This interdisciplinary book investigates the use of secular space for music making in Early Modern France and Italy. The fact that many artists of the time also had musical skills underlines the close relationship between music and the visual arts. This era is remarkable for the growing importance of music in domestic life, ranging from elaborate court festivities to family recreation. In parallel with the emergence of the theatre as a separate building type, music-making in elite circles became more specialised through the employment of paid musicians, as opposed to amateur participation by the inhabitants and their guests. Meanwhile, however, music printing and the mass-production of instruments, especially lutes, allowed music-making to diffuse down the social scale. We see how spaces specifically designed for music began to appear in private dwellings, while existing rooms became adapted for the purpose. At first, the number of rooms specifically identifiable as 'music rooms' was very small, but gradually over the following 150 years, specialised music rooms began to appear in larger residences in both France and Italy. A major theme is the relationship between the size and purpose of the room and the kinds of music performed - depending on the size, portability and loudness of different instruments; the types of music suited to spaces of different dimensions; the role of music in dancing and banqueting; and the positions of players and listeners. Musical instruments were often elaborately decorated to become works of art in their own right.

The Music Room in Early Modern France and Italy: Sound, Space and Object (Proceedings of the British Academy)

Arts & Photography

Howard, Deborah

Mauretti, Laura

History & Criticism

British Academy

The Sacred Home in Renaissance Italy explores the rich devotional life of the Italian household between 1450 and 1600. Rejecting the enduring stereotype of the Renaissance as a secular age, this interdisciplinary study reveals the home to have been an important site of spiritual revitalization. Books, buildings, objects, spaces, images, and archival sources are scrutinized to cast new light on the many ways in which religion infused daily life within the household. Acts of devotion, from routine prayers to extraordinary religious experiences such as miracles and visions, frequently took place at home amid the joys and trials of domestic life -- from childbirth and marriage to sickness and death. Breaking free from the usual focus on Venice, Florence, and Rome, The Sacred Home investigates practices of piety across the Italian peninsula, with particular attention paid to the city of Naples, the Marche, and the Venetian mainland. It also looks beyond the elite to consider artisanal and lower-status households, and reveals gender and age as factors that powerfully conditioned religious experience. Recovering a host of lost voices and compelling narratives at the intersection between the divine and the everyday, The Sacred Home offers unprecedented glimpses through the keyhole into the spiritual lives of Renaissance Italians.

The Sacred Home in Renaissance Italy

Laven, Mary

Brundin, Abigail

Oxford University Press

Jacopo Sansovino was one of the major artists forced to flee the Sack of Rome in 1527. He took refuge in Venice and spent the rest of his life there, working as both a sculptor and an architect. Deborah Howard’s fluent and fascinating book examines the historical background to Sansovino’s remarkably varied range of architectural commissions and offers a more perceptive assessment of his achievement. The author explores the different types of patronage, both secular and religious, and the relationships between the architect and his employers. She looks at the functions of the various buildings and the way in which each project was administered and financed, and suggests how Sansovino derived inspiration from the practical and economic opportunities in each instance.

Jacopo Sansovino: Architecture and patronage in Renaissance Venice

Architecture

Yale University Press

Jacopo Sansovino was one of the major artists forced to flee the Sack of Rome in 1527. He took refuge in Venice and spent the rest of his life there, working as both a sculptor and an architect. Deborah Howard's fluent and fascinating book examines the historical background to Sansovino's remarkably varied range of architectural commissions and offers a more perceptive assessment of his achievement.The author explores the different types of patronage, both secular and religious, and the relationships between the architect and his employers. She looks at the functions of the various buildings and the way in which each project was administered and financed, and suggests how Sansovino derived inspiration from the practical and economic opportunities in each instance.

