To have and have not: The disposal of household furnishings in Florence

Renaissance Studies

Volumn 20, Issue 5, 2006, Pages 701-716

  Matchette, Ann ^a  

^a VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 43249165882     PISSN: 02691213     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1477-4658.2006.00369.x     Document Type: Article

References (133)

1. Archivio di Stato, Florence, Magistrato dei Pupilli del Principato (hereafter MPP), 3060, estate of Giovanni di Domenico Mazuoli, detto Stradino (24 November 1550) [no foliation]. All dates have been kept in their original form
2. In 1551, the closest date for which we have data, the average daily wage for a skilled labourer was 19.5 soldi; Richard Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance Florence: A Sodal and Economic History (Baltimore, 1980), 289, 438
3. MPP, 3060, 24 November 1550, No. 6: 'Un letto d'albero, un lettucio simile, con ispalliere dipinte atachate insieme e chornicone in tutto', sold for 18 lire, 10 soldi. The problem of defining spalliera is addressed in Anne V. Barriault, Spalliera Paintings of Renaissance Tuscany: Fables of Poets for Patrician Homes (University Park, Penn., 1994), 10-11, 21-30
4. MPP, 3060, second auction from estate of Giovanni di Domenico Mazuoli, detto Stradino (10 March 1551) [no foliation]
5. The multiplication of domestic goods has been identified as one of the important features of the period and is a key aspect of studies such as Richard Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy 1300-1600 (Baltimore, 1993)
6. John Kent Lydecker, 'The Domestic Setting of the Arts in Renaissance Florence' (unpublished PhD thesis, The Johns Hopkins University, 1993)
7. and Lisa Jardine, Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance (London, 1996)
8. Recent and forthcoming work is offering a welcome addition to these early forays into consumption; see the essays in 'Approaches to Renaissance Consumption', ed. Marta Ajmar, special issue of Journal of Design History, 15, No. 4 (2003)
9. Renata Ago and Osvaldo Raggio, eds., 'Consumi culturali nell'Italia moderna', special issue of Quaderni storici, 115, Anno 39, No. 1 (2004)
10. Evelyn Welch, Shopping in the Renaissance (London, 2005)
11. and Michelle O'Malley and Evelyn Welch, eds., The Material Renaissance (Manchester, forthcoming)
12. The market for used goods and 'alternative' means of exchange have recently excited the interest of scholars. See principally the work of Patricia Allerston, especially 'L'abito come articolo di scambio nella società dell'età moderna: alcune implicazioni', in Le trame della moda, ed. Anna Giulia Cavagna and Grazietta Butazzi (Rome, 1994), 109-24
13. and 'The Market in Secondhand Clothes and Furnishings in Venice circa 1500-1650' (unpublished PhD diss., European University, Florence, 1996)
14. Renata Ago, 'Gerarchia della merci e meccanisme dello scambio', Quaderni storici, 96, Anno 32, No. 3 (1997), 663-83
15. Evelyn Welch, 'New, Old and Second-Hand Culture: The Case of the Renaissance Sleeve', in Revaluing the Renaissance, ed. Gabriele Neher and Rupert Shepherd (Aldershot, 2000), 101-20
16. idem, Shopping in the Renaissance, especially 85, 90-2, 158-9, 222
17. th Centuries, ed. Marcello Fantoni, Louisa C. Matthew, and Sara F. Matthews-Grieco (Modena, 2003), 313-23
18. Ann Matchette, 'Credit and Credibility: Used Goods and Social Relations in Sixteenth-Century Florence', in The Material Renaissance
19. and idem, 'Unbound Possessions: The Circulation of Used Goods in Florence, c. 1450-1600' (unpublished PhD diss., University of Sussex, 2005)
20. Numerous entries in household account books and inventories attest to these practices. See, for example, ASF, Magistrato dei Pupilli Avanti il Principato (hereafter MPAP), 188, fol. 516r
21. and Lydecker, 'Domestic Setting of the Arts', 15
22. Sources for the domestic interior, especially those reflecting a more 'static' picture of the home, such as images and inventories, are increasingly becoming problematized; in addition to Allerston's article here, see the essays in Jeremy Aynsley and Charlotte Grant, eds., Imagined Interiors: Representing the Domestic Interior since the Renaissance (London, 2006)
