Private lives in Renaissance Venice : art, architecture, and the family / Patricia Fortini Brown.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brown, Patricia Fortini, 1936-

Contributor:

Sabin W. Colton, Jr., Memorial Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Venice.

Decoration and ornament--Social aspects--Italy--Venice.

Decoration and ornament.

Decoration and ornament, Renaissance--Italy--Venice.

Decoration and ornament, Renaissance.

Interior decoration--Italy--Venice--History--15th century.

Interior decoration.

Interior decoration--Italy--Venice--History--16th century.

Upper class families--Homes and haunts--Italy--Venice.

Upper class families.

History.

Social aspects.

Venice (Italy)--Social life and customs.

Venice (Italy).

Italy.

Italy--Venice.

Physical Description:

viii, 312 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 29 cm

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2004]

Summary:

This book offers an engaging and original perspective on the private lives and material culture of aristocratic families in sixteenth-century Venice. Distinguished art historian Patricia Fortini Brown takes us behind the elegant, closed doors of grand palaces built along the Venetian canals -- the homes of families who wished to live in a noble manner. She examines the roles of both fine and applied arts in family life as well as the public messages that these impressive homes conveyed.

Illustrated with many varied and unusual images, the book provides a lively picture of the aristocratic lifestyle during a period of changing definitions of nobility. As the sixteenth century opened, members of the patriciate were increasingly withdrawing from trade, desiring to be seen as "gentlemen in fact" as well as "gentlemen in name." The author considers why this was so and explores such wide-ranging themes as attitudes toward wealth and display, the articulation of family identity, the interplay between the public and the private, and the emergence of characteristically Venetian decorative practices and styles of art and architecture. Brown focuses new light on the visual culture of Venetian women -- how they lived within, furnished, and decorated their homes; what spaces were allotted to them; what their roles and domestic tasks were; how they dressed; how they raised their children; and how they entertained. Bringing together both high arts and low, the book examines all aspects of Renaissance material culture and arrives at an account of Venetian households unequalled in vividness and detail.

Contents:

1 The Title of Their Gentility 1

2 Not Having the Name of Palazzo 23

3 To Live Nobile 53

4 The Mirror of Ancient Ladies 91

5 The Game of Life 123

6 A Paradise of Venus 159

7 Not One but Many Separate Cities 189

8 Theaters of the World 217

Appendix Family Trees 255

I Bembo

II Bragadin

III Condulmer

IV Da Lezze

V Soranzo.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 290-302) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Sabin W. Colton, Jr., Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

0300102364

OCLC:

52902461