Jacopo Sansovino: Architecture and Patronage in Renaissance Venice

Precious spices and textiles, imported from distant trading posts in the eastern Mediterranean, stocked Venetian markets in the Middle Ages; but Venice’s merchants imported more than material goods from the East—they acquired also a wealth of visual ideas and information from Muslim culture. This lively and richly illustrated book investigates the influence of oriental trade and travel on medieval Venice and its architecture. Architectural historian Deborah Howard examines the experiences of Venetian merchants overseas, focusing on links with Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, as well as with Persia and the Silk Route. She argues that many Venetians gained insight into Islamic culture through personal contacts with their Muslim trading partners. Based on wide-ranging multidisciplinary research, this book examines the mechanisms that governed the exchange of visual culture across ideological boundaries before the age of printing. Howard explores a range of building types that reflect the impact of Islamic imagery, paying special attention to two icon buildings, San Marco and the Palazzo Ducale. She considers the complexities of importing Muslim ideas to an unambiguously Christian city, itself the point of embarkation for pilgrims to the Holy Land.

Venice and the East: The Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture, 1100–1500

This book is the indispensable guide to the history of architecture in Venice, encompassing the city's fascinating variety of buildings from ancient times to the present day. Completely updated, this edition of Deborah Howard's classic volume, first published in 1980, is filled with splendid new illustrations. Howard writes in a highly accessible style, inviting those who visit Venice in person, armchair travelers, and all students of Venetian art and architecture to look more closely at the unique architecture of one of the world's most beautiful cities. Believed to have been founded by refugees at the fall of the Roman Empire, Venice became a semi-independent outpost of Byzantium and eventually an independent republic. The city flourished for centuries as a trading center between east and west, and its visual traditions were continually enriched by the exposure to outside influences. When the long-lasting republic fell to Napoleon in 1797, many attempts at modernization followed. Howard traces the entire evolution of Venice's architecture, placing special emphasis on the political, social, and economic framework that supported it. She highlights the achievements of such individual architects as Sansovino, Palladio, Longhena, Massari, and Selva. Throughout the book, the author stresses the visual qualities of the buildings themselves, enhancing our appreciation of individual structures built in Venice and providing a spectacular view of the city that inspired their creation.

The Architectural History of Venice (revised and enlarged edition)

Moretti, Laura

This book is the indispensable guide to the history of architecture in Venice, encompassing the city’s fascinating variety of buildings from ancient times to the present day. Completely updated and filled with splendid new illustrations, this edition invites all visitors to Venice, armchair travelers, and students of Renaissance art and architecture to a fuller appreciation of the buildings of this uniquely beautiful city. “The best concise introduction to Venetian architecture in English.”―Times Literary Supplement “Compact and manageable . . . an excellent introduction to the novice preparing for a first Venetian experience.”―Society of Architectural Historians “A hugely rewarding and accessible book.”―Richard Cork, Modern Painters

The Architectural History of Venice: Revised and enlarged edition

History

Europe

While composers of sacred music in 16th-century Venice were devising increasingly complex choral polyphony, Venetian architects began to develop new configurations of sacred space. This fascinating book explores the direct relationship between architectural design and sacred music in Renaissance Venice. Deborah Howard and Laura Moretti combine historical research into the architectural and liturgical traditions of a dozen Venetian churches with the results of a parallel series of scientific surveys and live choral experiments of the acoustic properties of the chosen buildings.

Sound and Space in Renaissance Venice: Architecture, Music, Acoustics

Music

In the councils and magistracies of the Venetian Republic, politicians argued intently over civic building projects in a manner curiously reminiscent of a modern democracy, taking advice from architects, engineers, and the public. Written by a leading authority on Venetian architecture, the book explores the complex dialectic between theory and practice; utopia and reality; and design and technology that infused these disputes. 
The bitterly contested debates are seen through the experiences of one particular Venetian nobleman, Marc'Antonio Barbaro (1518-1595). Recognized as a gifted stuccoist and draftsman, Barbaro played a prominent role in the discussions about major state building projects such as Palladio's church of the Redentore, the restoration of the Doge's Palace, and the erection of the Rialto Bridge. He was a distinguished statesman and orator, but his idealistic views about the rhetorical power of classicism frequently clashed with local technological expertise. Venice Disputed recounts not only his public role but also his private life, centered on the now-famous family villa that he and his brother commissioned. Barbaro's compelling story thus weaves together politics, architectural history, and private life in early modern Venice.

Venice Disputed: Marc'Antonio Barbaro and Venetian Architecture, 1550-1600

The architectural history of Venice

B.T. Batsford

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Books by Howard, Deborah