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Gusto for Things
A History of Objects in Seventeenth-Century Rome
Renata Ago
Translated from the Italian by BRADFORD BOULEY
COREY TAZZARA with PAULA FINDLEN
With a Foreword by PAULA FINDLEN
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS * Chicago & London
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CONTENTS
Foreword: Early Modern Romans and Their Things,
by Paula Findlen ix
Acknowledgments xxxv
A Note on Roman Coins and Money xxxvii
Introduction
PART I. THE NATURE OF GOODS
1. The Function of Goods 15
z. Reflecting on Things 41
PART II. MATERIAL GOODS 63
3. Furniture 65
4. Furnishings and Clothing 95
3
PART III. IMMATERIAL THINGS 12.3
5. The Great Collections 12.5
6. Paintings 139
7. Ostentatious Things 159
8. Books 187
Conclusion z15
List of Abbreviations 2.2.7 Notes 2.2.9
Bibliography 2.87 Index 305
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FOREWORD
Early Modern Romans
and Their Things
Paula Findlen
In 1664 two Roman booksellers, Biagio Diversin and Felice Cesaretti, decided
to finance the publication of a guidebook.' It was not a description of
Rome—the subject of numerous guidebooks by the mid-seventeenth century—but
an account of the many spaces in the Eternal City in which one
could see the most interesting objects in the possession of early modern
Romans. Or perhaps we should say the most enticing artifacts that connoisseurs
of things within Rome considered worth indicating to visitors. To
accomplish this task, they needed a Roman truly knowledgeable about the
system of things embellishing the Eternal City, capable of writing a new kind
of guidebook yet willing to have it appear without any indication of his role
in this publication. Until recently, the author of this anonymous book has
been identified as one of the prominent antiquarians and art theorists of this
generation, Giovan Pietro Bellori (1613-1696).2 Bellori, who trained as a
painter under Domenichino, would become theVasari of seventeenth-century
Rome, with the publication of his Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors,
and Architects (i672) and its critical assessment of the evolution of the arts
in the age of Poussin, Borromini, and Bernini.
In the mid-seventeenth century Bellori was already well known for his
studies of Roman antiquities and associated with the learned circles around
N OTA
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FIGURE I . The First Guidebook to Roman Museums, Libraries, and Galleries. Source:
[Fioravante Martinelli and Giovan Pietro Bellori], Nota delli musei, librerie, galerie,
et ornamenti di statue e pitture ne' palazzi, nelle case, e ne' giardini di Roma (Rome,
1664-65). Courtesy of the Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome.
Cardinal Francesco Barberini and eventually Queen Christina of Sweden that
would lead to his appointments as papal antiquarian in 167o and Queen
Christina's antiquarian and custodian of medals in 1677. He had recently
published an account of the life of his good friend Pietro della Valle (1586-
1652), whose travels were being published posthumously by the French
bookseller Diversin at the behest of della Valle's sons.' Bellori also had begun
to make a name for himself as an art critic by publishing an interpretive description
of the Carracci frescoes adorning the Farnese gallery. During this
period Bellori successfully established himself as an authoritative figure in
Rome's most important artistic academy, the Academy of St. Luke, where he
delivered a well-received lecture on "The Idea of the Painter, Sculptor, and
Architect" in 1664 before publishing a version as the preface to his Lives.4
But was he the author of the anonymous book titled Notice on Museums,
Libraries, Galleries, and Ornaments ofStatuesand Paintings in the Palaces,
Houses, and Gardens of Rome (1664-1665)?
Notice on Museums is actually two books within one since the guidebook
concludes with an essay on ancient art titled On the Vestiges of Ancient
Paintings from the Good Century of the Romans. Paying closer attention to
the hybrid quality of the text, art historian Margaret Daly Davis confirms
Bellori's authorship of the second part while identifying the author of the
Notice on Museums as Fioravante Martinelli (ca. 1599-1667), a librarian
and antiquarian who spent most of his career as scriptor of Latin and Hebrew
manuscripts in the Vatican library.' Two decades earlier Martinelli had
written an important guidebook, Rome Sought on Site (1644), reprinted and
updated multiple times during the seventeenth century. In 1664 Girolamo
Lunadoro's Relation of the Court of Rome included the expanded third
edition of Rome Sought on Site. Diversin and Cesaretti explicitly conceived
of Notice on Museums as a supplement to this recent publication. The two
publishers seem to have encouraged Martinelli to create a new account of
early modern Rome that narrowed its focus to those locations housingsome
of the city's most interesting things, enriching the publication with the addition
of Bellori's equally anonymous essay.
Notice on Museums, Libraries, Galleries, and Ornaments ofStatues and
Paintings in the Palaces, Houses, and Gardens of Rome remains an arresting
portrait of the profuse and complex patrimony of things in the Rome of
Alexander VII (1655-1667) whose imprint on the city, with the assistance
of his most important architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), transformed
many of the public spaces of Rome into a dazzling theatrical setting
for the enactment of the Grand Tour.6 Martinelli was just the kind of person
EARLY MODERN ROMANS AND THEIR THINGS :: Xi
to be fully in command of information about Roman collections, though we
cannot entirely discount the possibility that Bellori, equally knowledgeable
about the worlds of Roman art, antiquities, and scholarship, played some
role in the first part of this joint publication.' There is no better introduction
to the world of early modern Roman things than this unique and compelling
guidebook.
The Glory and Marvel of Things
What would a visitor who purchased the Notice on Museums have learned
about seventeenth-century Rome? While some recent guidebooks such as
Martinelli's Rome Sought on Site and especially the second edition of Pornpilo
Totti's Portrait of Modern Rome in Which the Churches, Monasteries,
Hospitals, Brotherhoods, Colleges, Seminaries, Palaces, Architecture,
Libraries, and Museums are Portrayed (1645) began to identify important
sites of Roman collecting for visitors, no other book focused on this subject
to the exclusion of all others.' The two booksellers Diversin and Cesaretti
made certain that readers of their contribution to the burgeoning publishing
industry about the beauty and uniqueness of the Eternal City understood
that many different kinds of Romans contributed to the creation and display
of its rich cultural patrimony. "Therefore in Rome not only the learned
cloisters of religious men and women, titled families, and cardinals [de'
Sacri Porporati] but almost every honorable and civil family [Casa honesta,
e civile] preserves something of value that is memorable and worthy." They
wanted their readers to understand that collecting was not only an activity
of the highest echelons of Roman nobility and the papacy but also a practice
of ordinary patricians. Inside many Roman houses were interesting and
valuable objects that had accumulated over time. Knowing the value of this
collective patrimony for understanding the importance of Rome, Diversin
and Cesaretti lamented the tendency of certain Romans to sell their valuable
possessions. "Some people, who have no regard for learning, the arts,
and honored memories, personally alienate and despoil the ornaments of
their ancestors, and allow the glory and marvel of things to travel elsewhere."'
Such comments revealed the perennial bitterness of those who cared
deeply about Rome's unique cultural patrimony—la gloria e la meraviglia
delle cose—when confronted with the economic realities of both the local
and the international market for antiquities, paintings, and sculptures that,
papal restrictions on the exportation of Rome's antiquities notwithstanding,
offered impoverished nobles, merchants, and speculators numerous
Xli :: FOREWORD
opportunities to make a quick scudo selling off Rome, one fragment at a
time.io
The focal point of this seventeenth-century guidebook was not Rome's
dispersed patrimony but the splendors that remained, indeed those that had
increased and multiplied in recent decades. Most of the approximately one
hundred collections described in Ulisse Aldrovandi's On Ancient Statues
That One Sees Everywhere in Rome (1556) had vanished, transforming an
innovative and comprehensive guidebook written in 1549-50 into a historical
mirage." Yet many of the principles about why and how to collect,
carefully articulated in such works as Paolo Cortesi's De Cardinalatu, which
described an ideal cardinal's palace around 1510, continued to be evident in
the further evolution of Roman collecting.12 In the mid-seventeenth century
remnants of the Renaissance rediscovery of antiquity could still be found in
the homes of a few Roman families who maintained these early collections
in their original location—the Cesi family being one of the most noteworthy
examples'3—or in newer collections containing singularly important works
of antiquity alienated by their original owners. The stock of materials from
which one formed a collection of antiquities continued to alter and expand.
Discussing the patrimony of the "Signori della Valle on the street bearing
their surname," Martinelli not only described the innovative incorporation
of ancient statues and ruins into the palace building and courtyard created
for Cardinal Andrea della Valle in the early sixteenth century but also highlighted
more recent additions by his friend, the celebrated adventurer and
scholar Pietro. "These gentlemen preserve the mummies and diverse curiosities
that Signor Pietro della Valle the Pilgrim brought back from his eastern
travels," wrote Martinelli (did he consult Bellori who inspected this collection
a few years earlier to complete his friend della Valle's biography?)."
Such entries served to underscore the dynamic nature of Rome's collecting
culture, which incorporated new things in relation to the old. However
much Martinelli and his publishers lamented what had been lost, their primary
goal was to celebrate the present and future state of Rome as a city of
collectors.
In contrast to virtually every guidebook written about Rome before the
mid-seventeenth century, the Notice on Museums described the collecting of
antiquities in light of the emergence of a considerable number of libraries,galleries
of paintings, and gardens containing not only sculptures—a tradition
we can trace to ancient Rome whose Renaissance revival Aldrovandi lovingly
described—but also exotic plants, trees, fruit, and beautifully embellished
casinos in imitation of ancient Roman grottos. Paolo Francesco Falconieri's
EARLY MODERN ROMANS AND THEIR THINGS :: Xiii
fantastic garden on Via Giulia displayed that rarest and most desired
seventeenth-century flower, the tulip; on the other side of the Tiber, Pietro
Gigli's garden on the Lungara was especially well known for its incredible
variety of exotic citrus fruits.15 Martinelli also included detailed information
on Roman cabinets of curiosities, drawings, gems, and medals. Given
Martinelli's professional interests, it is not surprising to discover the attention
he paid to the studio—a space connoting scholarship and reflection as well
as craft and labor"—of Rome's artists, antiquarians, mathematicians, and
philosophers. He also took note of the role of lawyers, merchants, and the
scholars who were employed as secretaries, custodians, and antiquarians by
the nobility and the church in transforming baroque Rome into a city of art
and learning. This final group had a special place in Martinelli's cosmos.17
Individually, their contributions to Rome's material culture were modest in
comparison with the lavish profusion of things in the palaces and gardens
of the great Roman families and churchmen, but collectively they not only
preserved but, most importantly, also interpreted Roman things. Bellori was
a fine example of this kind of Roman collector.
Martinelli's intimate knowledge of Rome produced a rich and varied
list of things to see, arranged alphabetically for ease of consultation. His
guidebook described no less than i50 libraries, collections, and gardens—a
5o percent increase in comparison with Aldrovandi's description of Rome
with virtually no overlap with this earlier guidebook, further enhancing the
impression that seventeenth-century Rome was an energetic city of people
eager to display their precious artifacts to informed visitors." The majority
of entries provided a succinct description of the collection and its owners,
past and present, and often noted its location, allowing visitors to create a
topography of seventeenth-century Roman collecting, an itinerary through
the city organized around libraries, museums, galleries, and gardens that
presumably could be plotted on one of the excellent maps available for sale in
most Roman bookshops.° In every possible respect, Martinelli's anonymous
publication amply demonstrated why the mid-seventeenth century was the
era in which the taste for things reached its apogee in the Eternal City.
The Notice on Museums began with the library of Cardinal Ottavio Acquaviva
(1609-1674) in Palazzo dei Ceuli (later renamed Palazzo Sacchetti)
on Via Giulia. An inheritance from his uncle, the original Cardinal Ottavio
who was appointed archbishop of Naples in 1605, the library was described
as "plentiful in every subject, especially theology, law, mathematics, and every
learned discipline, and rich in Greek authors."2°The Acquaviva collection
was the first of fifty-four libraries Martinelli enumerated, not including palace
xiv :: FOREWORD
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libraries such as the famous ones of Cardinal Francesco Barberini and Queen
Christina of Sweden, libraries in houses and studies including the well-known
collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo, "with manuscripts and many volumes of
drawings," and the fabled Vatican Library, "famous above all the other libraries
of the world."2' The most striking feature of Martinelli's guidebook
is the emergence of the library as a signal feature of mid-seventeenth century
Rome and its definition as both a private enterprise and a public (and largely
religious) institution. Just as Pliny the Elder engaged readers of his Natural
History by describing the spectacular effect of piling together all the buildings
of ancient Rome, Martinelli presented modern Rome as a city that had more
books—in modest homes and palaces, colleges and monasteries—than any
other place in the world.22 He was not wrong in this assessment.
Despite the prominence of the word museum in the title of Martinelli's
guidebook, only seven collections earned the designation of museo. Carlo
Antonio Magnini's museum near Piazza del Fico was connected to his collection
of ancient and foreign arms and armor (the only Armeria identified
as such in Rome). Martinelli praised him for having "everything drawn and
studiously annotated by him in manuscript books." He also admired Torquato
de Alexandris's "museum of various antiquities and things acquired
in travel" inside the palace of Monsignor Buratti, for whom de Alexandris
was the custodian.23 The most noteworthy museums in his catalog were Cardinal
Francesco Barberini's "museum of natural and foreign things" inside
Palazzo Barberini, Cardinal Flavio Chigi's "museum of natural, foreign,
and ancient curiosities in his castle at Formello," and the Jesuit Athanasius
Kircher's "museum rich in every kind of magnetic, mathematical, mechanical,
and natural curiosity, forming a theater of art and nature, to which is
attached the gallery of Alfonso Donnino, Secretary to the Roman People,
with paintings, antiquities, and a medals cabinet left by Cardinal Buoncompagni,"
housed in the Collegio Romano. Two museums were set in gardens:
Cardinal Virginio Orsini's "curiousand noble museum of natural and foreign
things, and others of antiquity and artifice," outside Porta del Popolo, and
the naturalist Corvino Corvini's "museum of natural things, and various ancient
and foreign curiosities with a garden of simples and rare foreign trees"
on Via della Lungara, which also contained many of his sister Maddalena's
celebrated miniatures.24
Martinelli's image of the museum reflected the evolution of the language
of collecting in a city in which people were in the process of perfecting their
understanding of how to classify and display things. The library, the gallery,
the study (studio), the cabinet (studiolo or gabinetto), the gem cabinet (datXVi
:: FOREWORD
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FIGURE 3. The Jesuit collector Athanasius Kircher greeting visitors to Roman College
museum. Source: Giorgio de Sepi, Romani Collegii Societatus Jesu Musceum celeberrimum
(Amsterdam, 1678). Courtesy of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.
tilotheca), the casino (a decorated space of retreat, preferably in a garden),
and the modest and ill-defined room (camera) were all distinguishable in
his mind from a museum, which largely contained curiosities.25 They were
found in houses, palaces, gardens, and villas, though only a few villas—the
Villa Borghese, the Villa Farnese, and Chigi's villa at Formello—captured
Martinelli's attention since he primarily described a circuit of things within
the walls of the city. Such subtle distinctions were not always evident to
Martinelli's contemporaries who willfully combined elements of this vocabulary
to describe the endeavor of collecting.
The Roman architect Martino Longhi is a case in point. In his 1656 will
Longhi instructed his heirs to "make an ample and noblestudy and museum."
He requested that they transform his collection into a museum by identifying
"a large room or noble gallery located in one of his houses, or wherever it
seems best to his heirs as long as it is always in a place and site that is noble
and conspicuous, surrounded by noble inhabitants and frequented by passersby."
Longhi instructed his heirs to move all his booksand instruments, the
carved and painted walnut chests and credenzas containing his collections of
drawings, manuscripts, and papers, "all the paintings by the most excellent
masters," ancient statues, bust and bas-reliefs, and curiosities currently in his
home into this newly designed museum. He insisted that additional cabinets
and chests be built to fit this new space for the purpose of displaying his
books and instruments. Finally, Longhi reminded his heirs that if they didn't
"show the museum to everyone, citizen or foreigner, who wished to see it,"
they would be immediately disinherited.26 In his mind, his collection was a
"museum" to be housed in a room or a gallery that included every treasured
object in his possession worthy of public display so that it might secure his
posthumous legacy as a man of science, culture, and learning.
Martinelli's Rome was fast becoming a world of books, paintings, and,
to a lesser degree, curiosities in relation to the ongoing fascination with
antiquity. The Vatican Library was an ideal location from which to see
this new face of the city emerge. Martinelli's pride in Rome as a center of
scientific learning emerges not only in his account of the Roman College
museum and urban botanical gardens but also in his discussion of the status
of mathematical learning and practice, for instance, the description of Cardinal
Michelangelo Ricci's "library of every kind of subject and doctrine,
especially the mathematical sciences in which the intelligence of this most
learned man prevails with its greatest excellence."27 It was a city in which
new knowledge was being discussed and new things were being produced.
Martinelli prominently advertised the Roman instrument maker Eustachio
XViii :: FOREWORD
Divini's "study of curiosities and mathematical inventions, most excellent
works by his own hand," on Via Ripetta to encourage visitors to see his
telescopes, microscopes, large lenses, and other mechanical instruments—the
best that could be had anywhere in his opinion. His pride in the fact that
Rome could produce cutting-edge scientific artifacts shines through in his
account of the Divini studio, which was clearly a place to buy as well as see
curious things.28
Seventeenth-century Rome wasalso a city in which thegallery—a long public
room reserved primarily for paintings and antiquities—had begun to make
its appearance in the palaces of the wealthiest inhabitants of the city, leading
Martinelli and his publishers to make galeria the third kind of space—after
museums and libraries—they wished to highlight in their guidebook. Four
of the forty palaces described in the Notice on Museums—Palazzo Farnese,
Palazzo Giustiniani, Palazzo Ludovisi, and Palazzo Pamphili—earned the
right to be described as noteworthy for their galleries. The Genoese banker
Vincenzo Giustiniani (1564-1637) had already created his own guidebook
to his sculptures by havingJoachim von Sandrart engrave the Galleria Giustiniana
(1631-37);he also left behind an unpublished account of some of his
most treasured paintings.29 This work inspired other palace guidebookssuch
as Girolamo Teti's Aedes Barberinae (1642), the Argomento della Galeria
Farnese (1657) engraved by Carlo Cesio with an essay by Bellori, and the
Galleriae Farnesianae Icone (1677), for which Bellori wrote the captions."
There were also less grandiose galleries such Paolo Maccarani's "gallery
of statues and paintings" with paintings by the Carracci, Caravaggio, and
Guercino, whose provenance and even location remain unknown today.3'
The juxtaposition of collections,great and modest, in Martinelli'sguidebook
reminds us how deeply the mania for collecting and the desire to possess a
goodly number of paintings penetrated Roman society as a whole.
The Roman gallery emerged as a novel kind of space and also as a location
in which ambitious collectors innovated new ways to display their paintings.
In the 16zos the Roman physician and art critic Giulio Mancini (1558—i63o)
had already noted the importance of paintings to the embellishment of Roman
homes and palaces. His Considerations on Painting, an unpublished
manuscript written around 16zo, captured an emergingculture of conversation
about paintings—not only how to judge them but also where, when,
and how to display them—among early modern Romans. A few years later
Mancini composed another unpublished treatise on Roman painting, this
time for visitors to the Eternal City. His Voyage to Rome to See Paintings
(ca.16z5) highlighted theemerging importance of this particular kind of object
EARLY MODERN ROMANS AND THEIR THINGS :: Xix
to Rome's reputation abroad.32 Rome was hardly the onlycity in which ownership
of paintings became the prerogative of ordinary citizens—we have only
to think of the diffuse presence of paintings in Dutch homes as well as in other
Italian cities such as Venice, Naples, Bologna, and Florence—but it was a
capital city that, at least since the era of Michelangelo and Raphael, attracted
artists from all over Europe and in which art played an especially public role
in the embellishment of the city itself."This is why Martinelli advertised the
home of the Roman merchant Carlo Rossi as a noteworthy site since it was
filled with paintings of every kind by Rossi's friend Salvatore Rosa.34
Yet Martinelli's Rome was also a city of sacred things. His description
of one of two collections in the possession of Roman noblewomen—in
Marchesa Christiana Angelelli's palace on the Corso—underscored the pious
motivations behind her passion for things. Her family chapel was filled
with talismans of early Christianity: "relics found in the martyrs' cemeteries"
and "dignified monuments of the sacred antiquity of the primitive church."
Antonio Bosio's breathtaking exploration of the catacombs in his Subterranean
Rome (i63z) had undoubtedly inspired a number of sacred collections
in the city while also revealing a hitherto unexplored site for acquiring relics.
Angelelli's religiosity extended from her chapel to her palace; her rooms were
adorned with contemporary religious art: "a Christ expiring on the Cross,
and the transit of St. Joseph, and St. Francis of Guido Reni, the celebrated
Resurrection of Annibale Carracci, and other works by good modern artificers."'s
In such lists we see how the dialectic of ancient and modern things
was also a religious principle in Rome.
The pious contents of the collection created by questa religiosa Signora
stood in marked contrast to the possessions of Felice Rondenini, another
Roman noblewoman also living in a palace on the Corso. Martinelli singled
her out for having used her erudition (suo erudito genio) to create "a study
of singular medals and medallions, among which is the only ancient medal
of the poet Ovid."36 Her palace also contained a cabinet filled with carved
gems and cameos (Dattilotheca), other antiquities, and a painting gallery
that included portraits by Correggio and landscapes by Domenichino. Rondenini
was evidently one of those rare women—like Queen Christina, the
most prominent female collector in baroque Rome37—who saw collecting as
a means of displaying her learning rather than her piety. Martinelli seems to
have delighted in the possibility of visitors seeing the full spectrum of objects
that defined sacred and secular Rome, should they follow his advice and visit
these two singular noblewomen who lived on the same street.
The final section of Martinelli's guidebook—a short essay written as a
XX :: FOREWORD
postscript to his alphabetical finding list—belonged decisively to his contemporary
Bellori. It fruitfully combined Bellori's interest in painting and
antiquity by briefly describing the most important fragments of ancient Greek
and Roman painting discovered in recent times, especially in excavations of
ancient grottos and baths, and their influence on modern painting. Notice
on Museums concluded with Bellori's description of early sixteenth-century
Rome as a golden era of the rediscovery of ancient art, when Raphael and
his disciples studied ancient painting amid ruins such as Hadrian's Villa at
Tivoli, and inspired a new style of painting that was exported from Rome.
The disappearance of many ancient painted fragments from their original
locations troubled Bellori. Yet he reminded readers that a new generation
of Roman antiquarians was now dedicated to the preservation of the city's
greatest treasures. He invited connoisseurs of ancient painting to see an
especially fine, intact vase painted in the Greek comedic style that he kept in
hisstudio. Martinelli had described Bellori's collection quite modestly in the
alphabetical finding list—"Gio. Pietro BELLORI. Study of antiquities and
drawings of painting." Bellori now indicated the quality of his possessions
through this description of a singular antique object."
The Banality of Things
Martinelli's intricate taxonomy of Roman collecting offers a valuable window
into the kinds of desirable objects seventeenth-century visitors could
find inside many spaces of the Eternal City. What it certainly does not reveal,
however, is the vast material culture of this early modern city that was not
on display but in use and in circulation: a world defined by popular engravings
of the period such as the Portrait of Everything Being Sold in Rome
(ca. IGoo), a snapshot of approximately two hundred Roman street vendors
selling their wares." Those things traditionally have a different history, or
at least a history to be written largely from other sources and by social and
economic historians rather than historians of art, culture, and learning. But
should we see them as absolutely distinct when, in their totality, they define
the material culture of a period?
The history of such artifacts and their relationship to the great Roman
collections of this era is the subject of Renata Ago's innovative and engaging
study of itgusto delle cose, which can be variously defined as the "appetite,"
"hunger," "taste," "desire," and "passion" for things, though we have tried
to playfully invoke the sense of the original by simply calling it "gusto." Ago
invites us to understand baroque Rome through her analysis of the objects
EARLY MODERN ROMANS AND THEIR THINGS :: XXi
found in households of the middling sort—ranging from artisans to wealthy
professionals, merchants, and lower nobility—in the seventeenth century.
Her history is decisively not the history of any one particular kind of thing
but the history of all the things that emerge into view through an analysis
of household inventories, account books, and other allied documentation
that reveals the material culture of a city. Ago encourages us to observe early
modern Romans acquiring and using, inheriting and bequeathing, renting
and selling, and generally accounting for their things. She wants us to understand
how people formed relationships with their possessions and how
documentary traces of these things allow us to reconstruct the nature of their
needs, desires, and choices. In Ago's Gusto for Things a new portrait of the
Roman middling classes emerges, as a social group defined by their material
culture. What did the Eternal City at the height of its grandeur look like
from this vantage point?
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Rome had a population of approximately
ioo,000 inhabitants. In an era in which the population of many
Italian cities declined as a result of war, plague, and a faltering economy,
Rome's grew; by 1700, with a population hovering around 135,000 it had
become the third largest city in the Italian peninsula, surpassed only byVenice
and Naples.4" Assessing Martinelli's guidebook in demographic terms, he
described the most celebrated possessions—admittedly a mere fraction of the
full range of things owned by each and every collector—of slightly more than
ih,000th of Rome's total population in 1664-65. The 1656 plague reduced
the city's population to the level at the beginning of the century, making the
population in Martinelli's day around i10,000.4' Rome was a capital city but,
by comparison with urban centers such as Paris, London, Amsterdam, and
Naples, all of which grewsignificantly during the seventeenth century, it could
also be considered a city of modest growth, great religiosity, and nascent
tourism. Nonetheless, it was perhaps the most dynamic and international
city of the Italian peninsula. Ago is right to remind us that this was a period
in which the Italian economy continued to surpass in total wealth the economies
of the Netherlands and Britain respectively until the mid-eighteenth
century.42 Even in a period of stagnation, if not outright decline, Italy remained
a prosperous region and Rome a unique and memorable city.
Our standard image of early modern Rome revolves around the intersections
between politics, religion, and society in the era of the Catholic
Reformation. The post-Renaissance magnificence of its art and architecture
is evident in virtually every church, palace, and piazza of the city. The "baroque
politics" of this period, the subject of an earlier book by Ago, has been
XXII :: FOREWORD
analyzed in fascinating detail, since Rome was a city in which nobility was
not only the preserve of well-established families of ancient lineage such as
the Orsini but also encompassed many recent families such as the Farnese,
Barberini, Pamphili, and Chigi, ennobled by the appointment of key members
to the College of Cardinals or, better yet, election to the papal throne.'" Yet
Rome was also a city of artisans and shopkeepers—a world defined in the
middle by a wide variety of service industries that met the needs of Rome's
population, which included not only its citizens and long-term residents but
also the multitude of pilgrims and Grand Tourists who flocked annually to
the city to visit its monuments and study its history, swelling the population
considerably in the warmer months. Knowing the early modern Roman
marketplace was the subject of a number of popular works that cataloged
and satirized the city's merchandise. Andrea Spetiale's New and Pleasing
History Which Tells of All the Things Being Sold by Artisans Every Day
in Rome (16z9) presented Rome as a city in which literally everything was
for sale, creating an itinerary in comic verse that began in the secondhand
market of Piazza Giudea. His Rome was a society "that sells off stuff" (che
sismaltisca la robba), a place devoted to the endless recycling of things.'" As
we shall see, this is indeed the city that emerges in Ago's history of Roman
attitudes toward possessions.
