For Siebke there is a major difference between sponsoring and patronage.
Sponsors donate funds and funds are of course crucial.
But at the same time sponsoring is also a form of advertisement for the sponsor, or more precisely for the product he has put on the market. With patronage, which has been around since antiquity, things are different. In this connection Siebke recalled the historical figure of Maecenas, the intimus of Emperor Augustus and a generous friend to the poets Horace and Virgil. The Jugendstil mansion in the northern part of Heidelberg's Handschuhsheim district was acquired by the founders of MLP in 1977 and after major renovation work it was used from early 1978 as the head offices of the company. One of the research groups working in the building is headed by Prof. Paul Kirchhof.