He was a patron because he supported the church, and lots of writers, artists, architects and students. He founded a "Platonic Academy" where students could study the works of Ancient Greek writers and talk about politics, religion and new ideas. The head of the Academy was a philosopher called Marsillio Ficino. Cosimo encouraged architects to design buildings in the style of Ancient Rome. He collected a huge library of books and gave them to the monastery of San Lorenzo to be used by students. When he wanted some quiet time, he went to friary, (which is like a monastery), Sant Marco's, where he encouraged one of the "brothers", Fra Angelico, to paint beautiful sacred pictures.