Rose Marie San Juan's analysis of the Spanish artist Francisco Corduba's
early seventeenth-century etchings of Roman fountains captures very well
this other Rome whose "humble objects" have been well used but not yet
used up. The straight-back woven chair, the broken stool, the pitcher tossed
on the ground, the mended shirt, the dented hat, the broken bowl, the pair
of shoes, the candlestick holder, mortar and pestle, the pot with a handle,
the ladle, and an unidentified piece of cloth have not exited the market; they
are ready for resale if their owners cannot redeem them within a year.4s The
everyday transactions of this particular city included the hapless servants of
the Bishop of Ancona who repeatedly pawned a mailshirt while awaiting payment
for doing the bidding of the bishop's son by murdering some peasants,
and a notary's wife who "sold some shirts and some old sheets and certain
other old clothes to the Jews" to allay the family's economic difficulties. The
gossip on the street suggested that virtually "all the goods in this house" had
been part of her dowry since neighbors testified that her husband Gieronimo
Piccardi "didn't have anything, except certain goods of a woman-servant who
had lived with him, and which he would never let her have back."46
The scandal of a husband who defined his patrimony primarily through
possessions of his wife and servant confirms Ago's important insight that
EARLY MODERN ROMANS AND THEIR THINGS :: Xxiii
FIGURE 4. Used Things for Sale in Piazza Giudea. Source: Francisco Corduba, Fontana
in Roma nella Piazza Giudea (1618). Courtesy of the Gabinetto delle Stampe, Istituto
Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome.
this was a society in which the best and most beautiful things of the household—including
the most elegant garments, household linens, tableware,
silverware, mirrors, jewelry, and small decorative ornaments such as silk
flowers—were typically owned by men even if they were intended for female
use. If the gossips can be believed, Piccardi violated this social contract and
was thus not a good husband because he had not adequately provisioned his
household despite the fact he was a notary. This Rome coexisted, indeed was
intimately intertwined with, the society of beautiful, curious, and antique
things Martinelli and Bellori immortalized.
In an earlier study of the "baroque economy," Ago estimates that artisans
and shopkeepers comprised approximately one-fifth of Rome's total population
in the z6zos and that roughly half of the male population of the city was
engaged in some sort of trade.47 She revises earlier assessments of Rome's
stagnation, based on levels of production, by emphasizingconsumption as an
equally important measure of the vitality of an urban economy.The city that
emerges in her analysis is a culture of credit and exchange, producing only
a handful of noteworthy goods (medals, works of art, carriages, and gloves,
among other things, all of them luxury industries reflective of Rome's prestige
economy) but nonetheless meeting all the material needs of the inhabitants
of an early modern city by providing access to a far wider range of goods
and services. The merchandise unloaded at the customhouse on the Ripa
Grande, the livestock, grain, olive oil, wine, and other foodstuffs entering
the city from the Roman Campagna, and the numerous artifacts made from
these raw ingredients by Rome's artisans—including the many artists who
had not yet earned the privilege to ascend beyond their status as artisans—or
brought into the city through a network of foreign merchants who settled
there, defined a world of things to use and consume.
If Peter Partner is correct in identifying building as Rome's only true
industry, despite Sixtus V's benighted efforts to transform the Colosseum
into a large wool factory in 1590 as part of his efforts to stimulate Rome's
textile industry, then we must indeed focus less on the making of things in
this particular city and more on their presence, use, and value."We also need
to expand our definition of the market to include a world of domestic production
as well as artisanal commerce, not to mention Rome's well-known
international money market the presence of the papacy fostered. These are
the questions animating Ago's sensitive exploration of the relationships that
early modern Romans had with the objects in their possession.
In z6i8, the same year in which Corduba etched the modest possessions
for sale in Piazza Giudea, Giacomo Lauro completed his visual itinerary
EARLY MODERN ROMANS AND THEIR THINGS :: XXv
through Rome's ruins, The Splendor of the Ancient City (I6I z—i8). His engravings
of the past were created with an eye to the present, and we see this
dialogue in his dual portrait of the ancient and modern Roman. While the
ancient Roman, dressed in a toga, wears the traditional garb of the Senate,
the modern Roman's attire reflects the values of his own day: his cloak, tall
hat, ruff, brocaded shirt, and breeches declare him a man of some substance
who can afford these things. Romanus recentior is a prosperous citizen of
this early modern city, and he reflects hisstatus through his fashion. He is the
kind of man we can imagine as being among the city's conservators, who met
in the Palazzo dei Conservatori atop the Capitol to deliberate upon the city's
business, and who negotiated the city's relationship with the papacy. He is
also the sort of Roman who participated in the annual Christmas dispersal
of gifts—nougat, pepper, gloves, and wax—by the conservators to worthy
civic and papal officeholders, and regulated shop prices on foodstuffs and
other basic commodities during the rest of the year." He also accepted gifts
as a perquisite of office: silk handkerchiefs, silk flowers, and devotional images,
silver teaspoons, freshly baked bread and cookies, preserves, chocolate,
and (perhaps less appealing to the modern palate) rosemary and carnationscented
fish heads. Finally, as Ago reminds us, this is a man who by the late
seventeenth century would fortify himself each morning the Conservators
were in session by being served a little cup of chocolate on a silver tray with
a silk napkin to wipe his lips, expressing his status by partaking publicly of
such luxuries. This portrait of a seventeenth-century Roman offers yet another
window into a society that carefully assessed its relationship to things
and used them repeatedly to express status and identity.
Yet another way to see the city through its things is to enter one of the
many Roman palaces Martinelli described not only to observe its art,antiquities,
and books but also to understand it as a total system of things. Even the
great noble palaces were characterized by their "sparse sumptuousness.""
Dozens of upholstered chairs, a handful of inlaid tables, and seasonal wall
hangings (tapestries in the winter months, silk or leather in the warmer
months) were the standard furnishings of the most public rooms, and moved
between them to accommodate visitors, meals, and special functions. One
room typically contained a credenza, benches, chests, plate rack, and candleholders,
as the designated location from which meals would be served in an
adjoining room—not really a dining room, by our standards, but a large room
where tables and chairs could be moved to accommodate a meal. There were
also bedrooms, containing carved beds, velvet chairs, and typically some
devotional images; often there was an adjoining study with a writing desk,
FIGURE 5. The Modern Roman Dressed in the Latest Fashion. Source: Giacomo Lauro,
Antiqvae vrbis splendor hoc est, Prcecipva eivsdem templa, amphitheatra, theatra, circi,
navmachix, arcvs trivmphales, maysolea, aliaqve svmptvosiora cedificia, pompce, item
trivmphalis et colosscearvm imaginvm descriptio (Rome, I61z-18). Courtesy of the New
York Public Library.
chair, perhaps a foot warmer,some books that had migrated from the library
(assuming the study was not also the library as occurred with more modest
collections), papers, pen and inkwell, and a few paintings, perhaps one of
Divini's excellent telescopes, and other small objects on shelves.'"
Our image of a seventeenth-century Roman palace must therefore be inspired
as much by a chessboard as a cornucopia since it was a series of interlocking
rooms through which furnishings moved to create an often temporary
but strategic effect. As the size and scale of Roman palaces grew in the seventeenth
century, the number of rooms multiplied and the nobility retreated to
upper parts of the palace (piano nobile), allowing the ground floor to be used
for cooking, storage, sanitation, and other mundane things.52 These decisions
about the use of space also affected the distribution of things.
XxVi : : FOREWORD EARLY MODERN ROMANS AND THEIR THINGS :: xXvii
With the exception of the most public spaces in which Roman nobles and
clerics permanently displayed precious things, the vast majority of rooms
were hardly decorated, nor did they contain chests and cupboards filled with
objects. The household objects were stored in several locked rooms: the sala
containing the credenza (unlocked only during meals to protect the silver
and plate), dispensa (storeroom filled with foodstuffs), bottiglieria (wine cellar
containing wine and glasses), and most importantly the guardaroba (the
wardrobe containing all the precious and portable things of the household
to be brought out as needed and otherwise kept under lock and key). As
Patricia Waddy eloquently observes, the guardaroba was "not only a place
for storage but also the site of servicing, tending, and recording the prince's
possessions.""It was the primary location from which to survey the totality
of things and keep track of their movements and condition.
Even in these sumptuous palaces whose contents were enumerated in
lengthy household inventories and carefully guarded account books, we occasionally
catch a glimpse of the far more modest lifestyle of the ordinary
Romans, the people whom Ago wants us to understand. Let us take the case
of the widow Costanza Magalotti, who married into the Barberini family
and resided in two rooms, not in the splendid new Palazzo Barberini but
on the third floor (secondo piano nobile) of the older Palazzo Barberini
alle Quattro Fontane. Her rooms contained old chairs, a straw pad, and a
few devotional pictures. This pious refutation of an opulent lifestyle within
the family palace expressed its austerity through a conspicuous absence of
things. The Barberini widow was not the only noblewoman living modestly
amid luxury. The 1693 inventory of Palazzo Orsini also reveals that all the
rooms of the women's quarters—seventeenth-century Roman palaces used
the increased number of rooms to demarcate male and female space—were
sparsely furnished with an ordinary bed, small table, devotional picture,
chamber pot, and closestoo1.54 The simplicity and restraint of the lifestyles
of these Roman noblewomen makes the lavish furnishings of other Roman
princesses, not to mention the collections of Angelelli, Rondenini,and Queen
Christina, stand out as a deliberate choice to eschew the traditional virtues of
female modesty bysurrounding oneself with thingsthat others were permitted
to see.
If we move down the social scale, as Ago invites us to do in her sampling
of the recordsof early modern Roman households of the middlingsort—ceto
mediocre as Mancini defined this group in his guide to displaying art—we
see how quickly space contracts from the endless vista of rooms and gardens
that defined the Roman palace to the reality of keeping everythingone owned
XXViii :: FOREWORD
in a two- or three-room apartment. Don Francesco Ceccarelli, a member of
Cardinal Scipione Borghese's household living in the Palazzo della Famiglia
Borghese built specifically to house his staff, reflects the upper end of this kind
of lifestyle. He lived in three rooms with his mother Prudentia and probably a
female servant. They were fortunate compared to many seventeenth-century
Romans, as Ago has discovered, because they were able to prepare meals at
home;according to the1643 inventory of the apartment, one room contained
a fireplace with grill, tripod, and spit, copper vessels, terracotta and majolica
plates, pots, and dishes, some chairs, and the ubiquitous credenza. Clearly,
this was a room for cooking, eating, and warmth. A second room belonged
to Prudentia who slept in the fancier of the two beds (hence the deduction
of a female servant), kept her clothes and linens in the cupboard, kneeled
on the prie-dieu to make her devotions, and enjoyed a few pictures hanging
on the wall."The basket of old books in this room probably belonged to Don
Francesco who inhabited the third room, containing another carved walnut
bed, chairs and a desk, more paintings, clothing and other personal effects,
fireplace equipment, and a box of ashes.56 Such were the household goods of
an early modern Roman of the more prosperous variety who earned enough
to afford two nice beds, a goodly amount of furnishings and clothing, and
a servant who cooked and cleaned, but little more. Or, as Ago puts it, they
were people who had shoes but only one pair in which they were probably
buried. In these records we find the beginnings of a standard against which
to measure the material parameters of a life.
Toward a New History of Material Culture
Ago's history of objects in seventeenth-century Rome takes its place in a
rich historiography of material culture that has emerged during the past few
decades. An early literature, pioneered especially by Fernand Braudel, saw
material goods as manifestations of a nascent capitalism that first emerged in
the late Middle Ages and expanded to create a world system of things by the
seventeenth century.57Subsequent research crystallized into a series of specific
discussions about the nature of consumption in different historical epochs,
giving rise to lively specialists' debates about such subjects as the "empire
of things" in Renaissance Italy, the "embarrassment of riches" in the Dutch
Golden Age, and the "consumer revolution" of eighteenth-century Britain.5"
Each of these discussions has produced numerous responses to and revisions
of the original thesis while seeking to explain, in some fundamental sense,
the emergence of Homo economicus as an actor on the world stage.
EARLY MODERN ROMANS AND THEIR THINGS :: XX1X
Ago's study of seventeenth-century Rome responds to this impulse with a
gentle admonishment not to begin with questions about the roots of modernity
but to start instead with the insights of social and cultural anthropology
about the importance of understanding human relationships with things
while also attending to a model of economic history that emphasizes consumption
as well as production."She makes an equally important and useful
distinction between studies devoted solely to historical questions of consumption
and ones that subsume the issue of consumption within broader concerns
about material culture."Acquisition, use, exchange, inheritance, possession,
and value are all categoriesof interrogation in her reconstruction of the meaning
of things in the papal city. In taking this approach, Ago builds upon the
recent work of historians such as Daniel Roche whose innovative studies of
ordinary things, choses banales, have brought to life the material culture of
ancien regime France, including the history of its clothing and fashions.6
Ago's reconstruction of Roman material culture should be read in relation to
Roche's classic account of how the people of Paris learned to be consumers
in the eighteenth century as well as Lorna Weatherill's illuminating study of
life in preindustrial England, including her innovative discussion of the use
of probate inventories to reconstruct the material culture of a household.62 It
also takes its place in relation to the research done by art historians such as
Evelyn Welch and Patricia Fortini Brown and economic historians of art such
as Richard Goldthwaite who have insisted on the importance of understanding
the production and display of works of art in such cities as Florence and
Venice at the intersection of domestic life, artisanal production, and patrician
values." In short, Ago incorporates many of the insights from research on
the history of private life and domesticity that have led historians and art
historians to combine different kinds of documentation and to experiment
with diverse methodologies with the goal of writing a history of social values
and cultural preoccupations from the records of daily life.64
Ago's Gusto for Things has the additional virtue of bringing some of
the insights emerging from research on the history of collecting to bear on
material culture as a whole. Collectibles have often been treated as a special
and distinct kind of object because they are artifacts consciously acquired
and preserved as a measure of status, wealth, reputation, and interest. As
Krzysztof Pomian influentially has written in his study of early modern collecting,
they are semiophores—bearers of meaning that make the invisible
visible." We perceive the objects of daily life as belonging to an entirely
different sphere because they have a more mundane function. Or is this
actually the case?"
Ago ask us to consider how ordinary objects can be invested with great
meaning, especially in the hands of someone with few things. Her careful
attention to how people of the middling sort treated their thingssuggests that
collecting is reflective of more general attitudes toward possessions brought
to their logical conclusion. In an economy in which wealth largely existed in
the form of tangible assets rather than liquid capital, early modern Romans
constantly assessed and reassessed the value of their patrimony. They sold
things as needed but retained as much as possible not simply to possess and
use it but also to put some of it in temporary circulation, as objects to be
pawned or rented, while reserving another portion of their patrimony for
familial use, strategic gifts, and posthumous memory. As a result, we cannot
think of everyday things simply as utilitarian. Behind each purchase was a
hard-won choice about what to acquire when one had the means to add to
the stock of things in one's possession and what to do with them. Behind
every bequest was a decision about the fate of one's things after the death of
the current owner or user. As a result, seemingly ordinary things, too, had
a past as well as a future.
Capturing the genealogy of objects has proved especially difficult for historians
because the records we use typically reveal artifacts at a single moment
in their existence. They are therefore incapable of offering a complete history
of an object, let alone the ebb and flow of all the objects in a given household.
Yet perhaps there is a way to make a virtue of this inevitable fact. The linen,
serving bowl, spoons, pots, pans, chairs, and myriad of other objects that
appear in household inventories share the following characteristics with the
books, paintings, antiquities, and curiosities on display in Martinelli's and
Bellori's Rome: they mostly exist for us, in retrospect, as written descriptions
of objects that once filled in an early modern Roman household. The vast
majority of these artifacts no longer exist but instead survive in household
account books, wills and testaments,and postmortem inventories. Animating
these objects on paper is the primary task of a historian seeking to capture
a material culture in which very few of the actual things survive. This kind
of historical archaeology demands a certain skill in reading across different
kinds of documentation as well as searching for those rare instances in which
we have multiple accounts of the objects in the same household over several
decades, or even the objects themselves.
During the past few decades historians of the early modern period have
become adept at building databases of artifacts from these records in order
to identify patterns of material culture in a city or region. Ago contributes to
this overall project with her findings from the Roman archives. But she also
XXX :: FOREWORD EARLY MODERN ROMANS AND THEIR THINGS :: xxxi
Ago's study of seventeenth-century Rome responds to this impulse with a
gentle admonishment not to begin with questions about the roots of modernity
but to start instead with the insights of social and cultural anthropology
about the importance of understanding human relationships with things
while also attending to a model of economic history that emphasizes consumption
as well as production.59 She makes an equally important and useful
distinction between studies devoted solely to historical questions of consumption
and ones that subsume the issue of consumption within broader concerns
about material culture.6°Acquisition, use, exchange, inheritance, possession,
and value are all categories of interrogation in her reconstruction of the meaning
of things in the papal city. In taking this approach, Ago builds upon the
recent work of historians such as Daniel Roche whose innovative studies of
ordinary things, choses banales, have brought to life the material culture of
ancien regime France, including the history of its clothing and fashions.61
Ago's reconstruction of Roman material culture should be read in relation to
Roche's classic account of how the people of Paris learned to be consumers
in the eighteenth century as well as Lorna Weatherill's illuminating study of
life in preindustrial England, including her innovative discussion of the use
of probate inventories to reconstruct the material culture of a household."It
also takes its place in relation to the research done by art historians such as
Evelyn Welch and Patricia Fortini Brown and economic historians of art such
as Richard Goldthwaite who have insisted on the importance of understanding
the production and display of works of art in such cities as Florence and
Venice at the intersection of domestic life, artisanal production, and patrician
values." In short, Ago incorporates many of the insights from research on
the history of private life and domesticity that have led historians and art
historians to combine different kinds of documentation and to experiment
with diverse methodologies with the goal of writing a history of social values
and cultural preoccupations from the records of daily life.64
Ago's Gusto for Things has the additional virtue of bringing some of
the insights emerging from research on the history of collecting to bear on
material culture as a whole. Collectibles have often been treated as a special
and distinct kind of object because they are artifacts consciously acquired
and preserved as a measure of status, wealth, reputation, and interest. As
Krzysztof Pomian influentially has written in his study of early modern collecting,
they are semiophores—bearers of meaning that make the invisible
visible.° We perceive the objects of daily life as belonging to an entirely
different sphere because they have a more mundane function. Or is this
actually the case?"
XxX :: FOREWORD
Ago ask us to consider how ordinary objects can be invested with great
meaning, especially in the hands of someone with few things. Her careful
attention to how people of the middling sort treated their thingssuggests that
collecting is reflective of more general attitudes toward possessions brought
to their logical conclusion. In an economy in which wealth largely existed in
the form of tangible assets rather than liquid capital, early modern Romans
constantly assessed and reassessed the value of their patrimony. They sold
things as needed but retained as much as possible not simply to possess and
use it but also to put some of it in temporary circulation, as objects to be
pawned or rented, while reserving another portion of their patrimony for
familial use, strategic gifts, and posthumous memory. As a result, we cannot
think of everyday things simply as utilitarian. Behind each purchase was a
hard-won choice about what to acquire when one had the means to add to
the stock of things in one's possession and what to do with them. Behind
every bequest was a decision about the fate of one's things after the death of
the current owner or user. As a result, seemingly ordinary things, too, had
a past as well as a future.
Capturing the genealogy of objects has proved especially difficult for historians
because the records we use typically reveal artifacts at a single moment
in their existence. They are therefore incapable of offering a complete history
of an object, let alone the ebb and flow of all the objects in a given household.
Yet perhaps there is a way to make a virtue of this inevitable fact. The linen,
serving bowl, spoons, pots, pans, chairs, and myriad of other objects that
appear in household inventories share the following characteristics with the
books, paintings, antiquities, and curiosities on display in Martinelli's and
Bellori's Rome: they mostly exist for us, in retrospect, as written descriptions
of objects that once filled in an early modern Roman household. The vast
majority of these artifacts no longer exist but instead survive in household
account books, wills and testaments, and postmortem inventories. Animating
these objects on paper is the primary task of a historian seeking to capture
a material culture in which very few of the actual things survive. This kind
of historical archaeology demands a certain skill in reading across different
kinds of documentation as well assearching for those rare instances in which
we have multiple accounts of the objects in the same household over several
decades, or even the objects themselves.
During the past few decades historians of the early modern period have
become adept at building databases of artifacts from these records in order
to identify patterns of material culture in a city or region. Ago contributes to
this overall project with her findings from the Roman archives. But she also
EARLY MODERN ROMANS AND THEIR THINGS :: xXXi
turns our attention to the matter of writing itself by insisting on the necessity
of understandingwhich people were mostly likelyto record their possessionsas
well as why and how.Her findingssuggest a correlation between social anxiety
or precariousness and the desire towrite thingsdown. She beginstoconstruct a
historyof how peoplelearned towriteaboutacquisitionsand possessions,which
was not a natural human activity but a product of emerging mentalities toward
objects as a measure of existence. Ago's early modern Romans seem to have
been far more self-conscious about their things at the end of the seventeenth
century than they were at the beginning. They expressed these decisions by
making lists of objectswith ink on paper—two of the material goods her study
tracks among Roman household possessions—and by correlating descriptions
of objects with an estimate of their actual cost or,at the time of death, perceived
monetary value. Of coursesuch documents do have their limitationssince they
onlycapture a world that,either directly or indirectly, had accessto the written
word." However, Ago is not trying to describe the "people" of Rome in the
way that Roche did by using the police records of eighteenth-century Paris to
go beyond the world of the middling classes. She instead seeks to capture the
full spectrum of this middle, in part to explore in greater detail what Victoria
de Grazia has aptly called the "sex of things.""
Ago's decision to include a significant number of women who recorded
their possessions in her sample gives her the material from which to develop
a number of interesting conclusions about gender and material culture in
the Eternal City. Since many of the costly objects women used were actually
owned by men, she makes a crucial distinction between ownership
and usufruct. She brings to life a domestic economy, even at a fairly high
socioeconomic level, of making things, not just for use but also to increase
household wealth. Ago is also able to trace distinctive patterns of male and
female possessions, including the predominance of smaller devotional paintings
in female inventories as opposed to large canvases with secular themes
that men overwhelmingly owned.
The typical early modern Roman woman owned very few books (let alone
writing implements and furniture), virtually none of the important household
items, or elegant clothing. Most of her clothes were acquired at marriage and
preserved as longas possible. She was more likely to own the terra-cotta baby
Jesuses, Lucca dolls, painted fans, and, by the end of the century, tobacco
boxes in a household while her male relations amassed a far wider variety
of things beyond the household necessities, including curiosities and clocks,
books, maps, prints, and broadsheets, mirrors, arms, and so forth. It would
be easy from such material to draw a simple conclusion about the restrictions
of the material life of women. Yet Ago surprises us by demonstrating the lack
of direct correlation between wealth and things. In this society women were
economically subordinate but not necessarily materially impoverished; her
sampling of account books, wills, and inventories reveals that women often
had more things than men, albeit of lesser value and in a smaller space. We
are left instead to ponder how people made the objects available to them truly
meaningful in their lives. As Daniel Roche writes eloquently, "A feeling for
the home is not a luxury reserved for those who command unlimited space
and means. It may exist in a minimum of space and with very few worldly
goods."69
The correlation of things provides the basis for creating a composite portrait
of the seventeenth-century Roman who was only barely being introduced
to the great novelties of his centurysuch as tulips, tobacco, tea, coffee,
and chocolate in contrast to the fashion-conscious Londoners and Parisians
whose comparative luxuries and profusion of goods made those Romans
who traveled to these other capital cities marvel by the late seventeenth
century. The slow and uneven penetration of new things into the Roman
marketplace reminds us that a rich material culture is not necessarily a culture
of innovation." Indeed the predominance of "old" and "used" things
in Roman inventories reminds us how few people participated in the global
marketplace in theseventeenth century, at least in the Eternal City, in contrast
to the eighteenth century when the diffusion of such things would become
far more widespread at the same time that cheaper textiles such as cotton
would transform the quantity and quality of clothes.7'
Ago concludes her history of Roman things by reflecting on how a certain
level of possessions became the distinctive marker of those who were
neither truly noble nor evidently poor. She invites us to rethink the question
of social status through the lens of material culture: did a sector of
early modern Roman society define themselves less by birth or occupation
than by their ability to achieve a certain kind of lifestyle expressed through
things? While numerous accounts of material culture presuppose a model
in which the noblest and wealthiest members of society primarily introduce
innovations, Ago questions the universality of this model of social emulation.
Her account of Rome is that of a city changing from the middle, in which
Mancini's ceto mediocre takes a leading role in defining what early modern
Romans wished to acquire and preserve. Fioravante Martinelli and Giovan
Pietro Bellori would have surely appreciated the wisdom of this insight into
a city they loved.
Paula Findlen
XXXii :: FOREWORD EARLY MODERN ROMANS AND THEIR THINGS :: xXxiii
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
1111111111111111111111111
The idea of translating Renata Ago's // gusto delle cose: Una storia degli
oggetti nella Roma delSeicento (Rome: Donzelli Editore, zoo6) first emerged
from conversations between Renata Ago and Paula Findlen about their mutual
interests in collecting, material culture, and inheritance in early modern
Italy before and after the completion of the Italian original. We thank the
Stanford Humanities Center and the School of Humanities and Science, and
especially Stephen Hinton, as Senior Associate Dean for the Humanities, for
providing the funding to make this translation possible. We thank the Kratter
Fund of the History Department at Stanford University for making it possible
for Professor Ago to come to Stanford in January zoio as a Kratter Visiting
Professor during the final preparation of this manuscript. Finally, we thank
the Fulbright Commission for providing Corey Tazzara and Brad Bouley
with Fulbright Research Fellowships for their dissertation work, which took
them respectively to Florence in 2008-9 and Rome in 2oo9-1o, allowing
each of them the opportunity to collaborate with Professor Ago on their part
of the translation.
The collaboration among the four of us has been a pleasure from beginning
to end. Over many enjoyable meals and e-mails between Italy and California,
we have gladly succumbed to the desire to look up and debate yet another
word in the dictionary, even knowing that some of them are probably rendered
permanently inaccessible, or at least vaguely incomprehensible to all
but the early modern Romans who inscribed these words about their things
on paper. With Professor Ago's capable and willing assistance, the three
English speakers have done their best to translate but not entirely betray
the meaning of her elegant and important book in honor of the saying that
every translator of Italian knows well: tradurre e tradire. We are pleased to
present her book in English.
Finally, we thank Susan Bielstein, executive editor at the University of Chicago
Press, for her support and encouragement of this project, and Anthony
Burton and our copyeditor Dawn Hall for their work in preparing this book
for publication. The two anonymous readers of the book proposal offered
excellent suggestions at an early stage in this project and encouraged us with
their enthusiasm for this idea. We especially thank Lydia G. Cochrane, who
carefully read the penultimate draft, and gave us the benefit of her advice and
considerable experience about how to approach the translation of so many
words about la roba romana.
Rome, Stanford, and Chicago
November zoi i
XXXvi :: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ii 11 I I!1111111 I II III ►I
ROMAN COINS & MONEY
111111111111111111
baiocco coin of varying value; in accounts worth a tenth of a giulio
giulio worth ten baiocchi or two paoli
paolo coin worth five baiocchi
scudo coin worth ten giuli, twenty-five paoli, or one hundred baiocchi
s 1111111IIIIII!II IIIII ► ► ►
INTRODUCTION
We postmodern humans are totally addicted to the presence of objects. Our
rooms are full of them, but often we have the impression that our belongings
take space away from us, that they expel us from our houses. And yet we
love them, our things. We guard them jealously and become sad if we break
or lose something;we rid ourselves of objects with mixed feelings of fatigue,
displeasure, and ironically, relief. The bond that unites us to our possessions
is often so strong it is difficult to break it even when possessions have become
a burden. Our connection with objects is therefore profound, complex, and
contradictory. But like all aspects of the human experience, our interaction
with things has also changed over time, and thus has a history. The goal of
this book is to begin to tell it.
