set an important precedent for Australian and international arts institutions by compelling them to exercise a greater degree of ethical awareness and transparency of their funding sources.
The message they also wanted to send to both Transfield and the Abbott government was that mandatory detention of asylum seekers was ethically indefensible and in breach of human rights.
"As a network of artists, arts workers and a leading cultural organisation, we do not want to be associated with these practices," they wrote.
The Biennale board initially stood firm.
"We are inadvertently caught somewhere between ideology and principle," it said in a statement.
On the one hand, there were assertions and allegations about Transfield that were open to debate.
"On the other, we have a long-term history of selfless philanthropy," the board said, noting Transfield's role in establishing and supporting an event that had served the arts and wider community for the past 40 years.
It warned that without the support of Transfield, the event might not survive.
A fortnight later, following a furious social media debate, the Biennale board severed ties with Luca Belgiorno-Nettiss and Transfield.
"We have listened to the artists who are the heart of the Biennale and have decided to end our partnership with Transfield effective immediately," it said in a statement.
Belgiorno-Nettiss left with a parting shot.
"There would appear to be little room for sensible dialogue, let alone deliberation," he said, noting Biennale staff had been verbally abused with "taunts of blood on your hands".
"I have been personally vilified with insults, which I regard as naive and offensive."
And it may not end there. The artists organising the boycott have vowed to pursue Transfield and other arts organisations that receive its sponsorship dollars.
Among them are the Art Gallery of NSW, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Accessible Arts NSW.
"We are going to pursue this through divestment workshops and seeing how much more we can affect this policy through targeting the companies that are profiting from mandatory detention," artist Gabrielle de Vietri said.
The controversy has divided the arts community.
"Everyone feels the artists have cut off their noses to spite their faces, and in attacking Transfield they've missed the target all together," artist Christopher Hodges told Fairfax Media this week.
The logical target would have been the Australia Council, the government-backed national arts funding agency.
Like Transfield it financially backs the Biennale as well as the livelihood of hundreds of artists.
Arguably, the council enjoys a more direct link to the government than Transfield.
Cabinet minister Malcolm Turnbull believes the artists who called for a boycott of Biennale - who he rubbishes as "viciously ungrateful" - should reject all arts funding that comes from the federal government.
"Transfield does not make government policy, it's in business, it's fulfilling a contract for the government," he said.
Biennale director Juliana Engberg worries about the controversy's impact on corporate support for the arts.
"I think it sends jitters through the sponsorship system and this can have very detrimental effects for the cash-strapped culture sector," she told Crikey's Daily Review before the split with Transfield.
Engberg recalls what happened in the aftermath of community "outrage" over Bill Henson's photographic work depicting a nude 13 year-old girl in 2008.
"Many (corporate sponsors) scuttled off to music."
Engberg believes the concerns for people in offshore detention centres is completely justified, but argues the Biennale is the wrong target for their protests.
"If you want to change the policy, sadly the government is probably pretty distant from the Biennale."
The exit of Transfield and Luca Belgiorno-Nettiss hasn't ended the nasty debate in social media, as boycott supporters round on the Biennale board for daring to express heartfelt praise for the pair's contribution.
But it has given the event's theme added meaning: You Imagine What You Desire.
* The 19th Biennale of Sydney runs from March 21 to June 9.
