Definition of "Maecenas"

Maecenas

/mʌɪˈsiːnəs/

noun
plural Maecenases
1. A generous benefactor; specifically, a patron of literature or art.
  Quotations
  […] thou art his dear and loving friend, good and gracious Lord and Master, his Maecenas.
  1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps
  [O]ur young gentleman was shewn into another room, where half a dozen of his fellow-adherents waited for their Mæcenas, who in a few minutes appeared, with a most gracious aspect, received the compliments of the morning, and sat down to breakfast, in the midst of them, without any further ceremony.
  1751, [Tobias] Smollett, chapter 103, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume IV, London: Harrison and Co., […], page 367
  The government […] maintained one of the largest armies in Europe; it developed what became, by the 1780s, a navy as big as the British; and it played the role of cultural Maecenas.
  2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 329
  The contemporary art space created within the Palais de Tokyo (also home to the Paris Museum of Modern Art) is a pretty sad example of government as Maecenas.
  2010 November 5, Katherine Knorr, “For November, Paris Is the City of Lenses”, in The International Herald Tribune‎