Undertaking this task, however, is more difficult than it seems. Economists,
philosophers, sociologists, and moralists of various persuasions have
wrestled for a long time with the problem of defining consumers and consumer
society.' During the last twenty years the question has also sparked a
growing interest among historians. In thisscholarship the novelty of the topic
and the need to define consumption as a field of study has largely prevailed
over the tendency toward conceptualization. As a result the theoretical framework
of most of these studies has not fully exploited the potential of actually
dealing with the world of objects. Many of these studies limited themselves
to using consumption to find traces of grand trends that had already been
recognized in preexisting scholarship. Some of these works surveyed the
problem of relations between different social and economic classes, analyzing
the role imitation and emulation played in promoting the adoption of new
ways and new types of consumption. Others highlighted the contrast between
the aristocratic and bourgeois ways of life or between that of the elites and
the popular classes; these dichotomies were symptomatic of a general social
tension.' For those historians primarily interested in the birth of modernity,
the ultimate goal of their research has been to locate and date the "consumer
revolution" or "the birth of consumer society."' Guided by the usual "grand
narrative" of modernization, their studies look for a new type of product
that suddenly appeared in people's homes. They attempt to find the sort of
households in which this change happened and then date when such novel
objects made their first appearance. The joy of discovery and the taste for
description are apparent in the style of these histories. In part this is a result of
the documents they used: the essential sources were inventories put together
after the death of the interested party or in other unusual circumstances that
required a precise list of a certain person's possessions. If this type of source
can tell us much about the goods of our ancestors, however, it cannot give
us any additional information that would give depth to our reconstruction
of the relationship between human beings and their objects. With this type
of documentation we know what people had in their houses, but not the
way these objects were acquired, for how long they were owned, how many
transformations they underwent during this period, or how they were used.
The inventories have nothing to say about such matters. Yet these types of
interactions constitute an important part of the relationship between human
beings and their goods, assome rare and precious documents—like the diary
of Elizabeth Parker, studied by Amanda Vickery—reveal.4
In these conditions, the most that historians have been able to do is to correlate
the diffusion of new furniture and movable goods, of new household
linens or clothes, and of new foods and drink with the birth of a new sensibility.
Thus scholars undertook an unfettered search for traces of intimacy
and of a separation between the domestic and public spheres.' Women were
relatively at the vanguard of this process, often acquiring fine china, new
fabrics, and new furniture before men.6 These rich documents, in addition
to demonstrating the economic value of consumer objects and their role as
engines of demand, have led to the important discovery that goods delineate
different social hierarchies and gender categories than those historians use.
Such conclusions must serve as a stimulus to research in the sense that I have
alluded to earlier, encouraging us to develop a more rigorous conceptualization
of the nature and uses of things.
In my opinion, a first step in this direction consists of abandoning the term
and concept of consumption in favor of material culture:Among historians
the latter category has an illustrious tradition in scholarship. It has been used
in a slightly different way than I propose to use it here, however. The material
culture that has been the subject of these studies concerns specific realms of
technical expertise—namely, that of urban craftsmen or farmworkers. By
contrast, the meaning that will be attributed to it here will be much broader
and will encompass all aspects of the relationship between human beings and
objects. In this sense by material culture I mean that part of the culture that
is objectified in things, that requires things to materialize its own existence.
On this level the most useful and stimulating contributions come not so
much from historians as from anthropologists, notoriously better equipped
than we are for confronting similar problems. According to Mary Douglas's
by now classic definition, goods are ritual accessories that work to fix meaning
that would otherwise be unstable and fleeting.' Objects thus serve to
decode the social world. Taking this idea together with the work of Georg
Simmel, Daniel Miller has called attention to the central question concerning
the relationship between human beings and the material world: if the
subject, any subject, contextually constructs the object, to the extent that
one acquires meaning and value only through the other, then this is true for
the material world as well as human beings.' Living in houses furnished with
hallways and separate rooms for use during the day and the night, possessing
underwear, silverware, and dishes in sufficient numbers for each person at
the dining table, having curtains on windows, cushions for seats, armchairs,
little cups for tea or coffee, are all elements that construct modern man and
woman. Their "modernity" is not only expressed in the possession of these
objects, but also is constructed by their use. Environment—meant as the
field of action for human beings—cannot be reduced to a mere reflection of
a preexisting cultural system, but rather has an active part to play, entering
into a reciprocal relation with people. The ordinary innovations to which
I have alluded are not simply a passive result of a newly offered product or
of a new demand on the part of the consumer; rather, they are themselves
agents of change, able to reflect unto themselves the individual and the vision
that individual has of him- or herself.
Connecting material culture too strictly to the birth of the modern individual,
however, risks leading us up a blind alley. Premodern man, who had
none of the movable goods just cited, did not clearly define the boundaries
between himself and others, between inside and outside, public and private.
He did not make these distinctions because they held no interest for him,
but because the material context of his life offered nothing that made him
aware of the existence of these boundaries. Nevertheless, premodern man
was extremely aware of the presence of things and the importance of his
:: INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION :: 3
dominion over them; otherwise, why were there so many inventories and
other legal documents disposing of objects, such as wills, donations, and
marriage contracts? Also, why were there so many detailed supply contracts?
Why, for example, did a Roman noble feel the need in 16z6 to record a written
contract before a notary for the regular supply of ten different types of
pears, at ten different prices, from one fruit vendor?'€)
The human relationship with things cannot be taken into consideration
only from the point of view of the continuing march of innovation and consequently
the progressive construction of the Western individual. Objects
are not all created equal, and human beings entertain a unique relationship
with each thing. Thus we cannot limit ourselves to speaking generically of
objectification. We need to be more specific. We first need to distinguish between
how people intended to use objects and how they actually used them.
Certain goods came to be removed from their ordinary uses; they were held in
special conditions, and were, above all, kept and admired.This renunciation
of utility, which at times was connected to a good's function but more often
to its market price, was represented as a "sacrifice" that destroyed its value.
However, at the same time this sacrifice recreated that value by forcing a
mutation of an object's nature and transforming it from a thing—something
clearly designated to be useful—into a semiophore—an object filled with
meaning." Goods that underwent this type of metamorphosis were first of
all those that entered into a "treasury," such as the treasury of a temple or
a cathedral, according to the principle of classification Krzysztof Pomian
elaborated for the period he studied:2
A treasury is first of all a collection of goods removed from their normal
uses or from the market in such a way as to construct a reserve of wealth.
This is not to say that these goods will never be sold; on the contrary, their
value is rooted in the fact that they can be converted into cash when needed.
Nevertheless, in contrast to all other resources, these objects enjoy a special
status: they are protected from being dispersed and are destined to be put
up for sale only in cases of extraordinary, absolute necessity. In this way
they become at least temporarily inalienable and charged with a value much
higher than their potential market price. However, this is not necessarily a
stable condition, because these things, like people, have a history, the course
of which can change the conditions of ownership. None of these objects are
necessarily tied to a single function but could pass from the status of merchandise
to that of precious possession and back again." As we will see, in
making this distinction the most important part of the relationship between
human beings and objects emerges.
4 :: INTRODUCTION
If my considerations so far have focused on changes for any type of good,
there are nevertheless some objects that lend themselves better than others
to taking on a determined value, both at the symbolic and the financial level.
Some items can establish themselves better than others in private "treasuries."
As a general rule, in preindustrial societies these objects tend to be precious
handicrafts most easily used in households: textiles and jewels. These
categories of goods function as private treasuries of families.Jewels and textiles—the
best clothes, embroidered linens, draperies, and bed covers—possess
an economic value that makes them important reserves of wealth. At the
same time these objects create the economicand symbolic value of the woman
who has brought them with her as part of her dowry and, additionally, who
has added to the worth of her family. As such they are not easily reducible to
merchandise or to money-equivalent objects that can be disinterestedly put
on the market; they tend to be inalienable and, inasmuch as they are part of
the dowry, their status is recognized and protected by law."
In Rome, the focus of this book, treasuries consisted of precious textiles
and jewels to be conserved for one's whole life and then left to one's heirs.
Their nature as reserves of wealth was universally recognized and legitimated,
yet this not only did not impede, but actually facilitated their transformation
into sources of income to be invested in the Monte di Pieta, the papalsponsored
bank, or loaned out. Even an inalienable good produces an income
and so contributes to its own conservation."
To qualify as an inalienable good, however, an object must have a significance
that goes much further than economic value. To mark their own
presence in the world human beings need to objectify themselves in something
that is not transitory, but durable and nearly permanent. To do this,
they elevate some of the objects in their possession to a position of inalienability.
For this purpose singular objects, charged with a certain emotional
significance because they are in close contact with their owner, can become
personalized goods and hence inalienable. In last wills these items are not
thrown together among the undifferentiated mass of "all movable goods."
They are designated for a specific recipient, carrying out their duty of making
the memory of the deceased present even after his or her death:6 In a
"presentimental" society, this work is done by crafted objects that speak of
their owner (male or female) in a "public" manner, visible and socially recognizable."A
person's identity in thissociety is not split between public and
private images that privilege the intimate sphere. The objects that carried out
the work of remembrance must bear witness to the splendor of their former
owner, demonstrating either his refinement or his erudition.
INTRODUCTION :: 5
This worth is even greater for those possessions that belong not so much
to a single as to a collective, a "body" in which one can feel he is taking part.
The goods of a family constitute the most immediate example, for example,
familial land, a house, or even domestic objects. The ability to identify in
an exclusive and cumulative manner with a specific series of owners across
time transforms common things into inalienable goods." Respecting their
inalienability and transferring them intact to one's heirs—hopefully binding
these heirs as custodians to the goods in anticipation of setting up an order
of succession for all generations to come—is equivalent to constructing and
transmitting permanence, lasting for all time. All of this is not without a
price. On the contrary, as Annette Weiner has written, and as a seventeenthcentury
head of a family in charge of a patrimony would have known well,
"keeping some things transcendent and out of circulation in the face of all
the pressures to give them to others is a burden, a responsibility, and at best,
a skillful achievement."'9
With their materiality, goods therefore embody continuity against the
change that inevitably characterizes the individual and social life. They therefore
transmit with the passage of time more than just an economic patrimony.
The work of preserving some possessions from trade brings about a primary
motor of change. To be able to affirm the inalienability of a few things is
not simply "benign efforts to counterbalance death," but is the result of a
competition where what is at stake is the identity of individuals and social
groups.2° The control of inalienable goods is the instrument of perpetuation
or subversion of the established hierarchy. The ability to hold on to objects
is therefore of vital importance.
A history of the human relationship with things is also a history of supply
and demand, of commercial networks, of merchants, and of the social
contexts in which all this takes place. A study of this interaction cannot be
carried out in the abstract, but requires a precise location. The place I have
chosen isseventeenth-century Rome, which, as we will see, was anything but
an ordinary city. Between the middle of the sixteenth century and the beginning
of the eighteenth some huge changes assailed the domestic environment.
Starting in Italy and the Low Countries, citizens' inventories began to list
an ever-increasing number and variety of movable goods. At the same time
a growing number of families or individuals began to register their acquisitions.
The appearance of homes was thus changing, while a preoccupation
with accumulating household objects was also on the rise. This process had
obviously been underway for some time, and one can easily find it in the
works of fifteenth-century writerssuch as Leon Battista Alberti and Giovanni
6 :: INTRODUCTION
Pontano, or in the paintings of their contemporaries such as Jan van Eyck
and Carlo Crivelli. By the middle of the sixteenth century the phenomenon
was widespread enough to attract the attention of contemporary observers;
increasingly, it left behind visible documentary traces. Among these
traces the inventories of goods stand out because they can be found with
great ease in notarial papers and, more rarely, in private account books.
The archives of seventeenth-century Rome are rich in both types of documents,
and it is precisely on the capital of the Papal States that my research
is focused.
Rome in the seventeenth century was not just any city, not even from the
material or mundane point of view that will come into consideration here. It
was the seat of the papacy, which was a public court in both a spiritual and
temporal sense. At thesame time Rome was also the home of numerous other,
smaller private courts animated by the cardinals, whose members formed
both a worldly nobility and an ecclesiastical aristocracy. For these reasons
Rome became a formidable center of luxury consumption. Yet Rome was
also the place where the vestiges of the classical past were most abundant
and distinguished and where therefore the aesthetic researches of painters,
sculptors, and architects centered. Active demand and a lively market of exchange
existed for cultural production in all of its forms, but especially that
which produced splendor in both its lay and ecclesiastic aspects. Unsurprisingly,
larger subsections of the population, including lawyers, merchants,
minor officeholders in the curia, artists, and successful artisans, embraced
the explosion of nonessential consumables. All of these people formed that
body that Giulio Mancini, when discussing the early seventeenth century,
defined as "the middling class" (ceto mediocre).2' Mancini claimed that this
class shared many of the cultural choices of the aristocracy. His observations
suggest the hypothesis that emulation of one's betters was the catalyst
for luxury consumption. But as we will see, the paradigm of emulation is
totally insufficient to explain what was going on.22 Not all fashions were
transmitted from high places in thesocial pyramid to ones further down. On
the contrary, some of these trends, like the passion for novels, landscapes, or
still life paintings, radiated outward from the middle of the social hierarchy
and only secondarily conquered the upper levels.
To explain what happened in Rome during the seventeenth century, it is
useful to take up again the idea that things, like people, also have a history
and are not necessarily chained to a singular function. What emerges from
the Roman sources as elsewhere is that goods can easily pass from the status
of merchandise to that of individualized objects and back again.23 Indeed,
INTRODUCTION :: 7
things—both crafted items and agricultural produce—were still widely used
instead of money to make payments of any type. However, individuals began
to keep more valuable objects for longer periods before exchanging or selling
them. Even the less wealthy started to explore the possibility of acquiring
luxury goods with an eye toward permanent, rather than temporary, possession.24
This development not only required a greater diffusion of wealth
among larger sections of the population, but also must have been based on
a change in the material world itself. After all, the more that things are in
circulation, the greater the number of objects that can pass from the realm of
exchange to that of inalienability, at least temporarily. These urban classes,
whose patrimonies were based in part on credit and were therefore of an
immaterial and ephemeral nature, found in the concreteness of things the
possibility of creating tangible signs of their own identity and status. Additionally,
the concrete possession of goods, by making visible and communicable
the identity of the individual, contributed more than any legal title
to establishing the social status of the owner. In the wills held in the public
archives, people were constantly identified through the material things that
surrounded them: their clothes, first of all, but also the movable goods of
their house.25 However, it was not necessarily true that the end goal of this
accumulation of objects was to transcend one's social class and live like an
aristocrat. If there existed a competition over object collecting, the competition
was more about ensuring the survival of the family lineage (casa) than
social climbing, of transmitting it to one's descendants and of constructing
its permanence for all time.
The rich and the poor did not have the same type of relationship with
things. Also, women and men did not comport themselves toward goods in
the same way. The contrast between these different attitudes toward goods
was more than just a question of amount and quality of goods that they
could own, it was frequently about differences of taste and style. Hence the
data that emerge from such comparisons does not support the hypothesis
that consumption was about emulating the nobility. Rather, this data help
to clarify the usefulness of concepts such as "gusto for things" in looking at
people's relationship with their possessions.
Comparing the levels of wealth of men and women against the quantity
of furniture and other movable objects that filled their rooms demonstrates
that the relationship between income and number of goods was not linear:
women were poorer than men of the same social standing, yet their rooms
were filled with more things.26 This apparent contradiction between a greater
poverty on one hand and a greater accumulation of possessions on the other
hand is an indication, in my opinion, of a different attitude toward objects on
the part of women. It bespeaks an attitude not purely utilitarian and not even
strictly tied to disposable finances; rather, I would define it as a particular
pleasure in possessing domestic objects, of surrounding oneself with them
and saving them. Often these furnishings were fairly poor, shabby, and of
bad quality, yet theywere nevertheless conserved with care—not sold, rented,
or put up to pawn—to give material concreteness to their owner's presence
in the world.27 Thus despite the mediocre quality of these goods, this type of
ownership is pregnant with meaning for the historian.
Preserving a thing meant renouncing its function of being exchangeable.
To acquire an object that is not strictly useful, such as a painting or a decorative
trinket, sacrifices resources, preventing them from being used in an
alternate way.28 All of this goes to creating greater meaning and value. But
what then is the price of doing this and who is allowed to pay it? Again the
problem goes much further than who has the economic means. To be able to
imbue an item with more than its market value requires a sense, derived from
social or economic stability, of feeling justified in doing such a thing. But beyond
this a person also must have the cultural capital that permits him or her
to create of a transcendent object. The destiny of objects removed from their
normal uses is, as Pomian has said, to be transformed into semiophores and
to be put on the same level as the sacred, the beautiful, and other analogous,
abstract concepts. This is true for everyone who maintains a valued object
in such a way. However, the levels of legitimation that different categories
of people enjoyed were not equal. The ability to give abstract meaning to
an object depends, in part, on the financial means the owner commands,
but above all, on the social and cultural prestige he or she enjoys. With
the same income, a person who is alone and culturally deprived will find it
more difficult to sacrifice the utility of an object on the altar of beauty. Only
the invisible worlds equipped with a universally recognized value, like the
sacred, can legitimate the renunciation of the utility of goods. Thus women,
who were in general less wealthy and less educated than men of their same
social status, decorated their walls with an equally great number of paintings,
but more often chose paintings with sacred rather than secular themes.
Women filled their homes with furniture, rather than ornaments, reflecting
a solid perpetuation of the family lineage instead of a pursuit of the exotic
or the fashionable. This practice does not exclude taking pleasure in beauty,
which continued to manifest itself in a taste for decoration, but limited the
search for "novelty," a pursuit of which women were frequently accused.29
Only people without any hindrances—economic, social, or cultural—could
8 :: INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION :: 9
allow themselves the necessary level of freedom to sacrifice utility purely for
the purpose of pleasure.
Due to the nature of the usable documents, constituted essentially of private
sources—inventories, account books, memoirs, and correspondence—
research on consumers has privileged the elites—precisely the social group
that left private archives. My goal in this work has been to extend the field
of inquiry, including in the analysis representatives of every social level, provided
that they are sufficiently above the poverty line to make use of a notary.
Hence my work has been based on about eighty inventories, out of which
only two—Giustiniani and Santacroce—are from members of the aristocracy.
Meanwhile, all the other inventories concern goods of people from the
middling class, that is, lawyers, merchants, and artisans, chosen at random
from the notarial registers." Another source base has been about twenty
books of family memoirs and records of expenses. All of these documents
are easily found in the Archivio di Stato of Rome. Finally, I have also made
use of about one hundred last wills and testaments from men and women of
the middling class, along with those of a few more well known collectors."
I have enriched this body of material with other nonserial documentation,
for example, the correspondence of a consistory lawyer. My goal has been
to avoid overrepresenting the nobility, including the decision not to compare
aristocratic inventories with those of people from other social strata. However,
to understand what type of rapport all ranks of people—both nobles
and nonnobles—entertained with their things, it seemed helpful to use as a
model the great private collections. These collectors have often left accurate
documentary testimony on the subject of their holdings. In fact, their care
in describing their belongings is emblematic of the new "gusto for things,"
which is made explicit in nearly all of their declarations on the subject. This
appetite for objects traces in some respects as far back as Petrarch, who
compared his books to fine vases or tapestries and praised their value as
objects capable of materializing in themselves nobility and a high degree of
splendor.32 However, the testimonies of collectors such asJacomo Contarini
and many others have left for us the clearest assertion of the value contemporaries
attributed to the investment of time and money in the systematic
accumulation of objects. By their own admission, the sacrifice of resources
on which their collections were based gave life to something much more
precious: honor, fame, and universal recognition. They transformed their
wealth into objects removed from daily utility, whose purpose was simply
to be exposed to view. However, these resources of money and time were
not uselessly employed in unproductive tasks; rather, they created a kind of
IC) :: INTRODUCTION
value different from and greater than economic worth. These objects were
nowcapable of conferring prestige on the owner during life and assuring the
permanence of his legacy after death.
The men and women of the middling class whom I will treat in this book
were not equally as well equipped as the aristocracy to carry out the task of
imbuing an object with transcendental meaning: they had neither the financial
nor the cultural means to do so. Yet even these people were inclined to
renounce the utility of an object in the name of something greater.
INTRODUCTION :: II
111111111111111111111111111111111111 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
CHAPTER ONE
The Function of Goods
According to Mary Douglas, goods serve to communicate, to give meaning
to the world. Later scholars of material culture agree with her.' But goods,
even consumer goods, can also be exchanged and can thereby fulfill a different
task: not to fix meanings, but to make exchange possible.
The nature of goods varies according to their function. First, as objects for
exchange, goods constitute a pure means to an end. They are only an instrument
for obtaining other goods. Their value in this situation is essentially
economic and coincides with that of exchange; they are dollar-equivalent
goods. Second, as objects for exchange, goods can nonetheless constitute an
instrument not for obtaining other goods but for procuring services, that is,
for repaying the work done by other people. In this case their value continues
to be essentially economic, although there is often a relational value involved
as well; that is, they help create a relationship that is realized through the
exchange. Third, as objects "kept temporarily or permanently outside the
ambit of economic activity, subject to special protection," goods constitute
an end in themselves. Here the purpose of acquisition is not exchange, but
possession.2 Their value is essentiallysymbolic and does not necessarily coincide
with that of exchange, from which it may often be remarkably detached.
And last, even these objects can be transformed again into commodities and
reenter the market through circulation. More often, however, they do so
under special conditions that reflect their preceding status and differ from
the rules that regulate the exchange of other goods.
Historically, it is well known that these various functions existed simultaneously,
as they still do. Nevertheless, the specific prevalence of one or another
function has varied over time due to changes in thesocial and economic
structure of society.' The connection between the nature of goods and the
development of a monetary economy is an important factor. The diffusion
of money and its ever-expanding capillary circulation has liberated goods
from their function as a means of exchange. This development has permitted
social actors to give greater attention to the symbolic characteristics of
things, to their secondary function of creating meaning and objectifying the
identity of their owners.4
The scarcity of money, especially small coinage, and the problems deriving
from a limited circulation of currency were facts of life for preindustrial
Europe. Even in early modern Italy, complaints never ceased about
"the shortage of specie and presence of regions (geographic or social) in
which the shortage of money was chronic."' Only a small part of a state's
monetary production was in bullion or copper, that is, in small change.
As a result, most of the population was excluded from participating in the
circulation of money.' Speculation and secret devaluations also affected
the physical circulation of money, which one avoided handling directly so
as "not to risk subjecting oneself to want, or falling prey to dim-wits and
flimflams."7
The scarcity of money did not impede the functioning of the market,
however, which developed because of actors' ability to find multiple ways
of dealing with this bottleneck. The most widespread and important of
these expedients was probably the recourse to credit. From the greatest
international bankers to the most modest local artisans, all mercantile
circles learned how to circumvent the problems with monetary circulation
through the creation of convenient networks of debt and credit, in which
assets and liabilities were settled on paper according to a complex system of
compensation.'
At the level of social practice, what little information we possess confirms
that money was scarce and reliance on credit was very common. For
instance, a study of London's mercantile community at the end of the seventeenth
century—and therefore of the social group that enjoyed the greatest
access to genuine money—has demonstrated that transactions in currency
amounted to only a fifth of the value of credit transactions. Another piece of
evidence comes from documents regarding the world of things. The study of
a large number of postmortem inventories from various parts of seventeenthcentury
England has shown just how small the reserves of currency kept in
the household were, and above all their rarity: only one inventory out of two,
and in some regions only one out of three, mention any money. Analogous
evidence comes from the sample of seventy-six Roman inventories on which
my research is based: in only eight cases was currency mentioned, while at
least one piece of silverware was present in thirty-three cases and one of gold
in twenty-eight cases.
Furthermore, money was not the only means of payment. Ruggiero Romano
and Ugo Tucci have long ago dismantled the notion that there was a
strict opposition between the direct exchange of things and exchange mediated
by money. The natural economy and the monetary economy are not
mutually exclusive but have existed and continue to exist together in complicated
ways. For instance, not only agricultural wages but urban ones as well
were often paid partly in money and partly in kind. Analysis of the modes
of payment current in the cities of the ancien regime shows that the same
was true for many kinds of commodities.' Even an operation of high finance
could base itself on objects rather than on money, at least in part: according
to Federico Chabod, a loan contract stipulated in 1559 between the Duke
of Sessa and the Genoese banker Leonardo Spinola called for i8o,000 lire
in currency and 70,000 lire in silk cloth.lo
This last example demonstrates how objects can function directly as
money. In many cases they can also constitute a reserve of wealth, either to
use as is or to convert into money in times of need. This implies that to give
away, sell, or pawn a material object are easy operations and that there is
a market for secondhand goods able to absorb them fairly quickly. But in
these cases one must also be prepared to get rid of such objects without too
much hesitation. Anthropological studies,such as the now-classic Trousseau
as Treasure by Jane Schneider or more recent scholarship on northwestern
India, have shown how this works with women's goods. In Sicily as in India,
dowries and dotal jewelry constitute the most widespread form of savings
because of their capacity to be transformed quickly into cash, especially
through pawning."
The little that we know about the circulation of women's goods in preindustrial
Europe fully confirms this evidence.12 It is not difficult to find women
who in their last wills and testaments asked their executors to redeem jewelry
deposited in the Monte di Pieta, or husbands who requested the same thing
with their wives' dotal jewelry, or women who left pawn tickets to their heirs
for lack of better options.13
Credit therefore was an obvious means of counteracting the scarcity of
money, but so too was the monetary use of things, whether agricultural
products or manufactured goods. In these cases, it was easy to change the
social valence of a transaction, transforming it from a necessary payment to
an act of liberality. Renaissance writers were well aware of the fact that the
16 :: CHAPTER ONE THE FUNCTION OF GOODS :: I 7
gift of an object usually constituted a payment. In his five brief tracts on the
use of money, for instance, Giovanni Pontano attentively reviewed all the
possible ways of giving gifts and noted that the virtue of liberality "consists
in employing the right measure in giving money and cannot exist without
choosing wisely, [which in turn consists] of considering accurately what one
gives, how much one gives, and when, how, and why one gives."14 Citing
the example of Alexander the Great, Pontano likened the gifts of money
distributed to soldiers to the food distributed to the people, showing clearly
that he did not distinguish between gift and payment's In De splendore
Pontano alluded explicitly to the use of objects as payment when he noted
that "movable goods must be acquired by a splendid man for honest uses,
so that he can avail himself of them when necessary and also, when reason
so counsels, give them away, sometimes in great quantities."'h
Goods as Money
Objects can thus serve to buy other objects, repay a service, or obtain money
on credit. The documents I have looked at show how all three of these possible
functions were exploited in Renaissance and baroque Rome. Private correspondence,
postmortem inventories, and account books prove that many
payments were made in kind and that many objects were used primarily for
obtaining money.
Wills offer the clearest evidence for this phenomenon. Often, the testator
ordered that all of his or her most precious movable goods—furniture,silver,
jewelry, and more—be quickly sold and the revenue immediately invested in
venal offices, credit bonds, shares of the public debt, or other titles of credit.
For instance, when the merchant Attilio Casini composed his will in 1623, he
ordered that all his silver and other valuables be sold and that with the yield
"one buy the office of Knight of the Lily for my son, Signor Carlo Casini, so
that he too can have an office similar to the ones which my other two sons
have."7 For their owners these objects served above all to substantiate or
materialize economic value. They represented a treasury to be transmitted to
future generations not as objects laden with symbolic and emotional values
but as monetary equivalents.
Bequests of this type were made by people of differing status and social
condition: respectable women and courtesans, artisans and merchants, lawyers
and public officials, commoners and aristocrats, patriarchs and individuals
without children. All of them intended to guarantee the future of their
heirs by converting objects, superfluous in the final analysis, into solid financial
returns." At the beginning of the seventeenth century, even the Marquis
Vincenzo Giustiniani, who as a collector and patron of the arts nourished a
special reverence for artistic goods such as paintings, sculptures, and tapestries,
nonetheless expressed disdain for the furniture, silver, and jewelry he
had accumulated in the course of his life. In his 1631 will he ordered that
right after his death his heirs should sell "all the silver . . . in my own rooms
and those of my consort, Signora Eugenia, and in all the other rooms of my
palazzo." In addition, they were to sell
all my furniture, furnishings, and household goods . . . including my
tapestries, silk, and gold cloth as well as my curtains, bed palls, tents,
covers, rugs, and drapes . . . of gold, silk, wool, linen and cotton, and
my mattresses,and also my leather wall hangings, pavilions, and netted
bed curtains, and stuff of all kinds and of differing value.