23. and Marta Ajmar-Wollheim and Flora Dennis, eds., At Home in Renaissance Italy: Art and Life in the Italian House, 1400-1600, exh. cat. (London, 2006)
24. Issues of mobility and the home are more commonly addressed in anthropology; see, for example, Irene Cieraad, ed., At Home: An Anthropology of Domestic Space (Syracuse, 1999)
25. Daniel Miller, ed., Home Possessions: Material Culture behind Closed Doors (Oxford, 2001)
26. Jean-Sebastien Marcoux, 'The "Casser Maison" Ritual: Constructing the Self by Emptying the Home', Journal of Material Culture, 6, No. 2 (2001), 213-35
27. Daniel Roche, A History of Everyday Things: The Birth of Consumption in France, 1600-1800, trans. Brian Pearce (Cambridge, 2000), 83-4
28. originally published as Histoire des choses banales (Paris, 1997)
29. and the volume Art, Memory and Family in Renaissance Florence, ed. Giovanni Ciappelli and Patricia Lee Rubin (Cambridge, 2000)
30. See also Barriault, Spalliera Paintings, especially 133-9
31. Marta Ajmar, 'Toys for Girls: Objects, Women and Memory in the Renaissance Household', in Material Memories: Design and Evocation, ed. Marius Kwint et al. (Oxford, 1999), 75-89
32. Luke Syson and Dora Thornton, Objects of Virtue: Art in Renaissance Italy (London, 2001), 37-77
33. Raffaella Sard, Vita di casa. Abitare, mangiare, vestire nell'Europa moderna (Rome and Bari, 1999)
34. published in English as Europe at Home: Family and Material Culture, 1500-1800 (New Haven and London, 2002), 127-8
35. and Jill Burke, Changing Patrons: Sodal Identity and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Florence (University Park, Penn., 2004), 49-61
36. On neighbourhoods and palace architecture, see Brenda Preyer, 'Florentine Palaces and Memories of the Past', in Art, Memory and Family in Renaissance Florence, 176-94
37. On Venice, see Isabella Plumbo-Fossati, 'L'interno della casa dell'artigiano e dell'artista nella Venezia del Cinquecento', Studi veneziani, 8 (1984), 109-53
38. and Patricia Fortini Brown, Private Lives in Renaissance Venice: Art, Architecture, and the Family (London, 2004)
39. For the fifteenth century, see Alison Brown, 'Lorenzo de' Medici's New Men and Their Mores: The Changing Lifestyle of Quattrocento Florence', Renaissance Studies, 16, No. 2, (2002), 113-42
40. and for the later period, Franco Angiolini and Paolo Malanima, 'Problemi della mobilità sociale a Firenze tra la metà del Cinquecento e i primi decenni del Seicento', Società e storia 4 (1979), 17-47
41. In addition to the numerous editions of diaries and trousseaus that were published, see, for example, Guido Biagi, La vita italiana nel rinascimento (Milan, 1893)
42. T. Belgrano, Della vita privata dei genovesi (Genoa, 1875)
43. and Pompeo Molmenti, La storia di venezia nella vita privata dalle origini alla caduta della repubblica, 3 vols. (Bergamo, 1905-8)
44. Attilio Schiaparelli's La casa fiorentine ei suoi arredi (Florence, 1908) addressed furnishings in particular
45. On dealers and decorative arts collections, see Roberta Ferrazza, Palazzo Davanzati e le collezioni di Elia Volpi (Florence, 1994)
46. Fiorenza Scalia, 'Stefano Bardini antiquario e collezionista', in Il Museo Bardini a Firenze, 2 vols., ed. Fiorenza Scalia and Cristina de Benedictis (Milan, 1984), Vol. I, 5-91
47. Rosanna Pavoni, ed., Reviving the Renaissance: The Use and Abuse of the Past in Nineteenth-Century Italian Art and Decoration (Cambridge, 1997)
48. and Charlotte Gere and Carolyn Sargentson, eds., 'The Making of the South Kensington Museum: Curators, Dealers and Collectors at Home and Abroad', special issue of Journal of the History of Collections, 14, No. 1 (2002)
49. The authenticity of many objects, particularly cassoni, is increasingly coming under scrutiny, given the market demand for them at the time that most decorative arts museums were developing their collections. See, for example, Ellen Callmann, 'William Blundell Spence and the Transformation of Renaissance Cassoni', Burlington Magazine, 141 (June, 1999), 338-48
