Throughout the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church remained a major patron of the arts, commissioning several artists to paint in cathedrals. During the Renaissance, not only did churches hire artists, but wealthy merchant families began to support artists, notably the Medici family of Florence. Because the humanist movement of the Renaissance moved away from the Church or the divine to emphasize the human, a style of art that was more secular in nature. However, this new focus on the individual does not mean that artists stopped producing religious works.