Finally, he requested that they sell "all my jewels and noble vases."19
These precious fabrics and furnishings did not acquire any special value
despite having been used by their owner and having been right in front of
his eyes for so many years.2° Exceptions to this general rule occurred only to
prevent the family palace from being left unfurnished. The palace, unlike its
contents, was clearly invested with a value that was more than economic.
Giustiniani exempted from sale "all hangings of silk, leather, or other material
that are in use or affixed to the walls of the palace . . . and all the leather
chairs, sideboards, and walnut tables . . . lest my palace be left empty and
naked."21
Almost a century later, another aristocrat as cultivated and art loving as
Giustiniani did not hesitate to pawn or sell most of his young and elegant
daughter-in-law's jewelry. A list of the "different jewels pertaining to the
portion of the most illustrious Marquise Maria Isabella Vecchiarelli Santacroce,"
enumerating the necklaces, pendants, rings, diamonds, pearls, and
other precious stones of the young woman's dowry, reveals their fate in the
few years between her marriage (1699) and the death of her father-in-law,
Antonio Santacroce (1707)."We learn that a diamond crossworth 30o scudi
"was unmade, and six large diamonds and ten small ones were removed to
put around a bracelet given to the Marquise Davia, daughter of the Marquis
Filippo Bentivoglio, on the occasion of her nuptials," that a pair of pendants
with two diamonds each was pawned to the Monte di Pieta, and that a "rosette
of nine diamonds was sold to the buyer of the Monte di Pieta, where
they had been pawned." Many other jewels were sold, given, or pawned to
18 :: CHAPTER ONE THE FUNCTION OF GOODS :: 19
the Monte: of the twenty-seven pieces specified in the list, only eight were still
in the possession of their original owner.The same fate befell two candlestick
holders, an inkwell, some articles for her dressing room, and various other
pieces of silver given in the dowry.23
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Santacroce family was
definitely not in decline. An uncle had just been named cardinal and made
governor of Viterbo, and the heir of the family patrimony—Maria Isabella's
husband—had been appointed "intimate councillor of state" to the emperor,
for which he spent three years in Vienna and participated fully in the life of
the court.24 The sale of some of Maria Isabella's dowry goods was therefore
not a sad consequence of grave financial difficulties. As I noted earlier, a basic
function of dowry goods was rapid conversion into money, thereby permitting
the payment of debts or the launching of new investments." Evidently,
this also applied to personal objects that were not laden with the kind of
emotional values that prompted one to preserve them as long as possible
and thus exclude them from the market. Even so, at least in the case of the
Santacroce family, this cold-blooded rapport with one's personal effects or
indifference toward their value as objects was not universal but characterized
above all those individuals who, like the father-in-law who received
jewelry in his custody, enjoyed only a distant relationship with these things.
In contrast, the young daughter-in-law offers one of the best examples of a
different attitude, as I will discuss much later.
Given how easy it was to get rid of the family jewelry, there was even
less hesitation in selling one's own clothing, especially when age or life circumstances
rendered them unsuitable to wear. In this case, too, Pontano's
potential readers knew that it was right to do so. In one of his treatises on
the social virtues he wrote,
It is not appropriate for a splendid man to let his clothes get old, because
old things cannot be splendid. Therefore, before they lose their sheen,
he must transform them into acts of generosity: he must give them to
his friends, acquaintances, or anyone else who merits recognition.26
Thus in 1634 a mature widow from Orvieto entrusted a Jewish secondhand
dealer from Rome to sell some of her clothing and at the same time cautioned
her son, who also resided in Rome, to keep an eye on the whole affair. "If he
does not get twentyscudi for this white garment," she wrote in her first letter,
"he could unload it for eighteen . . . and I reminded him to notify me when
he manages to sell the long brocade gown"27 Some time later, she wanted to
2.0 :: CHAPTER ONE
be apprised "whether the white garment was sold" and asked that he make
sure "that it not be lent outside [of Rome]."28
In Rome as elsewhere, traces of the sale of garments are very easy to find.
There is no lack of evidence regarding the purchase of secondhand clothes,
even by well-off people, or more frequently of their rental, especially when
dealing with special garments.29 Postmortem inventories or those drawn up
for guardianship often contain estimates of various kinds of clothing made by
professionals in the field—that is, by secondhand dealers—with the avowed
aim of selling them.'" Surviving account books, almost exclusively those of
noble families, confirm this practice. A receipt for payment informs us that in
1659 Prince Giustiniani sold forty canne of cloth, "all infested with termites
and torn in various places."31 Despite their poor state of preservation, the
prince received 20 scudi for them, which was a respectable sum, considering
that that the nine-diamond rosette of the young Marquise Santacroce sold
for 56.6o scudi. Similarly, a note in the account books of the Spada family
shows that the Marquis Orazio obtained 2.1 scudi from the sale of a damask
pavilion.
All objects—not only precious ones—were easily sold on the market, and
they retained some financial value even when they were used or ruined."
This explains the ease with which they were employed as a direct means of
payment, without ever having been transformed into money. Currency was
still all too rare.
The Marquis Santacroce's payment book demonstrates how to reduce
the bills of various outfitters by giving something old in exchange for a new
object. Thanks to the sale of thirty-nine pairs of used and ratty breeches
and seven cloth jackets, which the Marquis evidently no longer needed, he
reduced his bill with the tailor Israele di Tivoli by zo percent, from 33.12.
to 26.52 scudi. The same thing happened with the carriage maker who consented
to take back old carriage seats and thus lowered the price of the new
ones from 52 to 4o scudi. Naturally, the same was also true for the bills of
the locksmith, the coppersmith, the bit maker, the saddle maker, and so
forth.34
Agricultural goods and foodstuffs discharged a monetary function to an
even greater extent than clothing and objects. Orvieto's widow, who sold
her garments, was a landowner and as such continually faced the problem
of bringing her produce to market. Her willingness to send money to her
son, who practiced law in Rome, was linked to the price she could get for the
grain, olive oil, and hemp her farms produced. Asshe wrote in one letter, for
the moment she could not send money because "everything here is so cheap
THE FUNCTION OF GOODS :: 21
that it is not possible to sell anything."" "Wait for the bill of exchange so
that you could send money to him," she commented in another letter. "And
indeed today I sold 296 lire of hemp because the paoli were thirty-seven for
every hundred, although our partner will get his share of this . . . and I have
gotten ten scudi and ninety-five baiocchi, from which tomorrow it will be
necessary to give the treasurer seven scudi."36 "Today I sold four jugs of olive
oil because they were selling for thirty-four giulii per jug," she announced in
a third letter.;'The money she was sending, she declared in a fourth, "I took
from the wine I sold, and also partly from the pigs that were sold.""
Behind every bit of money this woman scraped together lay the concrete
image of the agricultural product with which it had been exchanged. Naturally,
whenever possible, she and her son preferred to use their produce directly
to pay debts or make gifts. From Rome the young man exhorted her
not to worry about the scarcity of money and the expenses she faced."After
all, even the payment of their agent in Orvieto did not amount to much,since
"one fights for twenty years over a staio of grain." He also asked her to pay
the bill of their courier with "some wine, hemp, or oil."4°
The monetary use of goodswas even theorized. At the end of the sixteenth
century, for example, Cesare Evitascandali's Dialogo del maestro di casa
suggested stocking up on everything when prices are at their lowest, so that
"things which are about to go bad can be used to pay artisans that serve the
house and to settle accounts for things they sold and their invoices."41 Several
decades later the account books of the Duchess Sforza Cesarini demonstrate
that the custom of paying in agricultural produce was still thriving. The
duchess willingly paid in grain and especially in bread and charcoal. The
recipients of these payments in kind were tradesmen of various types, from
a secondhand cloth dealer and a Jewish tailor to a locksmith, wood carver,
cobbler, carpenter, and even an artist who regularly accepted charcoal as
payment for his paintings of flowers. To this list we could add a silversmith,
an apothecary, a bookseller, and the duchess's French tailor.42 Payments in
kind were not destined only for the poorest or weakest tradesmen but also
went to respectable members of the middling classes.
The Santacroce family's account books illustrate the triangle that trade
made possible with this system of payment in money-equivalent goods.43
The landowner furnished grain to a baker, who in turn furnished bread
to an artisan who lent his services or made things for the landowner. This
proprietor paid the artisan in bread, to be taken on credit from the baker,
who received the grain on credit. Reciprocal debts were thus settled in kind,
without money ever changing hands.
22 :: CHAPTER ONE
TABLE I.1 Livia Sforza Cesarini's expenditures, January 1689
RECIPIENT ITEM VALUE MODE OF PAYMENT
first cook
washerwoman from
Genzano
Jacob Tedesco, Jew
driver
brazier
cobbler
cook
vintner
vintner
guard
man from Aquila
vintner
accountant
mason from Genzano
stableman
driver
driver
silk stockings, thread, and
other things for my use
reimbursement
laundry done and to
be done
for things given and
work done
wages
work
shoes made and to be
made for the duke
reimbursement
pruning work
grafting taken by the
piece at Genzano
plants from the vineyard
wages for 4 months
road repaired at Genzano
hay for cows
reimbursement
work
heart and hemp seeds
for birds
transporting wine
I0
47. 21
40
1.5
50
6
20
5
4
4
7.2
50
8.8
12.
1 3.5
2.1
rubbia of grain
in charcoal
3 rubbio of grain (4.5
scudi) per rubbio
3.5 in bread and flour
3.5
TABLE 1.1 Continued
RECIPIENT ITEM VALUE MODE OF PAYMENT
barber beard shaving done and 10 in charcoal
to be done on the duke
my consort
accountant reimbursement for the tax 10.02
and transport of grain
wood-carver work
Angelo di Cavi,Jew settling the bill
locksmith work
herald expenses incurred in
taking possession of
various things
25 in charcoal
in 67 dozen of bread
30
40
secretary reimbursement 10.17
steward reimbursement 13.1
carpenter chest of drawers for r I
my use
cut staves T.45
staves 4.2
The Signori Bernini interest on credit bonds of 32.5
20,000 scudi (6 months)
ironworker work 1.4
ironworker work
accountant reimbursement 3o
staves for the vineyard 6.8
3
license for moving the 3
body of Monsignor
thread and silk 5
in charcoal
2.5 rubbio in grain
TABLE 1.1 Continued
RECIPIENT ITEM VALUE MODE OF PAYMENT
the nuns of
St. Urbano
sister Felice Maria
Cesarini
washerwoman of
Rome
The Signori Bernini
[. • .1, Jew
[. . .1, Jew
brazier
work
work
charity
December's laundry
25
3 in bread
3 dozen of bread
60
5
4
interest on credit bonds of 65
4,000 scudi (6 months)
wages for 3 months
mourning clothes given at
the death of Monsignor
Sforza
mourning clothes given at
the death of Monsignor
Sforza
6
9 from the Monte di
Pieta
24
reimbursements for 25
our table
75o plants for the
vineyards of Rome and
Genzano
50
3.75
in charcoal
silversmith 15o dozen of bread
accountant reimbursement for 10
legal expenses
apothecary stuff for the house 6o in charcoal
TABLE 1.1 Continued
RECIPIENT ITEM VALUE MODE OF PAYMENT
archivist of the Riccia copies
family
Giuseppe Barberi,
painter
two large paintings
of flowers
Giuseppe Barberi, two large paintings
painter of flowers
Benedetto Guidetti,
painter
3.15
3
3
4
in charcoal
in charcoal
Aside from personal objects and agriculture produce, even domestic production
could be aimed more at exchange than personal consumption. Inventories
and account booksshow that domestic spinning and weavingwere
still very common throughout the entire seventeenth century. But that does
not mean that spun flax and hemp and "coarse household fabrics" were
destined to end up in the family linen closet. On the contrary, there existed
a market for these products. They could be exchanged for money or, more
often, for spun thread or fabric of better quality. At the beginning of summer,
for example, when even the frugal widow of Orvieto felt the need for a
fresher outfit, she prudently decided to exchange six scudi's worth of coarse
cloth for a discount on the price of "certain light material" for a gown and a
petticoat: the monetary expense accordingly decreased from 11.2.5 to only 5
scudi.44 Other account books, which I will treat more fully later, reveal that
this was a widespread practice.
Land Owner
Grain
Baker
Goods and Services
Bread
Artisan
Gifts
Apart from meeting payments, farm produce was also useful for making
gifts. "Our Lord the Pope is expected at Castello on Sunday," wrote Carlo
26 :: CHAPTER ONE
Cartari to his mother, "and I think it's a good idea that you send a case of
wine to give to him."4S When the wine finally arrived in Rome, accompanied
by the woman's suggestions about how to distribute it, the young man did
not fail "to give a full report" of his actions. He gave "twenty flasks to Our
Lord, twenty to our Lord Cardinal Patron, twelve to Monsignor Fausto,
twelve to Monsignor Boccabella, eight to the lawyer with whom I'm studying
this August, six to Father Cherubino, and eight to the knight Giuseppino in
recompense for the colors for the painting of our uncle."" He soon clarified
the purpose of some of these presents: "On Wednesday," said the young
man, "I went to present wine to Our Lord, who deigned to accept it with his
usual kindness. . . . He asked how my sister was, and I replied that she was
well and that she recommended her husband, Signor Horatio, to His Holiness.
His Holiness replied that it was necessary to provide for him, which he
repeated three or four times with unwonted affection."47
The use of payments and gifts in kind was not restricted to landowners.
In fact, the practice was quite widespread among city dwellers as well. For
instance, the "Memorandum on the marriage of Aurelio Antonio Baldini
and Madonna Laura Sarda," describes, day by day, all the phases of their
engagement and all the ceremonies that accompanied it, including the gifts
the groom presented almost daily to his bride. The diary begins on Thursday,
May 6, 1593, when "at almost four o'clock in the afternoon" . . . they got
engaged, that is, they promised to take each other as husband and wife. . . . I
touched her hand and the dowry contract was drawn up and she gave me one
of her rings from which to make a new one to marry her with." On Friday and
Saturday testimony was taken about the free status of both to marry, and on
Sunday Aurelio sent to "Madonna Laura four quails and a piece of veal, all
of which cost four giuli." On the following Thursday—May 13—the young
man brought a salesman to the girl's house "with many pieces of velvet and
with the tailor, Messer Geronimo." One of the pieces met with the woman's
approval and was bought for twentyscudi. On Friday the fourteenth, Aurelio
brought a fish "which cost eighteen baiocchi," and on Saturday the sixteenth
"a quarter of a little goat and a castrated lamb that cost sixteen baiocchi." In
the meantime he ordered the ring: "I had the ruby reset and polished, which
cost fourteen giuli to do, as well as two for varnish, one for foil, and one for
the six extra grains of gold I had put in." On the next Friday he gave another
fish, "a pike that cost nineteen baiocchi," and in the six following days in
quick succession came various "pounds of fruit," "a nut cake and a heart of
marzipan," "two roast turtledoves," and a pair of slippers and shoes. Finally,
on May 24, Aurelio sent a boy servant to his bride's house
THE FUNCTION OF GOODS :: 27
with the coach, Madonna Laura, and his sister, the servant and nun
Messer Montiero around Santa Maria del Popolo. Messers Iacomo,
Messer Montiero, and I went there and took communion, and then we
were married by Fra Ioannino. . . . Then we got into the coach . . . and
returned to the house. . . . I dined, supped, and came back home to sleep
and brought with me a silver cup, silver fork, two pieces of coral, a glass
cup, a glass shuttle, a big knife, and a big fork to cut with while eating,
not to mention the fruit, veal, peas and other things I had eaten there."
In other words, Aurelio wanted to recoup his wedding expenses.
As one can see, in the course of a brief engagement, gifts of food were
very common. Yet Aurelio, who was a city dweller by origin, did not take
them from his own lands.Time after time he had to buy them and accurately
record all of their prices.
In 1593, among members of the middlingclass the gift of a fish or a quarter
of a goat was not considered coarse or inelegant. In 1628, in curial circles,
gifts of food were equally widespread, even if marzipan cakes, candies, and
other delicacies of the sort were preferred.'° But already a man as refined as
Cassiano dal Pozzo recognized that it was a good rule not to give "edible
stuff" to important people and therefore avoided sending "to the Palace"
the "great box, or rather chest, of most beautiful and delicate plums" that
came from the "most delicious garden" of Giovan Battista Doni.s' And in
1702-3, even if great aristocrats continued to exchange gifts of this kind
among themselves, they chose delicate and rare foods, such as pheasant,
melons, bass, tuna from Terracina, confections, candies, rose liqueur, and
even a sea turtle.52 They also paid a lot of attention to the food's appearance.
In the account books of the steward of the Marquis Santacroce, expenses
for food gifts were accompanied by the costs of "fixing them up," arranging
them "like a triumphal arch," or decorating them with flowers."
The marriage between Aurelio and Laura took place in 1593. The concrete,
rather unfashionable nature of the gifts the man presented to his fiancee
could therefore be explained by the absence in the market of more sophisticated
objects as equally affordable as a fish or a quarter of goat. But an
explanation that depended on the small size of the market would be much
less convincing for the beginning of the seventeenth century. The persistence
of this traditional custom must be accounted for in another way.
In anycase, food gifts were not out of fashion. Further proof may be found
in the diary Francesco Maria Febei kept in the trimester during which he
served as conservator of Rome. The text is very illuminating because Febei's
28 :: CHAPTER ONE
interest lay precisely in the ceremonies that accompanied his assumption of
office, the subsequent visits to the papal authorities, and the gifts that were
exchanged on these occasions.Just after election, the three newconservators
were received by the cardinal chamberlain, who greeted them while remaining
in bed and made them sit on his right side, to underscore his own superiority
in the hierarchy while at the same time conceding some signs of respect (such
as giving them the right side of his body, considered more dignified to face
than the left). On the next day a solemn mass was celebrated in Santa Maria
in Aracoeli, where "a tunic-wearing priest gave a silk flower to each of us."
Other ceremonies were held over the following days, and the conservators
received various fish heads decorated with rosemary and carnations as signs
of homage. When the Congregation of the Campidoglio (Capitol) convened,
"in the middle of the Congregation they gave out fresh water, chocolate, and
Savoy cookies, and they brought a silver platter with a silk handkerchief the
color of coffee and a silver teaspoon to us four, namely, the conservators and
the prior, and to the others they gave the platter with a similar teaspoon but
without the silk handkerchief." When the nuns of San Lorenzo in Panisperna
wanted to show their devotion to thesupreme magistrates of the Capitol, they
sent a tub with ten jars of preserves and a silk flower. The commentaries on
the ceremonies and gifts constitute the focal point of the short diary, which
concluded with this disappointed reflection:
With expenditures on tips and other things, the profit was very small,
not even reaching 5o scudi, since it was 6.4o less [i.e., 43.6 scudi]. The
fish heads that I expected to have in great quantity only amounted to
2i, namely:
platters heads
sea bass heads
sturgeon heads
beautiful silk flowers
bowls of pasta
jars of preserves
saints made of paper or silk
a drawing of St. Dominic
a garment of Carmine
loaves of bread from five places54
17
03
OI
2-1
6
I
THE FUNCTION OF GOODS :: 29
The compensatory function of gifts is even clearer in other cases. Lavinia
Cartari, who apparently did not have the greatest faith in her son's competence
when it came to domestic matters, selected a nun who was a relative of
hers to watch over the family possessions in Rome. Cartari was well aware
that every service demanded a payment: "Remember to send something for
carnival for Sister Alessandra," she wrote in February, "so that she pays more
attention to our stuff."" In August she insisted that he visit Sister Alessandra
to remind her to take care of "the clothes that usually suffer from ringworm,
as well as our other things."56
People sold their personal objects for money without regret. Money in its
turn preserved the obvious imprint of the agricultural products—olive oil,
wine, grain, hemp, pork, and such—against which it was exchanged. And
finally, to close the circle, agricultural products bought in the market were
systematically returned to their monetary equivalents. There was a marked
continuity between goods and money that united them and made the boundaries
between their functions rather fluid.
Objects Removed from Exchange
If some goods were exchanged for money without regret, others were jealously
guarded, that is, willingly removed from "the normal circuits of economic
life."s7 The most obvious example would be land, real estate par
excellence. But I have chosen to study city dwellers and have put the problem
of their potential rural landownership into the background. My analysis will
therefore focus on that other category of real estate, city buildings, and the
status of the family palace in particular.SB That this was considered inalienable
should not be surprising. The immobilization of resources required for
the construction of an "honorable house" involved a different attitude to the
world of goods and how to conserve them. Fynes Moryson, who traveled
across Europe between '591and 1595, observed that Italians "bestow their
money in stable things, to serve their posteritie."59
The Renaissance passion for building that infected princes and citizens
alike was an indication of the powerful symbolism that architecture, both
public and private, could manifest.6° Contemporaries were well aware of
the ostentatious implications of city palaces and the advantages investing
in buildings could offer from this point of view compared to other types of
real estate. As Michelangelo noted, "A noble house in the city brings much
honor because it is more visible than other possessions."6'
In Rome this process began slightly later than in Florence and was pro-
30 :: CHAPTER ONE
moted by the behavior of popes, cardinal-nephews, and the other grand
prelates of the curia." The fever for construction quickly struck the increasingly
numerous families of the minor nobility, who experimented on their
own houses to make them conform to the new standards for upper-class
residences. The family thereby came to identify itself—and from a lexical
point of view, even confuse itself—with the "house" (casa), the building in
which it dwelt, and even with the actual site on which the house stood. This
development is particularly well documented in the case of some Roman
lineages such as the Del Cinque, the Altieri, the Cenci, and also those of
transplants such as the Pamphili.
From 157o the Del Cinque transformed the old houses they owned in
front of the Ponte Sisto in Trastevere into a single building that could truly
be described as a palace. They immediately instituted a fedecommesso, which
safeguarded its perpetual inalienability." Some generations later the Del
Cinque were struck by a series of financial bankruptcies and were forced to
retire to the countryside to trim their expenses. This change in lifestyle was
nonetheless insufficient to set them on a sound footing. A long-drawn-out
series of battles with their creditors ensued, during which they made every
effort possible to protect their palace, which represented the ultimate symbol
of social distinction. In fact, the family was quite impoverished and was
often excluded from lists of nobility. Their only hope for redemption rested
on their house: "It is enough to visit their old residence," says one source,
"and to recall that the street is called Del Cinque," to recognize their right
to claim nobility."
The palace constituted the bedrock of family identity for the Altieri as
well. A text from the first half of the seventeenth century states that "the
nobility and antiquity of this lineage can easily be observed in the name of a
famous piazza in the Pigna Quarter. The Altieri family has lived in the Piazza
degli Altieri for more than 30o years."65 Similarly, it was said of the Cenci
that the family residence "gives them great nobility, since all their houses are
connected in the Regola Quarter with a church in the middle that is under
their legal patronage and is called the Monte de Cenci." In 1555, they too
instituted a fedecommesso."
The immigrant Pamphili family, who arrived in Rome from Gubbio toward
the end of the fifteenth century, was firmly ensconced in the Parione
Quarter. They began to build ties to Roman families through a series of marriage
alliances and a tenacious policy of house construction. Following the
pattern we have already noted, they connected a series of contiguous houses
they acquired between Piazza Pasquino and Piazza Navona and thereby
THE FUNCTION OF GOODS :: 31
transformed them into a palace. The house was further enlarged and embellished
until it became the current Palazzo Pamphili after Giovanni Battista
was elected pope in 1644.67 The coats of arms placed on facades further
invested the palace with the family's identity. As such, the palace had to
be defended and placed beyond the dangers of sale or dispersal." That is
why they were incorporated into fedecommessi or locked into perpetual
inalienability.
We have already observed that the furniture and movable goods stored
inside the palace were not subject to the same regime of preservation. Nonetheless,
it was not rare for a testator to name a specific household object
to bequeath to a beloved heir, especially when dealing with extraordinary
objects the owner wished to rescue from anonymity. To take one example,
Gregorio Giulianelli left "a show clock with its alarm and all its parts," to a
friend."In another instance, Marcantonio Vignolio gave the "large, exquisite
porcelain bowl with a big plate," to the executor of his will "so that he takes
joy in it through love of me.""
A separate discourse was used for objects that were considered collectible.
In this arena, all owners nourished sentiments similar to those expressed by
the Venetian collector Jacomo Contarini,who in 1595 gave the most explicit
instructions in his last testament: "One of the dearest things I own is my
studio, from which all the honors and esteem for my person have come."
For that reason he instituted a legacy "for the perpetual preservation of [his]
study and books."71
The identification of the collector with his collection was also evident
in the 1610 will of Ciriaco Mattei, who explained to his heir how he had
transformed a rustic vineyard:
With great expense, care, and time, I have created a garden through
having made different statues, columns, carved tables, vases, paintings,
and various works of marble. . . . The garden was also very relaxing and
enjoyable, and a place for virtuosi and of no little reputation when the
house was seen. It was visited daily not only by important Roman individuals
and people but also by foreigners, with good praise and fame.72
It is therefore not surprising that Mattei bound in a fedecommesso all the
objects of his collection "of whatever quality or value, even if they are not
worth much."
Other collectors did the same, including Cardinal Del Monte in his 16z6
will73 and Vincenzo Giustiniani in his will of 1631. As Giustiniani wrote:
3 :: CHAPTER ONE
My intention is that all the statues, all the paintings, and everything
listed above, which are now present in or which at the time of my death
shall be present in my palace . . . my gardens, and my lands at Bassano,
and everything else that is in the workshops of sculptors, woodworkers,
or painters, or in any other place, remain perpetually to decorate my
palaces and gardens for my memory . . . and they cannot ever be sold
or alienated in any way, neither in whole, nor in part.74
I will treat this matter more fully later in this book.
Objects Not Collected
The removal of some objects from their usual utilitarian function, foregoing
exchanging them for money and deciding instead to preserve them, at least
for a while, did not only pertain to collections. Even an isolated object, one
not part of a larger group, could change its nature. The same people who
did not hesitate to exchange some of their goods could jealously protect
other ones.
For example, the correspondence between Carlo Cartari, his mother, and
her secretary contains not only astute observations on the movement of agricultural
prices or the exchange value of agricultural products and objects
but also information on seeds, bulbs, the possibilities of procuring potted
plants, and pleasant banter about their shared passion for gardening. In the
autumn of 1633, Carlo sent bulbs to Orvieto: "There are three hundred and
fifty bulbs or more accompanying this [letter], all for the most beautiful tulips,
as I already wrote to Signor Angelo. You will do me a big favor by delivering
them to him, and at the same time commend them to him, since they are the
best that I have. God willing, Signor Girolamo won't see them, because he'd
want his share."75 In her reply the practical Lavinia limited herself to telling
her son that "today the secretary planted all of them" and showed herself
to be much more worried about the price of paper than impressed with the
novelty of the bulbs: "when you write," she advised, "be careful to write in
small characters, so that everything fits into one page, since it is costing us
too much."76 But when the bulbs began to flower in the spring, she finally
allowed herself a smile:
The gardener [their nickname for the secretary] says that he now has
a lot of flowers, such as white narcissi, double and simple, and also
simple yellows, and white and blue diacynths. He enjoys them, as do I,
THE FUNCTION OF GOODS :: 33
and out of jealousy always carries the key to the garden in his pocket,
but he says for you not to puff yourself up too much about your flowers,
because the aforementioned gardener pretends to be their master,
rather than other people.77
"Now the priceless bulbs are about to flower," noted the son from Rome.
"The gardener is paying attention to the flowers," replied the mother, "but he
says that those priceless bulbs are keeping themselves shut tight," because so
far they had not produced anything." She added: "He begs that you do him
the favor of sending six bitter orange plants and would greatly appreciate if
among these six there were one or two lemon plants."79
In the middle of April came the surprise: the tulips began to flower. The
happy woman explained how pleased she was with "these beautiful flowers
that your bulbs are making, of which I keep a vase full in my bedroom. Yesterday
and today they produced two beautiful flowers of six petals each, one
that was red and white and another that was red and yellow, truly beautiful.