50. On the biases of ricordanze, in particular, see Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, La maison et le nom: Stratèges et rituels dans l'Italie de la Renaissance (Paris, 1990), 6-13
51. Ajmar, 'Toys for Girls', 76-8
52. Palla Strozzi's will is frequently cited; see, for example, Goldthwaite, Wealth and Demand, 211
53. See also F. W Kent, 'The Making of a Renaissance Patron of the Arts', in Giovanni Ruccellai ed il suo zibaldone, II: A Florentine Patrician and his Palace (London, 1981), 53-4
54. Paula Findlen, 'Ereditare un museo: collezionismo, strategie familiari e pratiche culturali nell'Italia del XVI secolo', Quaderni storia, 115, Anno 39, No. 1 (2004), 45-81, has recently argued that the development of museums stems from the failure of heirs to keep collections intact
55. See also Monika Schmitter, '"Virtuous Riches": The Bricolage of cittadino Identities in Early-Sixteenth-Century Venice', Renaissance Quarterly, 57 (2004), 908-69, especially 917-8
56. Among the extensive bibliography on ricordanze, see Christian Bec, Les marchands êcrivans. Affaires et humanisme à Florence, 1375-1430 (Paris and The Hague, 1975)
57. Fulvio Pezzarossa, 'La tradizione fiorentina della memorialistica', in La 'memoria' dei mercatores. Tendenze ideologiche, ricordanze, artigianato in versi nella Firenze del Quattrocento, ed. Gian-Mario Anselmi, Fulvio Pezzarossa, and Luisa Avellini (Bologna, 1980), 39-149
58. Giovanni Cherubini, 'I "libri di ricordanze" corne fonte storica', in Civiltà comunale: libro, scrittura, documenta, atti del convegno, Genova, 8-11 novembre 1988 (Genoa, 1989), 569-91
59. and Giulia Calvi, 'Maddalena Nerli and Cosimo Tornabuoni: A Couple's Narrative of Family History in Early Modern Florence', Renaissance Quarterly, 45 (1992), 312-39
60. Isidoro Del Lungo and Gugliemo Volpi, eds., La cronaca domestica di Messer Donato Velluti, scritta fra il 1367 e il 1370, con le addizioni di Paolo Velluti, scritte fra il 1555 e il 1560 (Florence, 1914), 317-33
61. Ginevra Niccolini di Camugliano, The Chronicles of a Florentine Family, 1200-1470 (London, 1933), 168-9
62. On this genre, see Daniela Frigo, Il padre di famiglia: Governo della casa e governo civile nella tradizione dell' 'economia' tra Cinque e Seicento (Rome, 1985)
63. Dennis Romano, Housecraft and Statecraft: Domestic Service in Renaissance Venice, 1400-1600 (Baltimore, 1996), 3-42
64. and Marta Ajmar, 'Women as Exemplars of Domestic Virtue in the Literary and Material Culture of the Italian Renaissance' (unpublished PhD diss., Warburg Institute, University of London, 2004), 135-76
65. Although Alberti's text was not published until the nineteenth century, it was composed between 1432 and 1434. On its background, see the introduction to the edition by Ruggiero Romano and Alberto Tenenti, I libri della famiglia (Turin, 1969)
66. Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand for Art, 210-11
67. The virtue of thrift promoted in these texts is well known; see Frigo, Il padre di famiglia, 151-60
68. and, particularly in relation to clothing, Patricia Allerston, 'L'abito usato', in La Moda, Storia d'Italia, Annali 19, ed. Carlo Marco Belfanti and Fabio Giusberti (Turin, 2003), 561-81
69. e siècle', in Echanges et cultures textiles dans l'Europe pré-industrielle, special issue of Revue du Nord, Collection Histoire, 12 (Rouen, 1996), 31-47
70. On Venice, see Fortini Brown, Private Lives, 1-21
71. Alberti, I libri della famiglia, ed. Romano and Tenenti, 287: '[ . . . ] se fusse disutile, lo desse a vendere, e sempre più si dilettasse di vendere che di comperare, e de' danari comperasse solo cose necessarie alla famiglia'
72. English trans. The Family in Renaissance Florence, trans. Renée Neu Watkins (Columbia, 1969), 223
73. Alberti, I libri della famiglia, 274: '"Donna mia, se la mattina tu con gessi e calcina e simili impiastri imbiutassi el viso a questa imagine, sarebbe forse piú colorita e piú bianca sí, ma se poi fra dí il vento levasse alto la polvere la insusciderebbe pur sí, e tu la sera la lavassi, e poi e' dí seguenti in simili modo la rimpiastrassi e rilavassi, dimmi, doppo molti giorni volendola vendere cosí lisciata?"
