A beautifully illustrated account of life behind the walls of a Florentine Renaissance home Although we live in an era when vast sums of money are lavished on wedding festivities, we are not unique: in Renaissance Italy, middle- and upper-class families spent enormous amounts on marriages that were intended to establish or consolidate the status and lineage of one or both of the respective families.
This lavishly illustrated book explores the social and economic background to marriage in Renaissance Florence and discusses the objects—paintings, sculptures, furniture, jewelry, clothing, and household items—associated with marriage and ongoing family life. By analyzing urban palaces and their furnishings, Jacqueline Marie Musacchio shows how families interacted with art on a daily basis. This began at marriage, when the bride brought a dowry and the groom provided the home and its furnishings. It continued with the accumulation of objects during the marriage and the birth of children. And it ended with the redistribution of these same objects at death. Through the examination of art, documents, literature, and more, this lively book traces the life cycle of the Florentine Renaissance family through the art and objects that surrounded them in their home.

Art, Marriage, and Family in the Florentine Renaissance Palace

Musacchio, Jacqueline Marie

Reference

Yale University Press

Many famous Italian Renaissance artworks were made to celebrate love and marriage. They were the pinnacles of a tradition―dating from the early Renaissance―of commemorating betrothal, marriage, and the birth of a child by commissioning extraordinary objects or exchanging them as gifts. This important volume is the first to examine the entire range of works to which Renaissance rituals of love and marriage gave rise and makes a major contribution to our understanding of Renaissance art in its broader cultural context. Some 140 works of art, dating from about 1400 to 1600, are discussed by a distinguished group of scholars and are reproduced in full color.
 Marriage and childbirth gifts are the point of departure. These range from maiolica, glassware, and jewelry to birth trays, musical instruments, and nuptial portraits. Bonds of love of another sort were represented in erotic drawings and prints. From these precedents, an increasingly inventive approach to subjects of love and marriage culminated in paintings by some of the greatest artists of the Renaissance, including Giulio Romano, Lorenzo Lotto, and Titian. [This book was originally published in 2008 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]

Art and Love in Renaissance Italy

Arts & Photography

Syson, Luke

Turner, James Grantham

Bayer, Andrea

Wolk-Simon, Linda

Edwards, Nancy

Thornton, Dora

Brown, Beverly Louise

Fahy, Everett

Krohn, Deborah L.

History & Criticism

Metropolitan Museum of Art

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