More and more people have asked the secretary for the bulbs, but he excuses
himself bysaying that they aren't his, even though they are.""Even a prudent
matron like Lavinia, always attentive to the concrete side of things, allowed
herself to be fascinated by the beauty of the new flowers from the Netherlands
and willingly forgot that her son had invested money in buying them. She
herself was also ready to spend something for the pure pleasure of her eyes:
"Today I was sent by Sister Modesta two beautiful boughs of silk flowers
with birds and fruit to keep in the study, and truly they are very beautiful
things, although I'm not yet sure what I'll have to pay for them."81
The capacity for enjoying the beauty of things was probably fostered by
the great respect for objects that Lavinia showed on other occasions. For
example, her attention to their intrinsic value, not only their exchange value,
is apparent from the care with which she prepared the packets she sent to
her son in Rome, the minute detail with which she described all the things
she put in each package, and the marks of identification through which he
could recognize each of them. Flasks of wine of a certain type "are marked
with a red patch at the attachment," those of another "with a white patch,""
a "little basket with two pieces of pork sirloin, with thirteen small pieces of
sausage and the same number of liver sausages," was bound in a card with
"a large C" written above, and so forth."
Equally detailed were the instructions left by Giovanni Maria Contelori,
a gentleman of Cesi, to his wife and the other women of the house. When he
left the family home to move to Rome to assume office as a collateral judge
34 :: CHAPTER ONE
in the tribunal of the Auditor Camerae, Contelori penned a series of detailed
instructions on loose-leaf paper on how to pack the objects that were to be
moved and how to secure everything that would remain in the empty house.
Clothes, linen, sheets, mattresses, covers, flax and jute fiber for spinning,
plates, pots and pans, and leather were packed. There were also
all the saffron, spices, confectionaries of all kinds . . . the pears that
are kept inside, and the apples. . . . All the books for the children could
be put into a separate valise or a hand bag on top of the pack animal,
so that it could be easily unloaded . . . and look in the little credenza
on top of the marble table, where there are certain printed lexicons,
other commonplace books in my hand, others which could be useful
for students. Among my law books, besides the legal lexicon there is
also another lexicon or dictionary for students in quarto. Place them
with the books for the children that have two or three lines and [put
the children's books aside] so that they can leave them where I want
without inconveniencing the pack animal.
Contelori advised the women that when preparing the bags, they should hide
their new cloth in the middle over the old bedding, that they put the flax and
the jute fiber in different bags, that they not forget the "passerine grapes," the
"sack of dry roses," and he suggested that "those pieces that are kept within
the basket in the credenza could be used here to accommodate and line the
camlets and mockados as well as the wool." Then he exhorted them to take
"an inventory of all the books that remain and [send them] with the other
inventory that was done for the household things." Finally, he ordered them
to make an inventory of everything else and to lock everything up as well as
to close the credenzas, cabinets, doors, and windows of the study."
Contelori's concern for objects as such was accompanied by the zeal of
the prudent householder for the conservation of his masserizia, or household
goods." Years later, Carlo Cartari's behavior would demonstrate how
the appreciation for aesthetic value and the passion for objects could reach
substantially higher registers, about which I will say more in a later chapter.
Here I will present other examples of analogous behavior—halfway between
utilitarian and contemplative—in which the nature of goods oscillated between
monetary equivalence and intrinsic value.
The provisions contained in Dorotea Antolini's will and testament should
be interpreted in this sense. Dying without heirs, this aged city dweller, the
daughter and granddaughter of lawyers, did not enjoin that all her goods be
THE FUNCTION OF GOODS :: 35
sold and the revenue spent on works of charity, but rather she insisted that
the objects themselves be transformed into bequests. Thus some of her velvet
and brocaded garments, trimmed with gold and silver, were to be made into
altarpieces for some of the Roman churches. But the most eloquent legacy
was her jewelry: "I leave to the Chiesa del Giesu a jewel which I pawned for
seventy scudi, and a diamond necklace which I pawned for fifty scudi, and
a diamond ring for one hundred scudi, all three of which I desire be given
by my heir to the said fathers for the Madonna di Trapano, to put around
the neck of the Blessed Virgin." As with the jewelry, the clothes had also
been pawned, and it was the heir's obligation to redeem them. Her personal
effects, which in life had been pure cash equivalents and which their owner
did not apparently wear very often, in death became goods endowed with
an intrinsic value and preserved to decorate altars and sacred images. Their
nature as goods underwent a total transformation.
Bequests to friends and servants confirm the woman's intentions.To each
she left a relatively significant sum of money, but also a particular object: a
silver basket to the executor of the will, an ebony cabinet for the procurator,
precious garments for her godmother, household linen for the washerwoman,
skirts to poor mendicant women, and so forth. Some of these goods, such as
thesilver basket, had been pawned. The bequest of an object did not serve to
supply a want of hard currency, therefore, but should be understood explicitly
as the legacy of a singularized good. The good assumed particular value
through having belonged to the dead woman, and often this connection was
emphasized with a succinct biography of the object in question." When she
wanted her possessions to lose their meaning as things and become merely
money-equivalent objects, Dorotea explicitly ordered her executors "to sell
all my books, spiritual and temporal, and give the profit to the poor."
Many years earlier, Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani behaved like Dorotea
rather than his nephew Vincenzo, leaving to a "dependent" "the worked
leather from Spain that is in the room in front of my chapel, a coaster, two
big, simple candle holders, and the bed of red damask which was bought in
Bologna." To Cardinal Montalto, his benefactor, he left "for my memory
my round painting of the Annunciation by Parmigianino," and to the executor
of his will "my round painting of the Madonna by Giulio Romano."87
Further evidence that these were not isolated acts comes from many other
wills of both men and women, from the very rich, like a noble Genoese cleric
of the Reverend Camera Apostolica, to those barely making ends meet,
such as a woman who bequeathed her pawn tickets rather than the objects
themselves."
36 :: CHAPTER ONE
According to Giovanni Pontano, the practice of offering ever more desirable
goods lay halfway between the utilitarian use of goods for their exchange
value and the contemplation of their intrinsic merits." This use is well illustrated
by the account books of the Santacroce family, where alongside all
the goods to be given away, we find "a crystal credenza," a "dolphin wig,"
and four fans with pen drawings of Naples, Palermo, and other cities that
had been sent from Venice.9°Several decades earlier, an affectionate husband
had already lavished a profusion of fashionable gifts upon his wife: sprigs of
fake flowers, papier-mâché figurines for a nativity scene, and other trinkets
to put on top of the furniture." At the beginning of the century, Cassiano
dal Pozzo gave his sister-in-law "a little Indian writing desk" full of "silk
and gold flowers," worked to appear "as natural as possible and quite varied,"
in addition to some "fashionable gifts of glass, such as little pendants,
necklaces, and the like."92
However, the best-documented fashionable gifts were those offered by
Virgilio Spada to his male and especially female relatives. This prelate's passion
for organization prompted him to keep his account books in a particularly
precise and distinct manner, dedicating at least two sections specifically
to gifts.93 To his granddaughters and to all the other Spadas he was careful
not to give "edible stuff." His gifts were silk flowers, books, drawings, coral
vases, crowns and reliquaries of gemstones, and also "a clock from Geneva
with a case of mountain crystal" and, like Dal Pozzo, "two cabinets adorned
with ebony."94
The reasons for this development are not immediately apparent. Thesilver
platters covered with a coffee-colored silk tablecloth on which Savoy cookies
were arranged for presentation to the conservators of Rome performed
the same function as the preserves and fish heads: they too were a way of
repaying the magistrates for their work without openly offering them money.
Clearly, adding aesthetic value to a gift was not an irrelevant choice, and
giving a collectible object was different from giving a useful one. The search
for the unknown and never-before-seen but also refined and elegant object
constituted an obligation and, at the same time, indicated a worldly awareness
that a "donor" could exploit to his or her advantage by transforming,
as Carlo Cartari put it, even something as simple as dry prunes "placed on
a table on a silver tray" into a "singular thing."95
This did not mean that the exchange value was forgotten or that the beauty
of a thing always trumped its monetary worth. The two ways of considering
objects generally coexisted. Cartari, who wrote the comment about the dry
prunes, was often a profound judge of the intrinsic worth of objects. He was
THE FUNCTION OF GOODS :: 37
by no means inclined to put them on the same level as their mere exchange
value. Yet not even he was scandalized when the winners of a lottery immediately
set about selling their prizes, which consisted of a "celebrated
diamond ring" and a "crystal mirror."96
There remains the problem of why objects won such a privileged position,
why they came to be so highly regarded by people as to arouse the desire to
preserve them rather than to use them to obtain something else in their place.
The care lavished on objects is not significant in itself. Their nature as cash
equivalents would have been sufficient to justifysuch attention. The concern
with which Lavinia Cartari urged her son to protect their travel trunks and
especially the household linen, which "usually suffered from ringworm, like
our other stuff," seems to confirm this hypothesis.
Even the frequency and method with which people monitored their goods
could have had more to do with their exchange value than their affective
meaning. It is well known that inventories were usually drawn up at the
death of somebody through the initiative of heirs who wanted to appraise
the entire patrimony. But an inventory was made on many other occasions.
Detailed lists of the goods that composed a trousseau often accompanied
dowry contracts, and, for legal reasons, their economic value had to be given
pride of place. In the event of a possible return of the dowry it was essential
that the goods received a monetary appraisal. Similarly, itemized lists of tools
and stock merchandise accompanied contracts of sale or rent for shops, inns,
taverns, and so forth.
The detailed enumeration of household objects punctuated the private life
of families, from noble ones who wanted to know precisely what they were
entrusting to their servants, secretaries, or household stewards, to burghers
who aspired simply to monitor the state of their movables. As a result, not
only do the archives of the Giustiniani, Santacroce, or Spada Veralli families
teem with inventories that are both general and specific (of their paintings,
silver, wardrobe, library, and so forth), but so too do the archives of the
Cartari and the Febei, and other small family archives that have accumulated
in the collections of large charitable institutionssuch as that of the Contelori
family. Carlo Cartari recorded the "cloth that my mother gave me," the
"paintings that I have in Rome," and the "ornament which my daughter
Maria Virginia brought with her to the house of Giulio Febei her spouse."
Giovanni Maria Contelori separately cataloged the china, books, thingssent
to Rome, and what remained at Cesi.97 The goods that Margherita Betti
bequeathed to a hospital were accompanied by four different lists drawn up
on four separate dates."
38 :: CHAPTER ONE
Such attention was certainly linked to the relative scarcity of goods and
their exchange value. But it is worth asking what other sentiments were
involved in this concern for cataloging. As we will see in subsequent chapters,
the little evidence at our disposal suggests that the bulk of a family's
domestic movables was acquired at the moment of setting up a household
and persisted over time without major new purchases—but also without
major losses. If in fifteenth-century Florence nuptial, clothing and jewelry
were sold within a few months of the wedding or even borrowed, this happened
less frequently in seventeenth-century Rome, partly because pawning
was by now standard practice.99
The purpose of cataloginggoods was not so much to keep track of changes
as to affirm ownership. This inevitably translated into identifying with one's
own things. The inventories the owner drafted personally offer further proof
of this phenomenon because they deployed a wealth of individual details—the
subjects of paintings, the precise titles of books, the material out of which
figurines were made, and so forth—far beyond what was necessary. A concern
for objects that had value was transformed into a concern for objects
that were "one's own."w"
THE FUNCTION OF GOODS :: 39
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111I1111111111111
CHAPTER TWO
Reflecting on Things
If the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries really witnessed the gradual
emancipation of goods from their monetary function, what documentary
traces has this process left behind? Which sources illuminate the genesis and
diffusion of the desire to remove objects from exchange, protect them from
dispersal, and invest them with different values? What were the underlying
reasons for this process, both from the point of view of society as a whole
and at the private level of individual families?
Family Accounting
Account books have existed since the late Middle Ages. Initially, income,
expenditures, and family occurrences such as births, deaths, and marriages
appeared indiscriminately in family records. Only gradually did more specialized
procedures come to separate the administration of household finances
from other matters. Archival material suggests that it was only in the second
half of the seventeenth century that new standards were adopted by Roman
families—by nobles as well as by merchants, lawyers, and other members
of the middling classes. Until around the middle of the seventeenth century,
income and expenditure books continued to be characterized by a great diversity
of entries. An Iacovacci family record book dating from about 1550
lists the income and expenditures connected to the purchase of public bonds
and private credit bills together with the writer's marriage, the payment of
his wife's dowry among his assets, and his sisters' dowries among the liabilities.
He also included an expenditure for a consumer good: the leather wall
hangings he acquired on the occasion of his wedding.'
lvThe contemporary "book in which will be written the record of the things
that happen to me, Febeo Febei, and will be named Memory Book One" is
composed in the same way, although individual entries are richer in detail
and the register was kept in a more systematic fashion. Febei was not content
to write that he fought with his wife's father over his dowry claims almost
immediately after their marriage. He also noted with great care the particulars
of every transaction that concerned him, diligently recording contracts
as well as household matters—the partition of goods with his father-in-law,
the birth and baptism of his children, the university studies of his brother. As
in the case of the Iacovacci, for Febei income and expenditures consisted of
such things as the transfer of a public bond, the acquisition of a house, the
sale of a farm, or the purchase of land or a cow. He presented not only the
names of contracting parties but also those of the notary and the witnesses,
the exact price and method of payment, and any additional clauses. The
wealth of detail with which he recorded these transactions is an index of their
importance to Febei. His concern did not merely reflect his own sentiments,
however, it was intended to evoke a similar sensibility in the reader. It sought
to arouse the attention of whoever alighted upon the account books in the
future. Recording an expenditure emphasized the importance of the payment
as well as information about the purchased item that was its counterpart.
Febei's only note regarding a consumer good dated from November of
1565, when "a robe of black velvet and a gold chain were purchased, and
the robe was sold to Paulo Turano."2 Although the Febei family regularly
spent money on food, garments, and other daily necessities, they did not feel
the need to record this type of expenditure. Their accounting was limited to
extraordinary occasions.
Forty years later the account books of two ladies, Faustina Madaleni Capizuccchi
and Cilla Boccarini, show signs of a change in recording practices.
Next to the pages containing receipts for payment, in which Capizucchi appears
alternately as a creditor and a debtor, and other pages devoted to the
recording of income from public bonds, leases, and so forth, was one section
of the book dedicated to current expenses. Under the title "Money paid in
January I6o6," the woman listed line by line all the expenses she incurred in
the course of the month: for the driveway, the olive oil dealer, the notary's
fee, a stack of struffoli (a Christmassweet), the cobbler's bill, the carpenter's
bill, and finally the purchase of slippers, shoes, and sleeves for one of her
daughters. The price paid is listed next to every entry.'
Boccarini followed the same method. She too divided a single volume
into various parts, each dedicated to a different series of accounts. She also
42. :: CHAPTER TWO
reserved some pages for day-to-day current expenses. Besides the salaries
for her "family," there are entries for "a little book of prayers to the Virgin
Mary"; broderieanglaise;silk and buttons for a page's livery; cloth, silk, and
ribbon for a mantle; two bay horses; and a piece of fabric for the carriage.4
Significantly, the household steward, a professional in domestic administration,
kept the account book.'
Another thirty years later, the account books of Valerio Santacroce demonstrate
that practices had not changed much: the method was still that of
a mixed notebook divided into more or less clearly delineated sections of
receipts, income, and current expenses.6 Only in the course of the 165os did
the Giustiniani and the Spada Veralli begin to employ "modern" methods
of accounting. From 164o, after Andrea Giustiniani and Maria Pamphili's
marriage, their household steward started to sew all the bills from their suppliers
into fascicles ordered by month and year. Nonetheless, it was only from
165o that the fascicles were kept consistently and only from 1658 that the
gatherings appear complete. Around this same date Maria Spada Veralli's
ledgers, compiled by her husband, came to display the specialization and
completeness that distinguish "modern" accounting from earlier practices.'
Shortly thereafter, Maria's husband became head of the family and began to
keep notebooks for all their expenditures.' More at ease with archives and
principles of recording than the Spada Veralli, Carlo Cartari had already
announced to a friend in 1647 that he had "made a notebook for daily expenses,"
immediately explaining the reason: "Given that all expenses will
devolve upon my heir whom, if I do not leave him any capital, I will also not
burden with debts as my ancestors have done."9
At least among noble families domestic accounting assumed precise and
stable characteristics around the mid-seventeenth century. These characteristics
applied to both the principles of recording income and expenditures
as well as to the physical shape of the bound volumes that contained them.
In Prince Francesco Pio's inventory of writings dealing with bookkeeping,
drawn up in 1700, the oldest book dates from only 1614, but the series
of ledgers, daily journals, and writs of payment seems regular and complete."'
Nonetheless, the proliferation of specific books—for the wardrobe,
for instance, or the kitchen, or the accounts of various household dependents—piled
one on top of the other without apparent order demonstrates
that the administration of family archives proceeded in a practical rather
than theoretical manner.
So far, the evolution I have traced appears to be fairly linear: from
sixteenth-century disorder, accounting moved gradually to a new rationality
REFLECTING ON THINGS :: 43
and was perfected in the last decades of the seventeenth century. Even domestic
accounting participated in the general march of science! But things
were a little more complicated than that. The notebook titled "The outcome
of all the expenses that passed through the hands of me, Vittoria Santacroce,
after the death of my consort," dating from 1551, is a genuine journal of
daily expenses kept in the "modern" way.11 If this still-young widow knew
how to keep her accounts, why should the other people I have cited not have
done the same? It would be hasty to charge them with ignorance: the reasons
lay not in their technical competence but in their interests and needs. Rather
than wonder why the lacovacci or Febei or Boccarini were so careless, we
need to ask why Vittoria Santacroce felt the need to be so precise. The answer
probably lay in her condition as a new widow with the responsibility of caring
for children who were still minors. The woman kept such careful tabs
on her expenditures because she knew that she would have to answer for her
actions and give an account of her administration of the family patrimony to
her husband's heirs, especially the children when they came of age.
As a noblewoman and a landowner, Vittoria Santacroce was probably
very rich and disposed of means in a far superior manner than the other
figures we have examined. Compared to her, the expenditures of Faustina
Madaleni Capizucchi are almost laughable, both in their quantity and their
value. Moreover, Capizucchi's notebook contains a few, scarcelysignificant,
agricultural expenses. Her single possession seems to have been a grove of
reeds. Most of her expenditures were due to passive interest on credit bills,
leases on two vineyards, wages for her "family," the bills of a mason and
carpenter for various repairs on her house and her stores, and above all
various legal expenses. Even the payments to the tailor and cloth merchants
were extremely modest. Yet the woman, who wrote in her own hand with
half-literate letters and a rather approximate orthography, regularly paid a
"writing teacher." She was forced to detail her daily expenditures and learned
to write so that she could do so.
A few books of guardianship found among notarial documents demonstrate
that detailed accounting was a practice current among guardians and
administrators of minors.12 The same precision was expected from household
stewards; they too had to justify their use of money and therefore tended
to be early adopters of the type of accounting I have termed modern out of
convenience." As a result the only regularities to be found in the account
books of the Boccarini are to be attributed to family dependents. The new
accounting methods of these families came from people in delicate positions,
who were aware that they would be called to account for their administration
44 :: CHAPTER TWO
of the money entrusted to them. As a result, they felt obliged to note carefully
all income and expenditures.
The rule of good bookkeeping among guardians and household stewards
also applied to those family members who received a monthly allowance
and had to balance their expenditures with their income, as we will see with
Bernardino Spada and Scipione Santacroce. It was also true for younger
sons like Virgilio Spada, who decided to keep his own account apart from
that of the general household after the death of his father. His expense book
demonstrates that he was a real virtuoso when it came to domestic accounting:4
Virgilio established that only a third of the income assigned to him by
his father's will would be utilized "for the upkeep of his own person and for
every other need that does not regard the maintenance or the exaltation of
his illustrious House," while the rest would go to the benefit of his heirs."
The detailed recording of every type of expense was a means for him to
demonstrate his adherence to these principles. Even somebody who had
just emerged from grave financial difficulties could find reassurance in the
precise recording of monetary outlays. One of the reasons that prompted
Carlo Cartari to keep his daily expense book was the need to prove to his
heirs that, unlike his own ancestors, he was economically virtuous in the
administration of domestic affairs.
The same principle was also true for wives. A married woman could
find herself in a complicated situation, especially if she wanted to keep the
administration of her personal, extramarital patrimony distinct from that of
her husband. Such was the case of Maria Spada Veralli, who began to keep
account books in 1649. Her case is special not only because Maria was a
married woman who tended to her own goods, but also because her husband,
Orazio, was almost treated as a minor, since his uncles were the true heads
of the family and made all the important decisions.
Minors, younger sons, widowed mothers, and wives all kept account
books. Although the writers on household economy considered their science
strictly masculine and directed their treatises explicitly to the paterfamilias,
domestic accountingseems to have been a field for younger sons and women,
that is, for those who were "not independent."16 The primary audience of
these tracts—the male heads of household—was not the first on the scene.
Orazio Spada began to keep his account books only after the death of his
uncles, in 1663, although his wife had been keeping hers for fourteen years.
Andrea Giustiniani began collecting the accounts of the extraordinary expenditures
undertaken for his bride and only gradually began to keep track
of all the others as well.
REFLECTING ON THINGS :: 45
Accounting and the Nature of Goods
In the oldest notebooks only monetary expenditures were noted. As a result,
there is a paucity of noted expenses for consumer goods: Iacovacci bought
only leather wall hangings, and Febei a velvet robe and a gold chain. It was
precisely the rarity of such purchases that conferred a particular value on the
objects in question. The fact of recording their expenses assumed a special
importance. But as people gradually began to note all expenditures, those
regarding the purchase of extraordinary objects came to be lost amid the
infinitely more numerous expenses associated with the ordinary administration
of the household.
Vittoria Santacroce bought oil, meat, salt, wood, and candles, and she
paid the bills of the doctor, apothecary, cloth merchant, tailor of luxury
fabrics, as well as the wages of the farm overseer, swineherd, and other
servants. It is only amid all this that some "account books," "a half ream
of paper," and "glasses and a carafe for the house" appear. Even Cilla Boccarini
dedicated most of her expenditures to household repairs and above
all to the payment of wages, as did Monsignor Giovan Battista Gavotti. It
is not surprising that their account books are full of receipts in the form of
crosses signed by various dependents certifying that they had been paid. Expenditures
on nonessential or superfluous goods became important only on
the occasion of special events, such as the graduation of Monsignor Gavotti,
the marriage of a Santacroce daughter, or the departure of their two sons for
Padua.
Special events such as graduations and marriages—and funerals, too—
caused a spike in ceremonial expenses, from the outfits to the decorations,
refreshments, and gifts. Extraordinary expenditures prompted people to
dedicate more attention to recording them and were among the first to have
been documented in some detail. For our purposes they are doubly important,
because they signified moments of heightened consumption and, through the
act of recording them, brought special attention to the things themselves. For
example, in little more than a year, from the end of October 1551 to the end
of December '552 Vittoria Santacroce spent a total of 92.1 scudi for herself
and her numerous children and servants on clothing, shoes, and household
linen. Of this, 581 went to prepare the trousseau of her daughter Porzia, who
was married to a Capizucchi. A robe of turquoise-colored lightweight silk
decorated with gold lace was made for her, complete with socks and slippers
also made of turquoise fabric, as well as a velvet robe and a dyed mantle. She
also had countless handkerchiefs and various shirts, some of whose collars
46 :: CHAPTER TWO
and silk cuffs were embroidered with gold, trimmed, sewn, and decorated.
More money (at least zo scudi) was spent on two rochets—a white, often
lace-trimmed tunic worn over the cassock—to give to her brother-in-law,
an ecclesiastic, and on four shirts (at least 35 scudi) for her husband. In
comparison, the wardrobe prepared for her two sons for their departure to
study in Padua cost only a pittance: little more than 59 scudi was used to buy
stockings, shoes, boots, gloves, hats, shirts, and handkerchiefs. All told, the
attire of the two students was quite sober. To the clothing that they already
possessed the mother added only one new article for each category: a new
pair of shoes, a new pair of gloves, a new hat, and so forth.'7
Even the Giustiniani, though descendants of a long line of merchants and
certainly at ease with accounting, began to collect their suppliers' receipts
only when Andrea Giustiniani married Maria Pamphili in 164o. As was
customary, the groom gave the bride a rich robe of gold cloth and pink
satin, furnished with lace and ribbons of fine gold. The expenses incurred
on this occasion were worthy of being documented and preserved in the
family archive. Thus the household steward kept the invoices the cloth and
silk merchants presented to him. Giustiniani himself wrote on the back on
one of the bills: "Diego [the household steward], pay 78 scudi to Francesco
Solaro the silk merchant to cover the present bill and for everything else we
have gotten from his store for the use of the marquise, and get a receipt for
it." The marquis personally examined all of the items on the bill, from the
whalebones to the satin "made in Florence in the Persian style" to everything
else, along with their prices. But for his children and grandchildren who might
have found this note in the family archive, the relative significance of things
was inverted: it was no longer the uniqueness of the robe that determined
its being written down, but, on the contrary, the writing that called the robe
to attention and rendered it important.
The meaning of accounting changed with the transition from extraordinary
to quotidian record keeping. We begin to perceive this transformation
clearly in Maria Veralli's books. They not only contain the record of her
extraordinary expenses, but also of her ordinary daily payments. Unlike the
women examined above, Maria was not a widow. As a result the current
expenses of the household were not her duty, and the wages of servants or
necessities such as food did not figure among her expenditures. Like many
of her contemporaries, however, Veralli was overburdened with repeated
legal expenses. As mistress of the house, she had to fulfill her charitable duties,
which involved disbursing tips and alms, and she also had to discharge
worldly commitments that required the presentation of gifts. Many of these
REFLECTING ON THINGS :: 47
obligations were met through offering objects, sometimes in the marquise's
possession, but other times were met by being bought at impressive prices.
She already owned a Madonna of yellow amber and a crown of black amber,
both of which she had cleaned and polished to give to a distant relative. By
contrast, she purchased the thirty pounds of wax and refined sugar given
to her lawyers (14.15 scudi)" as well as the mantle "bought for Camilla
Piazza, my former chambermaid, in conformity with my duty" (8 scudi),19
the brocade and gold lace used to make a chasuble ( o.zo scudi)—a highly
decorated liturgical vestment worn to perform the Massm—and the pair
of gloves given to a gentlewoman (5.5o scudi).21 There were also gifts for
her children in the form of precious garments for her married daughters or
their children,22 fancy foods for her daughters who were nuns,23 and money
"to spend" or "to gamble with" for her sons. Despite these many gifts,
the fashionable items the marquise presumably bought for herself did not
amount to much: a few pairs of silk stockings or slippers, two sable mittens
that were ordered from Venice (61.6o scudi), a "coiffeuse for hairdressing"
of embroidered satin (9.6o scudi), and a little voile bonnet (0.50 scudi).24
Although some of these objectswere very expensive, their number isso small
as not to attract much attention.
Objects were even less prominent in the books of Orazio Spada, in which
current household expenses, consisting of food, candles, soap, oil, various
repairs, and little else—the wages for servants, the bills of doctors, lawyers,
and notaries, and lastly farm expenses—occupied almost the entirety of his
activity. Even the bill for the tailor appears singularly sober, though it was
laden with a great quantity of clothes for children and servants. Only in his
hats did Spada seem to let loose a little bit, purchasing cords "of mixed gold
and silver, well-made in the French style" and hats of "stylish double Lyon
wool" or "fine Florentine straw."25 Apart from these hats, the only things
that stand out from the background of his current expenses were six "big
stools" (pedestals) painted with the Spada coat of arms, and plants and
flowers for the palace garden in Piazza Capodiferro. In this last case, Spada
spent seven scudi for four vases of tulips, bought cedar, mulberry, myrtle,
thyme, and jasmine plants, and repeatedly had good dirt brought in.26 But
since he spent hundreds of scudi a month on things of an altogether different
sort—and carefully noted all their costs—these objects did not define the
nature of his account books.