74. Rispuose ella: "Mold pochi"'
75. trans. Alberti, Family in Renaissance Florence, 214
76. Stefano Guazzo, La civil conversazione (1574), ed. Amedeo Quondam, 2 vols. (Modena, 1993), Vol. I, Bk. 3, 235: 'E quando non ne avenga peggio, almeno si assicuri la madre che sì come alcune persone affrettate dalla necessità portano in piazza i mobili di casa per cavarne più tosto danari, e li vendono assai manco di quel che vagliono, così ella mettendo spesso la figliuola in prospettiva, viene ad avvilirla e a scemarle il credito'. I am grateful to Flora Dennis for sharing this reference with me
77. See, for example, the study by Sandra Cavallo, 'What Did Women Transmit? Ownership and Control of Household Goods and Personal Effects in Early Modern Italy', in Gender and Material Culture in Historical Perspective, ed. Moira Donald and Linda Hurcombe (London, 2000), 38-53
78. A similar critique has been levelled at interpretations of seventeenth-century Dutch painting by Heidi de Mare, 'Domesticity in Dispute: A Reconsideration of Sources', in At Home, 13-30
79. Matchette, 'Unbound Possessions', 70-2
80. For a survey of shops in the fifteenth century, see Maria Letizia Grossi, 'Le botteghe fiorentine nel Catasto del 1427', Ricerche storiche, 30, No. 1 (2000), 3-55
81. and Maria Luisa Bianchi, 'Le botteghe fiorentine nel Catasto del 1480', Ricerche storiche, 30, No. 1 (2000), 119-70
82. For the later period, see the workshop census taken in 1561 in ASF, 'Ricerca alle botteghe', Decima Granducale, 3784, especially fols. 129v-134r, 137r-140v
83. and Pietro Battara, 'Botteghe e pigioni nella Firenze '500: un censimento industriale e commerciale all'epoca del granducato mediceo', Archivio storico italiano, 95, No. 2 (1937), 3-28
84. The guild's concern is voiced in ASF, Arte dei Rigattieri, 7, fols. 75r-v
85. Università dei Linaioli, 1, fols. 43v-44v
86. On this agency, see Caroline Fisher, 'The State as Surrogate Father: State Guardianship in Renaissance Florence, 1368-1532' (unpublished PhD diss., Brandeis University, 2003)
87. Giulia Calvi, Il contratto morale: madri e figli nella toscana moderna (Bari, 1994)
88. The statutes are published in Francesca Morandini, 'Statuti e ordinamenti dell'Ufficio dei Pupilli et Adulti nel periodo della Repubblica fiorentina (1388-1534)', over three volumes of Archivio storico italiano, 113 (1955), 520-51
89. 114 (1956), 92-117
90. and 115 (1957), 87-104
91. Household inventories from this period often show individual objects being sold off to dealers in used goods or other tradesmen, especially in the case of materials like gold and silver, where venduto is written in the margin next to the relevant item. See, for example, MPAP, 151, fols. 27r-v, 41v-42r
92. See, for example, the sale in 1415 involving Florence's wealthiest dealer at the time, Giovanni Corradori in MPAP, 151 [no foliation; fol. 72 from end]
93. The auction reforms are stipulated in the Pupilli's statutes, MPAP, 248, fols. 66r-75v
94. and Pratica Segreta, 6, fols. 257r-269r, 411r-417r, 423r-426r
95. Lydecker, 'The Domestic Setting of the Arts', 217-8, noted the expansion of Pupilli auctions, which he saw as contributing to greater opportunities for acquisition
96. Early modern auctions have been studied primarily in relation to the emerging art market; for studies of those also involving furnishings, see Allerston, 'The Market', 234-52
97. Jack Hinton, 'By Sale, by Gift: Aspects of the Resale and Bequest of Goods in Late-Sixteenth-Century Venice', Journal of Design History, 15, No. 4 (2002), 245-62
98. Musacchio, 'The Medici Sale'
99. Evelyn Welch, 'From Retail to Resale: Artistic Value and the Second-Hand Market in Italy, 1400-1550', in The Art Market in Italy, 283-300
100. idem, Shopping in the Renaissance, 185-203
101. th Century Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 2002)
102. MPAP, 248, fols. 66r-68r
103. Pratica Segreta, 6, fols. 257r-258v, 261r-v
104. Giovanni Cambi recorded the agency's location in Piazza San Giovanni in 1501; see Istorie fiorentine di Giovanni Cambi cittadino fiorentino, ed. Ildefonso di San Luigi, 4 vols., in Delizie degli eruditi toscani (Florence, 1785-86), XXI, 163
105. See, for example, ASF, Corp. Sopp., 1646 [p. XXX.7] Libro di Ricordi, fols. 243v-244v
106. See also Preyer, 'Florentine Palaces and Memories of the Past', for the re-use of existing architecture