The account books of hisson, Bernardino, and daughter-in-law,Vittoria,
both kept in their own hands, make an entirely different impression. Freed
from the responsibilities of household administration, these young people
48 :: CHAPTER TWO
could dedicate all of their income to nonessential or superfluous expenses.
From 1667 Bernardino enjoyed "an allowance of one thousand scudi per
year for the maintenance of me and my wife concerning dress, clothing, and
anything else we might need."27 Despite this, the young husband spent his
money more on tips and gifts than on the purchase of refined things. He
and his wife limited their luxuries to clothing, accompanied by temperate
indulgence in sorbets, "fresh water," and candies. Nonetheless, Bernardino
also spent money on having "musical arias" and songs copied, strings for a
guitar and a chittarino, carnival masks, various decks of playing cards, perfumed
oils and creams, a French wig, and some printed newspapers (Avvisi).
Hunting also cost money. On these occasions Bernardino had to procure
ammunition and gunpowder, distribute tips to his attendants, and pay off
his debts to the person who lent him a horse. His wife Vittoria's expenditures
were far more monotonous: alms, tips, and gifts constituted the majority of
entries, as usual. The young woman limited herself to paying the bills of the
tailor and purchasing ribbons and lace, the occasional dessert, or the odd
luxury object such as a fan, a tortoise-shell box inlaid with silver, or "two
carafes of turquoise crystal.""
I will return later to the classification and quality of these objects. Here it
is useful to pay attention to expenditures on what I have called tips and gifts.
Bernardino Spada distributed tips to the servants of his own household and
also to those of the Patrizi, his wife's family, as well as to the dependents of
his friends and acquaintances. He regularly sent gifts to his sisters and other
relatives who were nuns, in Rome and elsewhere. His sisters, cloistered in
the convent of Tor de' Specchi, received his gifts of sorbets, lemonades, fresh
fruit, chocolate, cooked dishes, flowers, pens made of brass and lapis lazuli,
and "a small box of many kinds of irons."29 He sent a book titled The Exercises
of St. Ignatius with a cover of tooled leather and clasps of silver, in
addition to a dozen illuminated saints painted on parchment and an equal
number of brass medallions, to a relative in Brisighella.3°The young man was
thus assiduous about cultivating relationships with members of his family.
He was equally solicitous about his relationships with the outside world: he
offered snacks in one of his vineyards, opened his house to "conversations,"
went to receptions in the Strozzi garden "to dine like the French" at least
twice a month, and participated in countless hunting expeditions.;' His account
books reveal an active social life, and the goods he bought often served
to promote and maintain its vibrancy. The same was true of the tipping: his
wife's first delivery in childbirth was celebrated with more than 20 scudi
worth of gifts distributed to at least twenty people.32
REFLECTING ON THINGS :: 49
Somethingsimilar emerges from hiswife's account books, although Vittoria's
relationships were generally limited to her relatives, as was often the case
with women. She was even more attentive than her husband in sending fresh
fruit, sweets, young chickens, pasties, and other delicacies to her cloistered
sisters and cousins. As mistress of the house she also had to buy little jewels
of all types—necklaces, rings, pendants, crowns, small medallions—to give
to her serving women and those of the her mother-in-law the marquise and
their vassals in Castel Viscardo, when she was called to serve as godmother
for baptisms and confirmations.
Besides expenses associated with relationships, there were expenditures for
what can be considered genuine domestic production. Every month Vittoria
bought ribbons for lace and silken thread for embroidering in quantities that
suggest she and her servingwomen used them to adorn her and her daughter's
clothing. With some regularity she recorded expenses for spinning hemp
or linen, weaving and blanching cloth, or harvesting silk after having sent
a culture of worms to Castel Viscardo.34 The purpose of these "household
fabrics" was not specified, but the bills of cloth merchants, ribbon venders,
tailors, and embroiderers demonstrate that recourse to the market was certainly
not superfluous.
Vittoria's personal account books are thus characterized by the absolute
preponderance of expenses associated with relationships and consumption,
among which I would include expenses for the production and decoration
of clothing. There were relatively few luxury items: a pair of fans, horn and
ivory combs, a few pieces of silver, and some jewelry. Vittoria also spent
money on having her hair done at least once a month, cushions sown "with
French needlework,"" her comb box painted with "figures and landscapes,"
and a "country walking stick" adorned with a silver pommel. The mixture
of these luxury objects with the continual expenses for ribbons, lace, gold
and silver thread, and swatches of satin that populate her account books
highlights rather than obscures their elegant superfluity. Above all, Vittoria
personally recorded these items in her own book, and this had a decided
influence on her perception of the things she bought.
Thirty years later another young wife had a similar experience when writing
her own "memory book." But right from the start, the tenor of Maria
Isabella Vecchiarelli Santacroce's account books was very different from that
of Vittoria Patrizi Spada. The first entries for expenditures, dating from the
early months of 1700, comprised various paintings "for my boudoir" and
a gilded, inlaid "little table" destined for the same room. In the following
pages there were more notes concerning the furnishing of her private room.
50 :: CHAPTER TWO
Hardly a month passed in which she did not record a payment for a new
piece of furniture or accessory: a gilded "display cabinet," six round chairs,
various carved shelves, "a mirror held up by five children with a chord that
they pretend to hold in their hand." Everything was always gilded.36 In addition,
Isabella noted the purchase of a box of teaspoons, some wooden
frames, two coffee cups of fine porcelain, a little card table made of olive
wood and "inlaid with Indian fig," a lacquered and gilded inner window for
her bedroom, a gold watch "with a tooled casing stamped with gold and a
chain of gilded silver," twelve "cups for chocolate and two soup cups, with
their saucers," and "a velvet purse with three table games with bone dice
and ninety tokens."37
The young woman also bought back a few objects from her father-inlaw
that had been part of her dowry—namely, two chandeliers, two silver
tankards, a porcelain cup, and various Bohemian crystal glasses. From a
pawnshop she redeemed a clock and a glove box, both made of silver." In
value if not in quantity, this kind of object assumed a position of the highest
importance in her account books. In buying those pieces of silver and crystal
back from her father-in-law, and in redeeming the other objects in the following
months, Isabella revealed that she wanted them for herself, to keep
them and probably also to show them in her "display case." It is precisely
through this act of purchasing, as she duly recorded, that things passed from
the anonymous condition of cash equivalents, in which goods were aimed
primarily toward increasing the value of a woman's dowry, to the nominal
condition of things to be protected and removed from the normal circuits
of exchange.
Bernardino Spada, Vittoria Patrizi, and Isabella Vecchiarelli kept their
own account books. The task of recording their expenses was not entrusted to
an accounting professional such as a household steward or secretary. This is
clearly reflected in the way in which they noted some expenditures, especially
those pertaining to food and drink. In his books, Orazio Spada recorded the
generic monthly entry of "expenses for the masters' table." By contrast, his
son and daughter-in-law specified what they purchased for each occasion:
every expenditure was thus connected, both on paper and in memory, to a
unique and specific event. Since Vittoria and Isabella were more involved with
the materiality of the kitchen and more cognizant of its secrets, they even detailed
the ingredients that went into particular dishes. As Vecchiarelli wrote,
"a total of more than 0.87scudi were spent for having had two dozen donuts
made with water for the nuns of Santa Anna, between the flour,sugar, anise,
and four loaves worth of yeast." The same was true for thread and cloth. Each
REFLECTING ON THINGS :: 51
of the two young women noted the quality—"two fingers large," "smooth,"
"fine," "diapered," and "wavy"—the quantity, and the unit price of every
piece of lace or ribbon she bought. By contrast, Orazio was presented with
the complete bills of the tailor or the merchant, certainly equally detailed,
but always organized in a way that tended to eliminate individual entries in
favor of the sum total of an expense. If recording expenditures influenced
the way people perceived or were conscious of what they bought, wives and
children must have reached a new understanding much earlier than their
husbands, fathers-in-law, and fathers.
Margherita Betti's Four Inventories
So far we have sought to understand how the taste for things could have
developed, and how such things, beyond their status as possessions, could
have aroused in their owners the desire to keep them rather than return
them to circulation. But to be more concrete, what were people actually
keeping? At first sight a postmortem inventory might appear to be the best
document for answering this question. The appearance of an object on such
a list is irrefutable proof that its owner had kept it until the very end. But
if an inventory enables us to know how the relationship between a person
and a good reached its conclusion, we are unable to reconstruct how it
began—that is, when the object entered into his possession. This is a wellknown
limitation of this type of documentation. An inventory can give us a
static picture of a patrimony at a precise moment in time, but cannot furnish
any information on the dynamics of its formation. Only the most fortunate
circumstances, producing a series of inventories staggered over time, can
offer a more complete perspective. One such example is Margherita Betti,
who died in 1669 and has left us four lists of her goods: the earliest is from
1644 and was drawn up for her first wedding, the second is from 1653 and
lists the goods restored to Betti after the death of her husband, the third was
made for her second wedding in 1656, and the last was drafted for her heirs
after her death in 1669.
In the lists' totality, the portrait that emerges of this woman demonstrates
her strong tendency to preserve virtually everything: most of the objects that
appeared in the first list are found in the last list twenty-five years later. This
is particularly true for the basic elements of domestic life such as furniture,
kitchen equipment, and tableware. It is not surprising that durable objects
like boxes and iron or copper pots and pans were preserved. The survival of
fragile objects such as porcelain is evidence that particular care was taken
52 :: CHAPTER TWO
to preserve them, and that she desired and knew how to protect them from
domestic accidents and the wear and tear of usage. Five or six pieces of fine
porcelain—very rare for Rome during that period—passed unharmed from
the first to the second marriage. Each time they were inventoried, probably
under Margherita'ssupervision, their quality and fineness were underscored.
Only in the final inventory, composed after her death, were they lumped
into the anonymous category of "thirty plates, large and small." Other precious
objects such as silverware were as jealously guarded: all the tankards,
trays, and tableware listed in her nuptial inventory were present in the final,
postmortem inventory. A little wooden case inlaid with ivory, two baby
Jesuses from Lucca, and an alabaster Madonna were preserved with similar
care. From her first marriage to her death, Margherita also preserved about
thirty books, which grew slightly in number toward the end of her life."
Curiously, they were excluded from her second nuptial inventory: perhaps
she had temporarily loaned them to someone or perhaps she did not want
to submit them to the juridical regime of the dowry, preferring to keep them
utterly unencumbered by such agreements.
The inclination to change seems more marked when discussing objects of
a more personal nature, especially those associated with the physical body:
from one inventory to another, the household linen, clothing, and jewelry
appear and disappear at a slightly steadier pace. Such changes were certainly
not fast paced, and the objects in question, especially the household
linen, were exposed to wear and tear over time. Nonetheless, the changes
are indicative of something more than a simple substitution of old and worn
things.
The case of clothing is most significant. The 1653 inventory that accompanied
the restitution of Margherita's goods after the death of her first
husband mentions the same garments that had been entered into the nuptial
inventory nine years earlier. Such evidence confirms the idea that matrimony
was the moment when women acquired most of their clothing, which was intended
to last for many years. As further proof of this hypothesis, the second
nuptial inventory (1656) lists three new outfits, complete with dress, corset,
sleeves and gown, and a sable hand warmer. The quality of these fabrics
suggests that widowhood had not endangered the woman in the least, but
on the contrary increased her resources: while her old outfits were all made
out of wool, more or less fine and expensive, these three were respectively
of damask, velvet, and lightweight silk. Their relationship with Margherita
was of short duration: by the time of her death these beautiful and precious
garments had disappeared, as did the wolf fur coat lined with red camel wool
REFLECTING ON THINGS :: 53
and the marten hand warmer that accompanied her second marriage. Given
the fate of the other valuable clothing discussed earlier, it is likely that these
had been sold or exchanged for something new. In their place were three or
four new dresses "for widows."
Her jewelry suffered a similar fate. An especially valuable gold "collar,"
a little cross made of rock crystal, and inexpensive "manacles" (bracelets)
all disappeared. A necklace of irregular pearls and various gold rings inlaid
with preciousstones took their place. The other twenty pieces of jewelry that
Margherita brought with her dowry from her first marriage passed to her
heirs unaltered twenty-five years later.
More drastic alterations of things appear in a list of knickknacks, and of
other decorative, desirable, or curious objects that filled her house. From one
inventory to another, a guitar, "three stones of sculpted rock salt," "four
busts of the heads of emperors," three umbrellas, and "a musket for hunting
birds" disappeared. "A portable clock with the gears on display," two
brass inkwells, "three little cases to weigh gold, with scales," "thirty pairs of
buttons embroidered with frogs," a fluid number of "balls made of various
gems," and four or five statuettes of the Madonna took their place. In all
likelihood, at least some of these new objects were the fruit of Margherita's
inheritance from her second husband, Feliciano Bonghi, but others she personally
purchased.4° Some of the furniture almost certainly came from her
husband—a bed, a table, a ladder for the study that opened like a book—in
addition to the little cases for weighing gold and a telescope. By contrast,
Margherita acquired the umbrellas, clock, four busts, and some of the stone
balls during her first widowhood. The same was true for a good number of
paintings, most conspicuously the portraits of some of her dead relatives. Was
it from them that the woman inherited the new objects in her possession?
Or did she give something away in exchange for these new furnishings? In
any case, Margherita was a great preserver of her possessions. An undated
document within the same fascicle explains that Feliciano Bonghi had to
pawn a series of objects to the Monte di Pieta, and then lists them: mostly
silver and paintings, but some household linen as well. Almost all of them
were redeemed upon her death.
Finally, the omissions that also characterize these inventories are interesting.
In the two oldest ones, Margherita was in possession of a flax comb,
which disappeared in the later inventories. And yet like many other women,
she continued to possess a significant quantity of linen and hemp, spun and
unspun. Did she turn to others rather than work them herself? Or did she
find it improper to record a tool used for manual labor?4'
54 :: CHAPTER TWO
Old, Used, and New
Margherita Betti left behind particularly rich documentation that has allowed
us to analyze the state of her goods at various moments in her life. No other
person included in my research sample has done likewise.42 Did other owners
preserve their possessions for a long time or did they rapidly exchange
them for other goods and objects? Although it is an indirect and approximate
indicator, the state of preservation listed for inventoried objects is the only
gauge we have for understanding their owners' relationship to their things.
As I have already suggested, these additional comments in the entries can only
be used in a suggestive fashion, especially since they appear in only one case
out of every two or three (or even more rarely for some classes of goods such
as paintings or those grouped under the category "Other"), and also because
we have no way of knowing whether an old object had not been exchanged
for another one, different but equally old, rather than for a new one. But for
lack of a better procedure I have constructed a table, divided into men and
women, that shows the percentile frequency of the adjectives "new," "used,"
and "old." So as not to run the risk of overestimating the new, I have limited
the analysis to inheritance inventories, excluding those for dowries.
New things were almost nonexistent,confined toclothing and some household
linen. This rough indexcorroborateswhat we saw in Betti's inventories:
modest changes in objects occurred for things pertaining to the physical body
of a person. Overall, women had a greater propensity toward preservation,
confirming that the core of their patrimony of clothing and linens was formed
at the moment of marriage through their trousseau.
Although clothes and linen were renewed every now and then, the absence
of the "new" decisively characterized the domestic environment. Only some
furniture and a few paintings were defined as such; everything else was either
used or old. Even more than furniture and paintings, the handcrafted artifacts
grouped under the phrase "Other"—which ran the gamut from knickknacks
to devotional dolls, clocks, and fans—were inevitably "old." And yet one
might have expected decorative, curious, or even courtly objects, due to their
nature, to be more responsive to the demands of novelty and fashion. To
a differing degree, their general state of wear and tear seems to have been
a measure of the affection with which they were preserved throughout the
lifetimes of their owners, more than a sign of the spread of a new propensity
toward consumption.
On the other hand, the report Camilla Pellegrina submitted to a notary
in 1645 concerning her actions as a guardian indicates that expenses such
REFLECTING ON THINGS :: 55
TABLE Z.I The number of objects defined as new, used, or old in postmortem
inventories
MEN
LINENS CLOTHING FURNITURE WALL HANGINGS PAINTINGS OTHER
New 64 33 13 0 2 0
Used 157 195 101 17 9 36
Old 70 117 166 15 21 86
Total 291 345 28o 32 32 12.2.
WOMEN
LINENS CLOTHING FURNITURE WALL HANGINGS PAINTINGS OTHER
New 4 8 1 o 0 0
Used To IZ 17 0 3 4
Old 24 zo 22 3 2 7
Total 38 40 40 3 5 11
as those for furniture, wall hangings, and similar domestic furnishings were
made once and for all at the moment of assembling a household. Pellegrina
was the mother, guardian, and trustee of the children of the late Tommaso
Busio. The family was certainly well off, since a carriage figures among their
expenses. The fact that they spent only 31.72. percent of their total expenses
on food also indicates that the family enjoyed an elevated lifestyle, comparable
to that of noble families. Only noble families were able to earmark 7o
percent of their expenses for nonfood consumption.43
Expenditures for "household furniture"-a rubric that generally included
all domestic furnishings of any kind-totaled a modest z percent, equal to
what was spent on alms. But "clothing," which assuredly included clothes
for mourning as well, did not amount to even a third of the expenses for
food. Since she had to account for her administration of a patrimony that
did not belong to her, Camilla Pellegrina probably avoided superfluous expenses
more than she would have if she had been completely free to act. In
fact, although expenses for food approached those of great personages such
as the Riccardi of Florence or the Odescalchi of Como, those for clothing
were decidedly more modest." Her behavior constitutes further proof that
the tendency to preserve rather than acquire new things was characteristic
of Romans of the middling classes during the seventeenth century.
TABLE Z.Z. Percentage of objects defined as new, used, or old in postmortem
inventories
MEN
LINENS CLOTHING FURNITURE WALL HANGINGS PAINTINGS OTHER
New 22.0 9.6 4.6 0.0 6.3 0.0
Used 54.0 56.5 36.1 53.1 28.1 29.5
Old 24.1 33.9 59.3 46.9 65.6 70.5
Total roo.0 100.0 100.0 roo.o 100.0 100.0
WOMEN
LINENS CLOTHING FURNITURE WALL HANGINGS PAINTINGS OTHER
New 10.5 20.0 2.5 0.0 0.0 0.0
Used 26.3 30.0 42.5 0.0 6o.o 36.4
Old 63.2 50.0 55.o 100.0 40.0 63.6
Total 100.0 I00.0 100.0 I00.0 100.0 I00.0
56 :: CHAPTER TWO REFLECTING ON THINGS :: 57
TABLE 2.3 Expenses made over the course of five years, by category
CATEGORY OF EXPENDITURE TOTAL PERCENTAGE
Spices and medicinals 2.5.87 0.51
Funerals 76.40 1.52
Food 1594.0 4
31.72
Various 1544.61 30.73
Carriage 1039.04 20.67
Clothing 534.62 10.64
Household furniture 107.00 2.13
Alms 104.45
z.o8
Total 502.6.03 100.00
Note: The document is not very clear, but it seems that her guardianship lasted from May I-,
1639, to December 31, 1644.
Exchange and Conservation
Affection for objects emerges even more clearly when we look at wills instead
of inventories. We have seen how normal it was to bequeath an object in the
place of, or in addition to, money. In some cases, good manners imposed
this practice. Etiquette forbade leaving money to a superior but not giving
him desirable or precious objects such as "a watch with a gold-enameled
case, a gift of the Prince my patron," given by Filippo della Molara to the
Princess of Nerola, "to do everything I can in appropriate recognition of
the infinite favors and priceless graces I have received from the aforementioned
lady."45 Good manners counseled the same behavior among equals,
especially among individuals of certain educational attainments such as the
lawyer Camillo Moretto or the ex-governor Francesco Maria Frollieri, both
of whom bequeathed books, paintings, or devotional objects to their relatives
and friends."
In many wills, especially women's, the bequest of an object assumed a less
formal, more intimate meaning. In these cases the bequests were goods that
had come into close contact with the testator, especially clothing, jewelry, or
linens. Too regular or frequent use, as wesee with "ordinary household clothing"
or the shirts that many women left to their servants, devalued objects.
Instead, others that were evidently worn only on special occasions and had
not suffered any damage—such as precious garments or jewelry—acquired
the capacity of creating a direct physical link between the deceased person
and her heir.47 This link could not only be forged with another person, but
also with a thing, which in its turn became a symbol of an abstraction: a
church altar or the rooms of a castle. Just as Dorotea Antolini left her silk
garments to some Roman altars, so too did Giulia Veronica Sforza Attendoli
Manzoli Cesi order that her most beautiful clothing be made into tapestries
for her husband's castles." Both kinds of bequests represented attempts to
preserve one's goods, to prevent their dispersal after one's own death, and
to guarantee their preservation over time.
Paradoxically, the same kind of concern is apparent in wills that called for
the immediate sale of goods. Those who left this kind of will did so not to
disperse all of their material possessions indiscriminately and transform them
into pure financial profit, but rather to protect the part of their patrimony
they deemed most precious.Just as Vincenzo Giustiniani sold his collections
and palaces to preserve them, and Ciriaco Mattei forbade the alienation of
his garden, but did not prohibit renting it or earmarking its earnings for its
maintenance,49 so too did other testators order the dispersal of their movable
goods to protect the unmovable part of their property, or to guarantee their
children's status as gentlemen through the acquisition of offices and knighthoods."
Others, not originally from Rome and perhaps without children,
sold their things to end their Roman experience, sending their resources back
to their place of birth, or alternately to sever ties with their original locality,
making themselves definitively Roman.51 The alienation of some types of
objects served to ratify the inalienability of others. Significantly, in many
cases these other goods were further protected by their incorporation into a
fedecommesso.S2 Such acts were not attempts simply to preserve goods but
to render them inalienable, thereby elevating them to a level superior in value
to those ordinary things that could be exchanged with impunity.
The Inalienability of Things
The nature of some things changed. They passed from the state of being
merchandise to becoming individualized objects and therefore essentially
inalienable. While this transformation was not irreversible, given that even
58 :: CHAPTER TWO REFLECTING ON THINGS :: 59
the most venerated of objects could be put up for sale at some point, it is clear
enough from the sources we have examined that some kinds of goods—precious
fabrics,silver, especially manufactured items of particular quality—lent
themselves better than others to this process of "singularization." At the same
time the great variety of manufactured objects in circulation multiplied the
number of possible candidates for inalienability. Literary sources, as well as
the documents we have examined, support this view, though few of them
are explicit on this point. It is worthwhile to compare the paucity of terms
Leon Battista Alberti used in the fifteenth century to describe the "precious
things" to be jealously guarded for the household (no more than four: "silver,
tapestries, clothing, and gems"), and the lexical variety that characterized
the discourse of Sabba da Castiglione a century later." In his Memoirs he
spoke of statues, medals, cameos, paintings, prints, tapestries, rugs, Turkish
muskets, and many other "new, fantastic, bizarre, and ingenious things that
come from the Levant or from Germany.""
Alberti offered the most explicit declaration of the material anchors—in
other words, the "inalienable goods"—of the urban elites to which he belonged:
"the house, land, and the workshop" were the sole authentic sources
of "utility and profit" for the family. Insofar as they were stable goods, they
were capable of producing goods that were likewise durable, able to be
"saved and stored," that is, preserved." By contrast, money existed in an
antithetical state because it was volatile by nature: it could not be stowed
away without the complete loss of utility, and yet in the moment in which
one used it, there was nothing "more apt to be lost, more difficult to save,
more dangerous to abuse, more irksome to get back, more easy to disperse,
spend, or let it go up in smoke.""Alberti's Four Books on the Family exalted
the value of that which was immobile, stable, and permanent. This attitude
was not in complete contrast with the principle of alienability, since it was
"useful for the father of the family to be a bigger seller than buyer."s7 But if
the products of the workshop or the villa could be sold to obtain money for
meeting inevitable expenses, their alienation was virtuous only insofar as it
supported the preservation of what was truly important: the land and the
house, with all the "precious things" that were kept within. This permanence
created the possibility for the family itself to survive over time and to endure
across generations.
Two centuries later and in a very different context, the Roman middling
classes with which we are concerned were less rich and enjoyed infinitely
less prestige than Alberti. They definitely did not belong to the urban elite.
Some of them possessed vineyards, but never as full proprietors, only as
perpetual renters (a legal practice known as emphyteusis). Thesame was true
for their houses and especially their workshops, which they usually held in
rent. In their patrimonies, the proportion of their wealth in real estate was
rather small, while the proportion of non—real estate income was growing:
other forms of wealth, private credit bonds, bills of exchange, shares of the
public debt, commercial credit, and such. And yet even our early modern
Romans pursued transcendent objectives that aimed toward guaranteeing
the survival of the family over time by instituting fedecommessi over their
goods and dictating the rules of succession for the generations to come. As
we have seen the house was the most tangible sign of this continuity. But
objects also discharged this function.
The increase in manufactured goods in circulation broadened the palette
of things that could be used to form a nucleus of inalienable goods in which
one could entrust one's permanence over time. When examined closely we
see that the process of continual exchange between objects and money I have
illustrated was actually an instrument for reaching a very different end. If
it was true that everything has a history and can pass from the category of
individualized object to that of merchandise and vice versa, it was also true
that this sequence of transformations made sense only within a more general
system in which the movement of some goods was only the means for guaranteeing
the stability and prospective inalienability of others.
Material Goods and Immaterial Things"
What was in the houses of middling-class Romans in the seventeenth century?
What did men and women keep for themselves and thereby avoid exchanging
for other goods or services, at least temporarily? Even more fundamentally,
how were their homes organized? Inventories are able to give some kind
of response to all of these questions, as we will see in the next chapters.
The different behavior Margherita Betti and others showed with respect to
various classes of goods suggests the need to break down the sample into
two subgroups, which I would define as "material goods" and "immaterial
things." The first groupconsists of those goods that had to do with a person's
material well-being, such as furnishings, clothing, tableware, and so forth;
the second group consists of those goods that served essentially for nourishing
the imagination or one's aesthetic sensibilities, such as paintings, books,
devotional objects, ornaments, and the like.
REFLECTING ON THINGS :: 61Go :: CHAPTER TWO
:-L111111111 111111111111111111111111111111111111111 11111111111111111111111111111111111LPart
Two
MATERIAL GOODS
=711111111111 11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111FF
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
CHAPTER THREE
Furniture
The Specialization of Rooms
In what kinds of homes did seventeenth-century Romans live? In the high
and narrow houses with only one room per floor that can still be found
in some streets in the center of Rome, or in apartments similar to ours,
with all of the rooms on the same floor? Were rooms distributed according
to modern criteria, which assign a precise function to each room and
separate public space from private space, or in the "traditional" manner,
with mixed purposes and functions? It is difficult to answer these questions.
Most of the inventories I have studied catalog objects by type rather than by
room—paintings, furniture, linen, kitchenware, and such—and therefore do
not specify the number of rooms in a house or where each object was kept.'
But notaries listed the placement of objects for twenty-nine of the men and
seven of the women. We thus have information on the division of space and
the distribution of various goods within the household. In approximately
twenty other cases the quantity and quality of furnishings suggest the possible
dimensions of the house.
Although fairly common, inventories were nonetheless documents tied
to social status and are therefore capable of providing information chiefly
on the well-off sectors of the population. The majority of their dwellings
consisted of four or more rooms surrounding a primary structure composed
of a room and a hall.
The room and hall formed the central structure of every kind of house
and were always present, whether or not there were other types of rooms.
Between big houses and little houses there were enormous differences,
however, and not only in size. The kitchen appeared regularly only in the
largest dwellings and was found only once among the smallest ones. Only
in large houses was it possible to find rooms on different floors, in addition
to a cellar or a "roof room." Nonetheless, there was at least one example of
a small house with three rooms arranged like a tower, one above the other.2
As the number of rooms increased, their distribution on different levels became
more regular and could amount to a genuine "second apartment"
above or below the first. In these cases there were also courtyards, loggias,
hallways, and internal stairways. The largest dwellings, which reached or
exceeded twenty rooms, sometimes had a "third apartment" situated on the
third floor.
Overall, households were structured horizontally by apartments, rather
than vertically by buildings. This is a significant fact. According to studies of
this subject, the apartment was "the most important contribution made by
the Renaissance to the civilizing of life indoors."' In treatises on architecture
such as those of Sebastiano Serlio or Vincenzo Scamozzi, the term appartamento
designated a whole series of rooms, from the "principal" to the "middling"
and "minor" ones—the latter to be used by only one person, within a
much larger house.4 This is basically the structure of apartments in Roman
noble palaces.' In middle-sized houses, by contrast, the term appartamento
seems to have designated a more generic, organic unity of rooms that all occupied
thesame floor. But this format could be repeated on a second or third
story, thusshrinking the distance that separated the houses of the bourgeoisie
from those of the aristocrats.
In addition to the vertical or horizontal orientation of houses, historians
have also been interested in the functional specialization of rooms, from
the names by which they were designated to the kinds of furnishings they
contained.6 Current research on early modern Europe has shown that the
basic functions of sleeping, cooking, eating, and entertaining could all occur
indiscriminately within the same spaces, even in the houses of the well to
do.7 Contemporary paintings and prints confirm this impression, offering
images of families united around a dinner table that stands beside a luxurious
bed.'
Yet Roman inventories demonstrate not only that Roman families rather
precisely designated the various rooms of their homes—"room," "hall,"
"kitchen" (if one existed), and so forth—but also reveal how the kinds of
furnishings in each room reflected these designations. Only in the largest
houses did the multiplication of rooms render some names generic, such as
"first room," "second room," or "the next room." Rarely did a space defined
as a "room" and one defined as a "hall," let alone one called a "kitchen,"
66 :: CHAPTER THREE
TABLE 3. I House sizes
MEN WOMEN TOTAL
room 7 4 II
2-3 rooms T2 (3 + 9") io(6+ 4*) 22
4 or more rooms 20" 3* 23
Note: The asterisks mark figures that were provided by the inventories themselves. the other
figures were deduced from the quantity and quality of furnishings.
contain the same type of furniture and movable goods. The furnishings of
one room were clearly distinguished from those in another even during the
first decades of the seventeenth century.9 Out of eighty-one beds for which
we know the exact placement, only six were in a hall and three in a kitchen,
while all the others were confined to bedrooms. On the other hand, cupboards
and sideboards were found above all in halls, and the same was true
for chairs and stools.
Beds in rooms, dressers and chairs in halls: the functional distinction
among spaces in eating, sleeping, and entertaining appeared to be fairly
substantial and in line with our present customs."' These Roman houses thus
present a set of characteristics that, from our current point of view, could
be defined as modern. Seventeenth-century Rome, like other important cities,
was at the forefront of the process of reorganizing domestic spaces that
eventually occurred in all of Europe.
Like rooms and halls the sixteen kitchens about which we have information
also had their own proper furnishings and were thus quite distinct
from other rooms. Here, too, the specific use of the space was marked by a
certain indicator, in this case by andirons, which were signs of the existence
of a fireplace. As the table below shows, however, not every kitchen had
andirons, especially if it belonged to a man. It is difficult to determine what
this absence signifies. Perhaps some fireplaces did not have andirons or the
andirons belonged to the wives of the dead men and did not make it into
the inventory. This seems to have been the case for Polidoro Neruzzi who,
as owner of a fourteen-room house, possessed a great quantity of paintings
and decorative objects but remained almost completely bereft of furniture.
FURNITURE :: 67
TABLE 3.2 Distribution of beds, dressers, and chairs, by type of room
MEN
ROOM ROOM HALL KITCHEN
WOMEN
ROOM HALL KITCHEN
Beds 1.3
Dressers 0.5
Chairs z.6
0.3 o.z beds 1.3 0.2 o.o
1.6 dressers o.7 1.7
9.0 chairs 3.5 4.5
TABLE 3.3 Distribution of andirons
ROOM MEN WOMEN
Room
Hall
Kitchen
0.3
0.2
0.7
0.2
0.2
1.0
Perhaps sometimes a brazier was used rather than a fireplace. Nonetheless,
the absence of essential kitchen equipment is not all that surprising. Every
study of inventories has shown that being able to cook was almost a luxury
among seventeenth-century homes and within the grasp of only a minority
of people." Fireplaces were rarer in other rooms, judging by the absence of
the equipment that usually accompanied them. Sometimes braziers could
provide a modicum of heat, but overall it seems that people made do with
less warmth.
Words and things did not always correspond perfectly, and the apparent
exceptionality of Rome must be reconsidered. In at least ten homes, pots,
pans, colanders, graters, and other items of the kitchen were kept in rooms
bearing a different name, usually the hall but also the bedroom or, more often,
the imprecise "other room." On the other hand, the kitchen itself could
68 :: CHAPTER THREE
contain furniture that had nothing to do with the preparation of food. For
instance, two beds, two "shop cabinets for paintings," and a studiolo were
found in the kitchen of the painter Raspantini.'2
Furniture
The functional differentiation of rooms, still very fluid at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, was increasingly more pronounced toward the end of
the century in the great cities of Europe. In Rome, by contrast, the specialization
of domestic spaces developed early, and there wassubstantial continuity
between the first and last decades of the century. This was also true with
respect to furniture." Even in this area the seventeenth century witnessed a
progressive abandonment of "horizontal" organization—exemplified by the
Renaissance chests—in favor of a more "vertical" organization, that is, one
defined by wardrobes and dressers."But subdividing the totality of furniture
into four distinct periods (z6zo, 164o, i66o, and 1700) does not reveal any
clear developmental tendency. On the contrary, variations from one period
to another seem random, due more to the number and particularities of individual
inventories than to a precise tendency toward change. In any case,
chests continued to be present in people's homes and coexisted with more
innovative kinds of furnishings. Given the irrelevance of chronology, I have
preferred to analyze the distribution of furniture using the total data for the
whole century in order to utilize more consistent samples.
The per capita distribution of furniture reveals the relative poverty of
women, a condition that will be discussed frequently in the course of my
analysis. This appears undeniable even when considering the fact that a
third of female inventories were dowries (not patrimonies) and that women's
furniture was probably underrepresented as a result. This proviso is only
valid to a certain degree, since it was quite common for a bed and a chest
to be part of a dowry. Yet even beds and chests were proportionally more
male than female. Women could boast preeminence only in the possession
of braziers and chamber pots, and only in the case of beds, washbasins, and
cupboards was their property not so different from that of men. The disparity
is particularly notable for all types of chairs and tables, underscoring the
fact that women's rooms were on the whole more "private" than those of
men and were not furnished to receive outsiders.
The measure of per capita distribution is partially misleading. It tells us
how much furniture a person owned, but not how someone's rooms were
actually furnished. This is precisely what interests us here. We have already
FURNITURE :: 69
TABLE 3.4 Amount of furniture per head (46 men and 3o women)
TYPE OF FURNITURE MEN WOMEN
Writing desks
Counters
0.13
0.22.
Braziers 0.13
Sideboards 1 .35
0.57
Chests 3.83
2..70
Little chests 0.78 0.43
Cembalos and spinets 0.19 o.o6
Dressers and wardrobes 1.60 0.93
Cupboards 0.54 0.30
Cradles 0.07 0.03
Windows 0.2.4 0.10
Prie-dieux 0.78 0.40
Washbasins 0.30 0.20
Simple beds 0.76 0.63
Beds in a cupboard o.z6 0.07
Luxury beds 1.00 o.6o
Cupboards 0.15 0.13
Dressing tables 0.2.0
Shelves o.65 0.03
Chairs 9.89
3.8o
Armchairs 1.70 0.77
Chamber pots 0.33 0.53
Stools 3.77 1.2.0
TABLE 3.4 Continued
TYPE OF FURNITURE MEN WOMEN
Stools with armrests 1.33 0.40
Pedestals 0.59 0.07
Studioli 0.93 0.40
Tables o.8o 0.33
Coffee tables 1.74 0.83
Total 23.08 8.36
seen that the homes of women weresmaller than those of men and had fewer
rooms. If we keep this fact in mind and adopt the distribution of furniture
by total number of rooms rather than merely by the gender of the testator,
a strikingly different picture emerges.
Subdividing objects, while taking into account the number of rooms, transforms
the relative poverty of women into relative wealth. If one considers
the specific subgroup of chests, dressers, and sideboards, the abundance of
female furniture becomes even more apparent: almost three pieces per room
in the houses of women, compared to only 1.5 for men. Even studioli, which
we customarily associate with the very male space of the educated and the
scholarly, appeared slightly more frequently in women's houses. On the other
hand, the smaller number of chairs and stools that women owned reflected
the different nature of their houses, which were not only smaller but also
less furnished with antechambers and halls.
Fewer chairs and more stools, fewer tables and more coffee tables, more
albeit less elaborate beds: there was a lot of female furniture, in short, but
it did not create more sumptuous rooms. An examination of materials confirms
this impression. Albuccio, a soft wood similar to fir, characterized the
furniture of women much more than it did that of men.
The apartments of women were more full of furniture than those of men,
but their furniture was of lesser quality and often second rate. This relative
abundance was not determined by greater wealth, which was a special
FURNITURE :: 71
TABLE 3.5 Number of furniture by specific room (196 male and 26 female)
TYPE OF FURNITURE MEN WOMEN
Writing desks
Counters
0.03
o.o6
Side tables 0.22 0.46
Chests 0.69 1.23
Little chests o.zo o.38
Cembalos and spinets o.zo
Dressers and wardrobes 0.03 0.35
Cupboards 0.35 0.2.7
Cradles 0.10
Prie-dieux 0.02. 0.15
Washbasins 0.15 0.04
Simple beds o.o6 0.27
Beds within a cupboard 0 .0 4 0.08
Luxury beds 0.17 0.19
Cupboards 0.01
Dressing table 0.03
Shelves 0.13
Writing tables 0.03
Chairs 2.09 2.00
Armchairs 0.37 0.15
Chamber pots 0.03
Stools 0.57 0.27
Stools with armrests 0.2.7 0.42
TABLE 3.5 Continued
TYPE OF FURNITURE MEN WOMEN
Pedestals o.14 Studio/i
0.21 0.2.3
Tables 0.13 o.o8
Coffee tables o.35 0.42
Total 6.58 6.99
Note: The sample for women is so small because the majority of female inventories listed
goods without specifying the room in which they were found.
TABLE 3.6 Type of wood utilized
TYPE OF WOOD MEN WOMEN
Albuccio (fir)
Walnut
Total
36.44%
63.56%
i00%
43.07%
59.93%
i00%
privilege of men. The taste for things was at play here. More statistics will
help us understand the dynamics.
Children's Furniture and Furniture by Occupation
Although it had a young population with a high percentage of children,
seventeenth-century Roman society did not develop a material culture that
allotted a specific place to childhood.'s There were very few cradles in these
inventories (four altogether, between men and women), just as there was
little clothing, toys, or other objects intended for children. Even the account
books of nobles are characterized by the rarity of purchases for children:
FURNITURE :: 73
a few articles of clothing now and then or some pairs of shoes. For this reason
the descriptions of children's things owned by the painter Raspantini
are particularly touching, such as the wood-ribbed crib lined with cloth
and red damask, the "high seat on which little children sit for dinner," the
"little chair and chamber pot for children," the "two small seats for children
to play in," and little beds on rollers." Save for another "reed-cradle lined
inside and out with fine needlework" and a "cart and a clothes-warmer with
a seat for children," mentioned in a dowry inventory of 1700, these are all
the children's furniture I have found.17
Nonetheless, the rich merchant Giovanni Rotoli, who died in z62.8, had
a room in his home called the "children's study," sparsely furnished with a
bench "for studying," a table, a large empty dresser, and an old spinet. There
was a brazier to keep the children comfortable and perhaps to increase their
dedication to their studies." Raspantini was also unique among the people I
studied in having a portrait of his little son.° A few people, all of them male,
had some toys among their children's things such as "puppets for children,"
little carts, and horse figurines. The only doll I found was given as a gift by
the Santacroce family to the daughter of the imperial ambassador.2°
The Santacroce bills furnish further information on the objects intended
for children at the beginning of the eighteenth century. More loquacious than
the notaries who drew up the inventories, a carpenter asked to be paid for
having "fit the infant's cradle that is kept in the bed, raised the cover again,
made the seat, put the bed frame back together, and set it up in front of the
seat so that the infant can play."21 A year later, with the birth of Scipione and
Maria Isabella's second child, their needs increased. The carpenter presented
a new bill for having "made the feet of a dinner cradle out of worked and
polished fir for the little marquis, fixed the cradle for keeping the infant in
bed, and fixed the roller bed with four heels to make it higher for the little
Master."22 Yet another year later, a third bill reported, "four pieces of wood
for the bed of the little master Marcello to make four small columns so that
the covering-net does not fall on the infant."23 Thus we discover that there
were three different kinds of beds for children, according to their age and
relationship with their wet nurse: a basinet to keep by her side in bed, a
genuine cradle, and a little roller bed with netted sides.
The material culture of childhood in the Santacroce family was rather
sophisticated. Some time later, the general inventory of movable goods,composed
upon the death of the old Marquis Antonio, adds further details to
our picture, but it also demonstrates that the specialization of rooms and
furnishings did not go beyond what we have already seen. The children were
74 :: CHAPTER THREE
given two rooms, contiguous with those of their mother. Apart from some
regular furniture for the nurses, the first room—called "that of the little masters"—contained
"two chairs made out of hollowed wood for the infants,"
a "wicker cradle with wooden feet," and the netted bed we have just seen.
Another wicker cradle and the little cradle kept in the nurse's bed were in
the next room, that "of the women." In the children's room there was also
a "chamber pot in a frame with a majolica casing and a red damask cover
used by the most illustrious Marquise Maria Isabella." A lady did not keep
her chamber pot in the room where she slept or received but relegated it to
her children's room, which was certainly less public than her own.
If children had relatively little furniture, the servants had almost none.
Rotoli and Raspantini each had a bed for their male or female servant, and
the blacksmith Giunti had one in the workshop for his apprentices.24 That
is all. There was somewhat more differentiation between the furniture of
masters and servants (still defined as "family," accord to the Latin usage) in
the matter of sheets, tablecloths, and napkins, which at least five inventories
described as "fine" and "rough, for the family's use."
By contrast, "technical" furniture used for work was quite numerous and
also tended to be clearly distinguishable, since whoever drew up the inventory
did not neglect to specify the professional use for which the furniture was
intended. We are thus able to form an idea of the kind of furnishings found
in the workshop. Counters were obviously the most common—they could
simply be called "for the workshop" or, more specifically, "for commercial
measuring"—and especially chests of all types, from large ones to small ones
"for counting money." There were also more unexpected and sophisticated
objects, such as the twenty "display cases with their curtains"—glass boxes
with cloth coverlets—of the Lirighetti company, or the "display case for
draperies" and the "podium or commercial writing desk with its cabinet and
money case" in the same workshop, or the new display cabinet "with glass
windows" that a dealer in fans owned.25
The Value of Furniture
In twelve inventories the description of objects was accompanied by an estimate
of their value. Naturally, this value depended on their quality as well
as their state of preservation. More elusively, the estimate was also linked
to the interests of the person who drew up the document: in two cases one
has the clear impression that the state of wear and tear was knowingly
exaggerated to lower the value of the objects. It is likely that the contrary,
FURNITURE :: 75
TABLE 3.7 Value of furniture (in scudi)
FURNITURE NUMBER
MINIMUM
VALUE
AVERAGE
VALUE
MAXIMUM
VALUE
Luxury beds II 4.00 28.54 75.00
Beds 9 o.6o 5.15 18.00
Sideboards I2 1.00 3.65 6.00
Cupboards 1.20 1.67 3.00
Dressers 5 0.90 2.68 6.00
Closets 5 3.50 8.40 20.00
Chests and trunks 36 0.30 2.12 5.00
Chairs 85 0.0 2.41 5.00
Studioli 4 o.6o 3.65 7.00
Tables and coffee tables 18 0.20 2.95 30.00
overestimation, was equally as frequent. As a result it is not surprising that
the portrait that emerges from our analysis shows a great range of values,
especially in the case of beds and tables. These kinds of furniture ranged
from very simple models, made out of ordinary wood, to extremely elaborate
ones, made out of precious wood, richly carved, gilded, inlaid, with other
expensive materials added on (bronze for the bed frames, for instance, or
marble tops for the tables).
The same was true for chairs, which could be made from hay but also of
velvet, damask, or "French needlework" at the extreme level of refinement.
Likewisestudioli varied from a small piece of simple walnut furniture of little
compartments to a precious piece of craftsmanship with inlays of ebony or
carved figures.
Some Concrete Examples
Individual inventories offer a more evocative image of domestic spaces than
aggregate numbers and relative averages. The first correlation is the obvi-
76 :: CHAPTER THREE
ous one between wealth on the one hand and the variety of furnishings and
number of rooms on the other. The two-room home of Ippolita Venturola,
a widow who died in 162.6, was very desolate, for instance.26 Her bedroom
contained only a luxury bed of fir and walnut, with darkened columns supporting
a simple cloth canopy, and two fir chests that stored her clothing and
linens. Her hall had a dresser containing majolica plates, four leather chairs
with armrests, three wooden stools, and a walnut coffee table. She had no
paintings, wall hangings, or furnishings for the hearth, of which there was
none in any case. There were not even any kitchen items. Nonetheless, this
less-than-well-off woman possessed silverware, probably received aswedding
gifts or repayment for some important service.27
The apartment of Porzia Taglina (d. 1666) was richer than that of Ippolita
Venturola. It also comprised two rooms. In her bedroom she had a
bed complete with a yellow and red canopy made of wool and cotton thread,
two lion-footed chests, a studiolo with compartments, and a coffee table.
The walls were decorated with an impressive eight paintings, large and small.
In the hall there was a cupboard of fir and walnut, a smaller cupboard, and
a little chest, as well as two calfskin chairs, a velvet chair, three stools, and
a coffee table. Here too the walls were ornamented with paintings, and the
presence of andirons and kitchenware suggests the existence of a hearth and
the possibility of cooking in the household.28
The households of two men, Ippolito Giunti and Bartolomeo Piantarella
(d. 1645 and 2646), were very similar to that of Porzia Taglina.29 The apartment
of Maria de Litteris (d. 1667) was more sumptuous, with three rooms.
The door to her hall was decorated with worked leather panels varnished
with red and gold, the dresser was entirely of walnut, and on one of the two
sideboards there was a studiolo "with various carved puppets." Some forty
paintings covered the walls and depicted a variety of subjects, from the portrait
of Cardinal Ottoboni to that of a cobbler, from flowers to landscapes
or battles. In the room, the usual walnut luxury bed with gilded knobs was
covered with a colored thread-and-silk canopy, flanked by a prie-dieu with
tortoise-shell columns, a closet in two pieces, and two large chests. There
were some large devotional paintings on the walls and many other small
tondos or other forms. Remarkably enough, this home also had a kitchen
furnished with three chests, a dresser "with a stair-like shelf above," a coffee
table, a stool, and a washbasin. Two pairs of andirons attest to the presence
of a hearth."
A similar typology in terms of the distribution of room and furnishings is
found in the rented houses, such as that leased in 1667 to the furrier Pietro
FURNITURE :: 77
Antonio Vittori (three rooms). His few pieces of furniture were essential
ones—in the hall a large chest, a table, four chairs, and seven stools, in the
room another chest, a luxury bed with tortoise-shell columns and carved
knobs, a prie-dieu, and a stool—but all of walnut and of good make. As in
the previous case, the hall door was decorated with green- and gold-varnished
worked leather, and the walls were adorned with around fifty paintings and
a mirror in a gilded and painted frame. The subjects of these paintings were
all secular, and it is worth lingering on them, especially since the home was
being rented. Many were history paintings, such as that of Acteon, Europa,
or Tancred and Clorinda. Others were landscapes, flowers, or simply "nude
women" flanked by cupids or gold vases. There was even a recent portrait of
the tenant himself. Some precious frames, "made of lapis lazuli and gold,"
offer further proof of the relative riches in this rented home. The bedroom
walls were also covered with more than thirty paintings, but these were all
on devotional subjects. Rarer was the "weapons rack" present in the same
room, not to mention the harquebus, swords, pistol, and dagger that filled
it. Andirons, braziers, and kitchenware completed the apartment.31
The typology of rooms became richer and more complicated as their
number increased. The simplest additions to the basic structure of room and
hall were a kitchen and a third or fourth room, often situated beneath the
roof or on a lower level on a different floor. Still, there is no lack of evidence
that some apartments were organized vertically rather than horizontally.
The inventory of Alessandro Tinelli (d. 1645), a spaghetti vendor, mentions
a "roof room," a "room in the middle," and three other rooms "on the
ground floor.""
The multiplication of rooms did not entail a proportional increase in the
furniture present in each room. The furnishings of the halls of Margherita
Betti and Francesco Raspantini (five and seven rooms, respectively) were
much reduced with respect to some of those we examined earlier. Margherita
possessed only a chest, a cupboard containing some pieces of silver, and
a closet, all of walnut. There were nine portraits on the walls, three little
landscapes, and four devotional paintings. Raspantini had a chest, a dresser
(of fir and walnut), an arms rack, four chairs, and a tripod with a basin for
washing one's hands. He also owned a cembalo "with its feet and leather
covering."
Their bedroom furnishings were more interesting. Margherita had a little
trunk full of books, three small but expensive ebony chests and another of
ivory-inlaid wood, a cupboard, some twenty chairs, a large walnut table
"with a rounded frame," and three coffee tables with their studioli. Apart
78 :: CHAPTER THREE
from the usual wooden luxury bed covered with a canopy and flanked by a
prie-dieu, the room also contained a "small bed with a headboard gilded in
the Neapolitan style" and a "seminary-like cot, with three benches and four
tables." The doors were adorned with satin or leather palls, and the presence
of andirons suggests that there was also a fireplace, a rarity in bedrooms.
There were a few mirrors on the walls and about thirty paintings, not all
on religious subjects. The furnishings of Raspantini's bedroom were similar.
Here too there were a dozen chairs of various kinds, five coffee tables
with studioli on top, a dresser, two cupboards, and two trunks, as well as
the usual luxury bed accompanied by a prie-dieu. There were hints of color
coordination as well: the palls that covered the doors were of the same red
and yellow hues as the canopy on the bed. Six devotional paintings hung
on the walls."
Even the larger homes of the lawyers Negrelli and Pari (nine and twelve
rooms) did not differ much from the arrangements we have just seen. Both
had a study with shelves for books, benches for reading, chairs, stools, and
paintings on the walls. Negrelli's paintings were of varioussubjects, whereas
Pari had rather appropriately chosen "six portraits of the most famous writers
on legal affairs." But the same kinds of furnishings that we have already
seen in smaller homes continued to adorn their hall and other rooms.34 The
same was true for the Lirighetti merchants, whose house had an impressive
thirteen rooms. Differences in profession and wealth (as expressed in the
dimensions of the house) did not affect lifestyle.33 Apart from differing social
status as expressed in the right to adopt certain titles ("illustrious and most
excellent" for lawyers, "magnificent" or at best "illustrious" for merchants),
their tenor of life unified them all in a single "middling" class. There was one
exception: the hall, study, and at least one other room in the homes of both
lawyers had sumptuous leather wall hangings that were gilded or varnished
with gold, silver, and red.
Only with the goldsmith Cangiani do we find a true qualitative leap,
not so much in the number of rooms—fourteen, only one more than the
Lirighetti—as in the quality of furnishings. His home resembled the typical
dwelling of aristocratic Romans, characterized by a series of antechambers
almost devoid of furniture and instead decorated with statues and paintings,
which led finally to the bedroom of the owner of the house. The first room
was furnished with only four chairs, portraits of his mother and father, and
a mirror. The windows had tambours protruding over the road, which was
an absolute rarity. The next room was adorned with a profusion of tapestries
and a frieze with red, gold, and azure glazes. There was little furniture here:
FURNITURE :: 79
six chairs "done in French needlework," a coffee table with "various semipreciousstones"
in a carved frame, and sixstools or pedestalssurmounted by
gesso statues.There was another mirror on the wall and three paintings done
by an ordinary hand."The room that followed, however, was dominated by
a luxury bed with carved and gilded columns, and covered by a silk and red
damask canopy. The bed was surrounded by a polished walnut chest with a
lock, four chairs with inlaid backs and another with "purple-and-silver damask
fringed with gold," a little armchair of "feminine" green damask, and
four stools that matched the chairs. The walls were covered by a profusion
of leather hangings, varnished with gold, azure, and red in various designs of
flower vases, over which presided a portrait of the owner of the house. The
next room opened onto a loggia and reproduced the same scheme: a luxury
bed with a bright red damask canopy, a chair of red hide, and three small
armchairs of green damask, a dressing table of red silk embroidered with
gold, and an ebonystudiolo inlaid with ivory having ten little compartments
and a cover. Next was a dining room covered with leather hangings of gold,
silver, and red and furnished with a large walnut table, a coffee table, chairs,
stools, and "a cembalo or spinet with a tripod covered in red leather." The
loggia itself is worthy of attention because it contained an uncertain number
of vases filled with carnations, bitter oranges, and other flowers.
Equally impressive was the value of this furniture. The two luxury beds
were worth 75 and 70 scudi, the coffee table of precious stones was 30
scudi, the hangings in the form of flower vases were z5 scudi, the chairs with
French needlepoint were 3.5 scudi apiece, the inlaid studiolo was 7 scudi,
and a closet adorned with mother-of-pearl and two sideboards, all stored in
another room, were Io scudi each.
Situated on the first floor, the five initial rooms were by far the most sumptuous
and probably the ones shown to visitors. More modest furnishings
characterized those situated on the second floor. The leather wall hangings
had largely disappeared, and in their place appeared paintings: twenty-six
of the thirty-eight paintings in the house were concentrated in this "second
apartment." Vincenzo Giustiniani was right when he maintained that paintings
performed the same decorative function as the varnished leather wall
hangings.37 Even the values of the two kinds of objects were not that different:
the eleven paintings in the "room that opened onto the corridor above the
loggia," all done "by an ordinary hand," were worth Iz.40 scudi in total,
which was about the same as the hangings that decorated the room with the
cembalo Ioscudi). Some of the paintings had a more than ornamental function,
however; the portraits of his ancestors in the first room demonstrated
8o :: CHAPTER THREE
TABLE 3.8 Value of the furnishings in the Cangiani house (in scudi)
ROOM
TOTAL VALUE OF
FURNISHINGS
Hall 12.70
First adjoining room 94.2.0
Second room 125.50
Room above the loggia 85.6o
Adjoining room zo.80
Kitchen 3.3o
Room adjoining the kitchen 10.90
Loggia 4.00
Room that opened onto the
corridor above the loggia
56.90
Room that faced the loggia 4.10
The next loggia 0.50
Room at the top of the stairs 21.20
The little adjoining room 23.60
Total 463.40
the antiquity of the house and the genealogy of its inhabitants. Finally, the
wealth of this home may also be gauged through the fact that two rooms in
the second apartment—aside from the kitchen—were furnished with andirons
and thus fireplaces.
An "Almost Noble" Lifestyle
The series of antechambers leading to the bedroom of the owner of the
house is even more marked in the inventory of the rich merchant, banker,
FURNITURE :: 81
and money changer Giovanni Rotoli (d. 16z8). His three-story house had a
courtyard surmounted by a double loggia that was accessed through a spiral
staircase. A portico connected the road to a "room called the bank" where
the proprietor carried out his business. Comprising twenty-four rooms, the
house was most sumptuous, for the quantity of artistic objects that decorated
the various rooms as well as for the richness of the tapestries that covered
the walls. Almost every room had walls adorned with leather hangings in the
usual brilliant colors framed by gold and silver, or with Venetian brocades
of equally vivacious hues: red and yellow with green columns in two rooms,
yellow and deep blue with red and white columns in another. The wardrobe
contained six large tapestries and two small ones with floral designs. Even
some of the leather hangings had designs: flower vases in one case, grotesques
in another.