107. See, for example, MPAP, 188, fols. 402r, 682r
108. These windows were not necessarily sold because they were outmoded. Travelling in the 1590s, Fynes Moryson described the houses in Florence, noting that windows were not glazed, unlike those in Venice; see An Itinerary: Containing his Ten Yeeres Travell [ . . . ], 4 vols. (Glasgow, 1907), Vol. I, 317
109. The shop of the rigattiere Domenico d'Antonio Maretti contained four windows; MPAP, 177, fol. 95r. I am grateful to Caroline Fisher for the reference to this dealer's inventory
110. See, among many other examples, the goods listed in the following sales: MPP, 188, fols. 402r-403r, 680r-682v, 689r-v
111. In 1476, Bernardo Machiavelli sent out his bed, made of 'good and beautiful wood', to be completely taken apart, replaned, reconnected, and stuccoed in a new manner; see his Libro di ricordi, ed. Cesare Olschki (Florence, 1954), 38
112. See also Marco Parenti's recycling activities discussed in Lydecker, 'Domestic Setting of the Arts', 89, 93
113. MPP, 3060, estate of Iaciente d'Alexandro Chorsini (1552) [no foliation]: No. 35, 'dua pezzi di armadio di noce intarziato chorniconi e spalliere' sold for 56 lire; No. 36, 'uno pezzo di sedere di noce di braccia 6 colla spalliere', sold for 28 lire
114. MPP, 3060, estate of Piero di Giovanfrancesco de' Nobili (1549), fol. 2v, No. 20: '2 forziereti fatti chome e lettuccio', estimated at 28 lire and sold for 40
115. MPAP, 188, fol. 644r
116. MPP 3060, estate of Bernardino da Chastiglione (1552) [no foliation]
117. Archive of the Ospedale degli Innocenti, Florence, Estranei, 404, Domenico del Commandatore, Debitori e creditori (1501-1522), fols. 22v, 23r, 25r, 29r
118. See also Matchette, 'Credit and Credibility'
119. The following case comes from a collection of documents in MPAP, 188, fols. 412r, 563r, 564r-565r, 566r, 567r, 569r, 570r, 571r, 711r, and Libri di Commerico e di Famiglia (hereafter LCF), 4179, 4180, the account books and ricordanze of Puccio di Rinaldo Pucci (1533-59). Unfortunately, the petitions and acts surrounding the settlement of the estate seem to have not survived; as a result, relatively little is known about the economic and social composition of the household
120. MPAP, 188, fol. 564r-v, 566r, 569r, 711r
121. Cf. ibid., fols. 569r and 571r
122. LCF, 4179, fol. 191r
123. David Herlihy and Chistiane Klapisch-Zuber, Les Toscans et leurs familles: une étude du 'catasto' florentin de 1427 (Paris, 1978), 204-9
124. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, 'The "Cruel Mother": Maternity, Widowhood, and Dowry in Florence in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries', in her Women, Family and Ritual in Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1985), 118, has maintained that women had little attachment to either their father's or husband's homes and were but 'passing guests'
125. There is a vast bibliography on this topic. On the legal restrictions on women's property in Florence, including their dowry and the ramifications of the tornata, the practice of widows returning to the home of her natal family, see Klapisch, 'The "Cruel Mother"', 117-31
126. See also Isabelle Chabot, 'Widowhood and Poverty in Late Medieval Florence', Continuity and Change, 3 (1988), 291-311
127. idem, 'Seconde nozze e identità materna nella Firenze del tardo medioevo', in Tempi e spazi di vita femminile tra medioevo ed età moderna, ed. Silvana Seidel Menchi, Anne Jacobson Schutte, and Thomas Kuehn (Bologna, 1999), 493-523
128. For comparisons throughout Italy, see Giulia Calvi and Isabelle Chabot, eds., Le ricchezze delle donne: Diritti patrimoniali e poteri familiari in Italia (XIII-XIX secc.) (Turin, 1998)
129. Klapisch, 'The "Cruel Mother"'; Chabot, 'Widowhood and Poverty'
130. Calvi, Il contratto morale, traces the vicissitudes of orphans and their families within the Pupilli from 1550 to 1750
131. See also idem, 'Reconstructing the Family: Widowhood and Remarriage in Tuscany in the Early Modern Period', in Marriage in Italy, 1300-1650, ed. Trevor Dean and K. J. P. Lowe (Cambridge, 1998), 275-96
132. Calvi, 'Reconstructing the Family', 295
133. Camugliano, Chronicles of a Florentine Family, 135-6, citing Archivio Niccolini, Florence, Libri di Ricordi of Paolo Niccolini. The original ricordi, held in the family's private archive currently under reorganization, were unavailable for consultation