The order of the rooms was similar to that of Cangiani's home. Rather
than cover the same ground twice, I will limit myself to noting the particularities
of this house, the richest in our entire sample. The first aspect is that
the sequence "first antechamber—second antechamber—bedroom" was
repeated three or four times: six out of twenty-four rooms were furnished
only with chairs, rich tapestries, paintings, and other objects of art. The
first "room at the level of the courtyard," for instance, did not contain any
furniture at all if one excludes a coffee table and ten chairs. It also contained
six marble sculptures—a head and five busts—mounted on the same number
of "pedestals," and an "antique pedestal with an inscription"; in the
following room were two columns of yellow marble; in yet another room
was a clock with a glass bell jar; in a fourth room, which was covered with
leather hangings with grotesque designs, were sixteen portraits of popes,
cardinals, princes, and noblewomen. For the greater glory of his house, the
art objects that Rotoli collected also comprised marble statuary, for the most
part antique. His paintings were not only decorative elements but were also
indicators of his political loyalties and declarations of belonging to powerful
pontifical patronage networks.
Although there was not much furniture, the tapestried rooms of the Rotoli
household reveal a conscious strategy of promoting "splendor." The style
was the same in the bedrooms. The only truly furnished room was that defined
as the "hall" on the first floor, although it seems more like a bedroom,
havingchests and strongboxes, a luxury bed with a canopy of green damask,
a prie-dieu, a dressing table of red leather, a wash basin, various chairs, a
coffee table, a studiolo, and a spinet. There were four devotional paintings
on the walls, aside from red and green leather hangings that suggest the great
8z :: CHAPTER THREE
size of the room, since they were valued at 30o scudi rather than the usual
15o to 2.00.
This house was exceptional with respect to the middling classes to which
its proprietor belonged. It was distinguished by the quantity of small rooms
or little chambers that intruded into the larger rooms, by the presence of one
room furnished only with cupboards as well as another "of the wardrobe,"
where all of the furniture and movable goods not being used were kept,
and finally by the richness of the furnishings of the kitchen. All of these
features clearly distinguish this house from the other houses in our sample,
including that of the goldsmith Cangiani, and approaches the style of noble
dwellings."
The synthetic picture the table below offers is more eloquent than words
in giving an immediate idea of a rich, "almost-noble" household of the
early seventeenth century. Considering that the house contained twentyfour
rooms, the total amount of furniture appears low and strongly biased
toward chairs. Seventy years later, in 1700, the style of houses does not seem
to have changed much.
The inventory that the guardian of Fabio Ugolini made is only partly
comparable with that done at Rotoli's death, since the absence of china and
kitchenware suggests that only the movable goods of his dead father were
counted and not (for instance) the dowry goods of his mother. Nonetheless,
his eighteen-room home demonstrates many similarities with Rotoli's. The
richness of the wall decorations is one clear example: in the Ugolini household
the tapestries were so important they were counted separately, as the
most significant possession. The same was true of the paintings. Finally, the
superabundance of chairs with respect to any other kind of furniture was
also comparable."
It is also interesting to compare Rotoli's and Ugolini's inventories to that of
Vincenzo Giustiniani, from the point of view of the total amount of furniture
as well as from the specific furnishings of his private rooms.4°
If for the purpose of comparison we use the percentages of each kind
of furniture out of the total, the similarity in the composition of the three
households is striking. This is especially true considering the social distance
that separated the men: Giustiniani was a titled nobleman, the lord of Bassano,
as well as the nephew and brother of cardinals.
Certainly there were differences. For instance, Giustiniani owned many
more cupboards and display cases than did the other two, partly because he
had to guard many more precious objects. But there were numerous similarities
as well. One striking example is the equal percentages in studioli, which
FURNITURE :: 83
TABLE 3.9 Furniture of the Rotoli household, 1628 (24 rooms)
FURNITURE
Wardrobes and dressers 5
Chests and strongboxes 14
Cupboards and sideboards 11
Writing desks 5
Book shelves 3
Studioli 7
Chairs 90
Stools 18
Spinets
Tables and coffee tables 12.
Luxury beds and sofas 5
Prie-dieux 3
Washbasins 3
Seats 3
Dressing tables
Paintings 59
Wall hangings I s
Clocks 2.
were among the most refined of furniture and were used for equally refined
purposes such as protecting small precious objects, from domestic accounts
to money. The disproportion in the number of chairs and stools and the
low number of tables are also perfectly comparable. This suggests that the
line between a noble lifestyle and an almost-noble one was a thin one. A
84 :: CHAPTER THREE
comparison of these figures with the last column in the table below, which
lists the percentages for all types of furniture among the other seventy-four
inventories, makes clear the distance that separated Rotoli, Ugolini, and
Giustiniani from the lifestyle of the middling classes.
The markedly smaller size in the number of chairs in the larger group
makes their other percentage figures much higher, mostly in favor of chests
and strongboxes, followed by beds. The most modest houses had neither
antechambers nor atriums and were thus less prepared to deal with the
presence of a large number of inhabitants, permanent or temporary: fewer
family members, servants, or guests walked their halls. Their furnishings
hinged upon the bed, the large chest, the table, and some chairs. This pattern
is all the more evident the further one descends the ladder of wealth in both
its economic and its social dimensions. Even toward the top of the scale,
TABLE 3.10 Furniture of the Ugolini household, 1700 (18 rooms)
FURNITURE
Wardrobes and dressers
Chests and strongboxes
Cupboards and sideboards
Book shelves
Studioli
Chairs
Stools
Tables and coffee tables
Luxury beds and sofas
Prie-dieux
Paintings
Wall hangings
12.
9
5
6
74
17
7
2.
2.
72
24
FURNITURE :: 85
TABLE 3.11 Furniture of the Giustiniani household, 1634 (64 rooms)
FURNITURE
Wardrobes, dressers, and closets
Sideboards and cupboards
Chests and strongboxes
Cembalos and organs
Studioli
Chairs
Stools
Tables
Writing desks
Lectern
Beds and luxury beds
Prie-dieux
Washbasins
46
3z
29
3
14
200
40
9
I
I
15
5
3
however, the almost-noble lifestyle is clearly distinct. Despite his profusion
of tapestries, the goldsmith Cangiani fully fits the profile of the middling
classes.
The same difference that was found between noble and almost-noble
homes and the dwellings of the middling classes appears again in the comparison
between male and female inventories.
Beds and chests alone constituted more than z5 percent of all female furnishings,
confirming the state of relative deprivation in which women lived
with respect to their male peers.'" Their rooms could be more crowded with
things, but the variety of their furniture was decidedly less apparent.
Returning to the comparison between Vincenzo Giustiniani's inventory
and those of Giovanni Rotoli and Fabio Ugolini, the similarities we have
86 :: CHAPTER THREE
noted remain evident even when the marquis's private apartment and the
furnishings of his rooms are taken into account. The hall contained only a
sideboard, eight chairs, and two tall stools; the antechamber was altogether
free of furniture; the room "where the marquis slept" did not contain anything
more than the usual luxury bed, prie-dieu, four chairs, a stool, and
TABLE 3.12 Percentage of the various kinds of furniture in the inventories of Rotoli,
Ugolini, Giustiniani, and everybody else comprised within my sample
FURNITURE ROTOLI UGOLINI GIUSTINIANI EVERYBODY ELSE
Wardrobes and dressers 2.7 8.9 11.5 5-2
Chests and strongboxes 7.7 6.7 7-3 14.3
Small chests o 0 0.5 3.0
Sideboards and cupboards 6.o 3.7 8.o 5.9
Studioli 3.8 4.4 3.5 z.6
Book shelves 1.6 0.7 0 1.7
Writing desks 2.7 0 0.3 0.1
Lecterns o 0 0.3 0
Chairs 49.5 54.8 50.0 30.9
Stools 9.9 iz.6 10.0 15.0
Tables and coffee tables 6.6 5.2 2.3 8.1
Cembalos and spinets 1.1 o o.8 0
Beds and cots 2.7 1.5 3.8 7.6
Prie-dieux 1.6 1.5 1.3 2.6
Washbasins 1.6 0 o.8 I.0
Chamber pots r.6 0 0 1.7
Dressing tables 0.5 0 0 0.4
Total 100.0 1-00.0 100.0 1'00.0
FURNITURE :: 87
TABLE 3.13 Percentage of the various kinds of furniture from all 76 inventories
FURNITURE MEN WOMEN
Wardrobes and dressers 4.93 6.18
Chests and strongboxes 11.73 17.88
Small chests 2.40 2.87
Sideboards and cupboards 5.80 5.74
Studioli 2.86 2.65
Book shelves 2.00 0.2.2.
Writing desks 0.40 0
Chairs 35.51 30.24
Stools 15.59 10.38
Tables and coffee tables 7.79 7.73
Beds and cots 6.zo 8.6i
Prie-dieux 2.40 2.65
Washbasins 0.93 1.32
Chamber pots 1.00 3.53
Dressing tables 0.47 0
Total 100.00 T00.00
a coffee table. Although very sumptuous, these furnishings were at least as
sparse as those of Rotoli, if not moreso.Thesense of "splendor" continued to
be linked to the number of wall hangings. The hall had 2.70 pieces of leather,
the marquis's bedroom 2.07, as well as paintings and other artistic objects
of the highest quality. Remarkably, the antechamber, which another part
of the inventory listed as the room "where the marquis used to eat," had no
furniture: the table and chairs were apparently kept elsewhere and brought in
only when needed. This instability of furnishings issuggested by other pieces
88 :: CHAPTER THREE
of evidence. In the Ugolini household "the dining room" was likewise free of
furniture, and the letters that the Spada and Santacroce families exchanged
when about to depart for vacation demonstrate that the beds in noble rural
residences were assembled only upon the arrival of their masters.
Eighteenth-Century Transformations
If it is correct to consider Ugolini's inventory typical of the domestic interiors
of the nobility in late seventeenth-century Rome, then one can more easily
understand the astonishment and admiration that struck Scipione Santacroce
when he saw the lifestyles of his peers in Paris and London as he traveled
through Europe in 1696-97. The descriptions in his travel diary are always
extremely detailed, suggesting the dual influence of travel literature, fast
becoming a proper genre from the mid-seventeenth century onward, and the
rules of epistolary writing, which enjoined writers to give an "exact relation"
of everything they did or saw.42 Nonetheless, the object of his descriptions
changed from place to place. In Flanders and Holland, Santacroce wasstruck
by the order and cleanliness of the cities, in London by the wealth and variety
of the merchandise and the technical perfection of many of the objects, in
Germany by the ceremonials of the little courts, in Moravia by the asceticism
of a reformed community, in Poland by the rusticity of the way of life. The
force of stereotypes combined with his capacity for observation determined
what he noticed. In France the attention of the young traveler was always
and everywhere-in the streets, in inns, in homes-attracted by elegance,
and he dedicated page after page to describing the appearance of noble
residences and the quality of daily life there. This indicates the importance
the French style had assumed even in Rome and the difference he perceived
between what he observed and what he was familiar with. Scipione wrote
from Paris:
I went to a conversation where I observed many decorations and furniture
that are used in France. First of all, conversations are usually
held in the bedroom and there are not that many rooms; the fireplaces
are very beautiful, with mirrors placed low and at head height so that
people can look at themselves. Above the frame there are various baubles
of fine porcelain, such as coffee cups and little vases placed above
finely carved wooden bases. Larger vasesare placed above small, rather
low tables which have gold feet. On account of being from China the
coffee tables are said to be of excellent craftsmanship and are either
FURNITURE :: 89
carved, or done in Chinese lacquer or some other craft. They use Chinese
dressers without cornices but lacquered or with curious Chinese
figures. Next to the bed is always a more comfortable chair, for resting.
They also use certain narrow but long beds for resting. When it is time
to take coffee, tea, or chocolate they bring a little table into the room
with the plates, cups, and other implements on top.'"
Four years later his young spouse must have read his old travel diary very
carefully. Her personal account books, begun shortly after their marriage,
show that the young woman was furnishing her private chamber in the
French style. As one may recall, many of her expenditures pertained to the
furnishing of her "boudoir," for which she purchased a series of extremely
elegant furniture and accent pieces.'"
Years later a general inventory of the goods of the Santacroce household
described the "Furniture in the Most Illustrious Marquise Maria Isabella's
apartment on the first floor," including the room on whose furnishing so
many expenses were lavished.45 The walls of the bedroom where the young
marquise slept were covered with tapestries of various size and shape, finished
with a "frieze of crimped red damask with arabesques in gold fringe
from Germany" that ran along all the walls. On one side stood "a curtain of
red damask decorated with tiny, very fine gold lace," which covered a bed
made of the same material; next to it was a "prie-dieu made of olive wood"
with four small cases adorned with silver and two red damask cushions
with lace and tassels of gold. There were twelve red velvet chairs around the
room, also furnished with gold thread, an armchair "with a multicolored
coverlet," two "lathe-turned gilded columns, two small ebony chests with
four drawers, another small ebony chest of drawers, and a bookshelf with
various books." The windows werecovered with white taffeta curtains, cords
and tassels of white silk, and "a white bronze compass with the Santacroce
family monogram, with clear glass and a white taffeta curtain." The furnishings
were completed with "a two-piece display case gilded and carved with
various figurines, three large crystals and four other small ones, a small oval
table made out of gilded wood the color of walnut; a coffee table of Indian
fig with similar feet; a small ebony table inlaid with ivory in the shape of
dice with lathe-turned feet painted black; two triangle-shaped coffee tables
of olive wood and ebony for gaming." The walls, in the few spaces not occupied
by tapestries, contained five paintings and smaller pieces of saints
and the Madonna with carved and gilded frames, "a wood cross inlaid with
mother-of-pearl," and "a little hourglass."
The mirror had "a large black and gold frame with five gilded putti and a
gilded tassel" and was found in the adjacent room, "where the fake cabinet
made by the Most Illustrious Marquis Scipione stood." This cabinet was a
space delimited by a painted cloth that served as the "sky" and two curtains
that closed in the sides.46 It was furnished with four calfskin chairs with the
arms of the Vecchiarelli, a walnut writing desk, a bookshelf full of books, and
a stool covered with fabric. The quantity of paintings the couple succeeded
in stuffing into such a small space is surprising: three "vistas," two "pastorals
and bacchanals," a Madonna, a portrait of Cardinal Vecchiarelli, two
little paintings "with French figures," two with vases and flowers, another
Madonna, and two other "vistas and seascapes," four little landscapes, two
more pastorals, another little painting of fruit, one of flowers, and a picture
of a horse.
The colors (red and gold) and the fabrics (damask and velvet) were traditional,
just as the devotional paintings that adorned the walls of Isabella's
bedroom were traditional as well. Nonetheless, the furnishings of that room
recall quite directly the salon of the precieuse Madam de Rambouillet. Just
like in Paris, beds in Rome were covered by a canopy and surrounded by
twelve chairs that served as a divan. The little cases made of precious woods
had a decorative role. Above all, Isabella's room was crammed full of furnishings,
as was her husband's "fake cabinet." There is a notable contrast
between the "fullness" of these rooms and the usual "emptiness" of the
antechambers and halls, which even in the Santacroce palazzo continued
only to be furnished with many paintings and a few chairs.
The Taste for Domestic Spaces
Maria Isabella Vecchiarelli Santacroce was a titled noblewoman, while Margherita
Betti was a simple member of the middling classes, and the differences
between the rooms of these two women are undeniable. Nonetheless,
they share some common elements, and many other people in our sample
resemble them as well.
There is no source beside the inventories of goods for judging the level
of wealth. Contrary to the usual practice, in other words, wealth and social
status are not our primary data but are rather deduced from lifestyle: the poor
were those who lived in a house of one or two rooms; the well off were those
who had more spacious homes. Nonetheless, the quantity of furnishings does
not always confirm this rough distinction. On the contrary, these data are
often deceptive. For instance, the private rooms of the Marquis Giustiniani,
90 :: CHAPTER THREE FURNITURE :: 91
TABLE 3.14 Number of paintings, mirrors, and tapestries per room
MEN WOMEN
ROOM PAINTINGS MIRRORS TAPESTRIES PAINTINGS MIRRORS TAPESTRIES
Bedroom 8.6z 0.37 0.12 9.42 0 0.14
Hall 12.78 0.36 0.36 12..85 0.2.8 0.14
Other room 6.93 0.23 0.41 5.11 0 0
who lived in a palazzo of more than sixty rooms,were much emptier than the
rooms of Maria de Litteris, who lived in an apartment with two rooms and
a kitchen. The doors to the woman's hall were covered with leather painted
with red and gold, her dresser was entirely of walnut, and on one of the two
sideboards there was a studiolo carved with figures. The walls were almost
completely covered with gilt-framed paintings. In the bedroom, the luxury
bed was flanked by a prie-dieu, a cupboard, and two large chests; the walls
were again covered with paintings large and small. Only the leather tapestries
that abounded in the Palazzo Giustiniani but were wholly absent in the de
Litteris household reveal the difference in wealth between the two people.
Certainly, the paintings of the marquis were the work of the most famous
painters of the day,whereas those of the woman were in all probability rather
cheap, but what I would like to emphasize is that Maria de Litteris, despite
her infinitely more modest means, constructed a domestic space that evoked
a modicum of "splendor."
I believe that these conclusions may tentatively be generalized. In my opinion,
a reasonably trustworthy indicator of the relationship between wealth
and the taste for things consisted precisely in the difference between male
and female homes. Women had smaller houses, as we have seen, yet they
were surrounded by a larger quantity of furniture. Nonetheless, the quality
of their furnishings was inferior, probably because they disposed of smaller
financial resources. Moreover, the variety of these same furnishings was
more limited, which makes one suspect that their cultural resources were
also smaller. An analysis of the distribution per room of paintings, mirrors,
and tapestries confirms this point.
9 :: CHAPTER THREE
Women did not allow themselves pricey mirrors or leather tapestries, but
paintings cost less—often very little—and could therefore be accumulated,
reaching and often surpassing the splendor of men. It is this apparent contradiction
between greater poverty on the one hand and the greater tendency to
accumulate on the other that allows us to recognize that different attitudes
toward things and the desire to possess them were partially independent
variables and not simply concomitants of wealth. A more detailed analysis of
the ownership of paintings and other decorative household goods will show
even more clearly how complex were the connections among people, things,
and wealth. This is the subject of the upcoming chapters.
FURNITURE :: 93
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
CHAPTER FOUR
Furnishings and Clothing
Tableware and Kitchenware
We have seen that only the biggest dwellings (those with at least four rooms)
tended to have a space explicitly dedicated to cooking. But as with halls
and bedrooms, the goods the kitchen contained were fairly distinct and
did not witness much evolution between the beginning and the end of the
century. There is no evidence of a progressive passage from an "older" to a
more "modern" way of cooking. The situation was much more varied and
complicated. Little more than thirty people (twenty-three men and twelve
women) had the necessary tools like skewers and grills for making the most
of their fireplaces, let alone an instrument broadly comparable to a stove,
such as an iron trivet "for a pan." Even more surprisingly, only some sixty
individuals (thirty-five men and twenty-four women) possessed at least one
pot or pan or other article used for cooking. Almost a fourth of our sample
had no kitchenware whatsoever, although part of the reason for this should
be attributed to the fact that the inventories cataloged ownership and not
access to things. Those "missing" items probably belonged to some other
member of the family.
If we exclude inventories that did not contain even a single "kitchen implement"
and limit the analysis only to those fifty-nine individuals who owned
one or more such things, the average distribution of pans, pots, skillets, and
frying pans seems to have been adequate even by our standards. For once,
difference in gender did not translate into disparities in distribution: only
cauldrons—which, when they were large, could also be used for washing the
laundry or the dishes—were decisively female objects.'
TABLE 4.1 Cooking implements per person (35 men and 24 women-Betti counted
4 times)
MEN WOMEN
NUMBER PER PERSON NUMBER PER PERSON
Graters i 1 0.31 9 0.38
Small sauce
pans
36 1.03 21 o.88
Kettles 6 0.17 8 0.33
Small pots 2I o.6o 19 0.79
Pots and
pans*
23 o.66 8 0.33
Bowls and
pipkins*
142 4.06 11 0.46
Large and
small
cauldrons*
44 1.26 20 0.83
Lart pans 22 0.63 12 0.50
Spits 38 1.09 18 0.75
Grills 22. 0.63 12 0.50
Trivets 40 1.14 25 1.04
Note: *These objects were in reality more abundant, since in some inventories the "pots
and pans" (tegami) and the "bowls" (pile) were mentioned only generically and lacked
precise numbers.
As usual, the analysis of particular inventories offers a more vivid image
of seventeenth-century kitchens than mere averages.The dowry inventory of
Margherita Betti also included an evaluation of the worth of the cataloged
objects and allows us to form a precise idea of the materials from which her
kitchenware was made and their value.
Margherita Betti had a rich assortment of cooking paraphernalia, but not
exceptionally so: in a distribution graph of ownership she would be situated
96 : : CHAPTER FOUR
TABLE 4.2 Margherita Betti's kitchenware (1644)
OBJECT VALUE IN SCUDI MATERIAL
Water pitcher 1.00
Large knife with a small o.6o
hammer
5 Ladles
Large kettle
z Small pots
Frying pan
Grater
Mortar and pestle
Mortar with 2 pestles
4 Skewers
i Spit for turning the roast
Grill
3 Trivets
2 Triangular trivets
r Set of kitchen scales
Jar for olive oil with
cover and clasp
Cask of vinegar
z Splits for wine
Large cauldron for
washing
2. Tubs for washing
3 Jars for lye
0.25
1.00
2.00
0.25
0.10
2.00
0.20
0.30
2.00
o.zo
o.8o
0.10
0.50
a 5.00
2.00
1.50
5.00
0.20
1.00
copper
iron
copper
copper
iron
bronze
marble
iron
iron
iron
iron
iron
copper
clay
TABLE 4.2. Continued TABLE 4.3 Paolo Cangiani's kitchenware (1667)
OBJECT VALUE IN SCUDI MATERIAL
I Pulley for a large well, 0.70
with trappings
2. Well buckets 2.00
Total 28.70
iron
copper
in the upper part of the quadrant but would remain close to the median line.
She did not possess many casseroles or other copper implements, which were
by far the most valuable items in a kitchen. The goldsmith Cangiani, whose
inventory also contained estimates of value, was much better furnished both
in terms of quantity and quality of kitchenware.
Compared to Margherita Betti and almost everybody else, Cangiani owned
rather uncommon items, such as "a table for pounding fats and meat" and
a "tin for cooking fish." In their obscure humility, even these were signs of
distinction.
The frequency with which some types of implements appeared in the
inventories suggests some hypotheses about the way seventeenth-century
Romans cooked.' How was food prepared? Was it boiled, roasted, cooked
in an oven, or fried? At least judging by kitchen implements, the table shows
that the three operations were not equivalent: roasting meat on a grill or a
spit was within the means of only a restricted number of people. Even fewer
could cook cakes or pies in an oven.3 The majority had to be content with
boiling or stewing their food in the various copper and clay pots or pipkins
that appear in these inventories.4
The impression of normality noted earlier of the small distance between
seventeenth-century Roman culinary practices and our own must be radically
revised when examining the distribution of plates and flatware. Only
seven out of thirty women possessed plates, bowls, or other vessels for eating
food,' and only twenty people total (out of more than seventy) possessed
kitchen knives or spoons.6 This scarcity is even more astounding considering
that silverware was not equally as rare: twenty testators had at least one
pair, comprising a spoon and a fork. The manner of preparing food in the
98 :: CHAPTER FOUR
OBJECT VALUE IN SCUDI MATERIAL
Basin
40 Ordinary plates
iz Jars
2. Vases with worked handles
8 Spoons
3 Cooking spoons
22 Copper kitchen pieces
Small pot
z Cauldrons with trivets
I Pan for roasting chestnuts
4 Frying pans
25 Various bowls
2 Tins for cooking fish
3 Mortars
2, Little mortars
4 Spits
4 Grills
3 Trivets
2 Trenchers
Table for pounding fats and meat
Cask with a little vinegar
15 Full jugs of wine
Cauldron
Total
I.2
0.4
I0
6.5
9.3
0.4
1.2
I
0.2
0.I
0.3
2.5
0.5
0.7
0.3
0.05
0.05
34.7
brass
clay
copper
wood
iron
copper
iron
tin
marble
bronze
iron
iron
iron
wood
copper
TABLE 4.4 Number of kitchen utensils listed in all the inventories, and the number of
male and female owners of each kind of utensil
UTENSIL OWNER
OBJECT NUMBER MATERIAL MEN WOMEN TOTAL
Frying pans 57 iron/copper 18 14 32'
Grills 34 iron i8 II 2.9
Skewers 56 iron 16 7 23
Tart pans 34 copper rz 8 zo
Cauldrons 64 copper 19 12.. 31
Kettles 14 copper 5 6 II
Small pots 40 copper 16 13 z9
Bowls and
pipkins
153 clay 14 5 19
Pitchers 37 copper 17 9 2.6
Trays 53 copper 17 13 30
Trivets 65 iron 18 II 29
seventeenth century is more distant from our own than it may have seemed
at first.
If the paucity of knives and spoons makes it difficult to compare
seventeenth-century cooking to our own, the rarity of plates and cups makes
it equally difficult to compare their manner of consuming food and drink to
ours. The differences were particularly marked in the case of women.
The table below demonstrates that tablecloth, silverware, and plates appear
with comparable frequency in male inventories, whereas tableware
is very rare in female inventories. The plates listed were of very different
quality according to the varying status of their owners. The rarest were of
porcelain, while others were made of majolica, tin, or clay. This paradox is
resolved by comparing the four successive inventories of Margherita Betti:
I00 :: CHAPTER FOUR
only in the last, drawn up at the moment of her death, did the woman possess
an appropriate amount of plates, which she had apparently inherited
from her husband. Tableware was a predominately male good, and in the
division of labor between husband and wife, it was the man's duty to provision
the house.
There was no gender difference in glasses, however; they were very rare
for everybody, although other utensils were apparently able to substitute for
them. The term glass was reserved only for those made of glass or crystal.
Other objects made of majolica or earthenware, called mugs, could also be
used for drinking, although more often they seem to have served as little
pitchers. Although these pitchers could certainly be used for sipping water or
wine, they were not so widespread as to modify the picture I have outlined.
Only one woman and three men possessed at least one cup.
Our knowledge of the manner of consuming food and drink in the seventeenth
century derives largely from the images paintings and prints transmit,
from the anecdotes that surround the diffusion of forks, and from the
development of specialized kitchenware more generally. Etiquette manuals
complete the picture, and our information on thissubject appears to be fairly
complete and reliable.' Nonetheless, these inventories call some conclusions
into question. There apparently existed a segment of the urban classes, well
off enough to own a house, furniture, linen, and fine clothing, but unable
to cook at home, or even to consume food on their own plates or drink
from their own glasses. Only the pinnacle of the middling classes—lawyers,
TABLE 4.5 People in possession of at least one object for preparing and consuming
food
OBJECT MEN WOMEN
Pots 35
Kitchen flatware 9
Plates 24
Cups 6
Silverware 20
Tablecloth 29
24
II
7
I0
16
FURNISHINGS AND CLOTHING :: IOI
painters of some success, goldsmiths, merchants, and their wives and widows—could
see themselves reflected in those family portraits, so diffuse in
this period, in which parents and children sat around a table covered by
a properly starched tablecloth and set to the nines. The social promotion
and self-celebration that such paintings aspired to are best understood by
comparing the splendor the pictures suggest with the more modest realities
revealed in inventories.
Household Linens
If kitchenware and culinary implements appear in only one in three inventories,
household linens by contrast were ubiquitous. But they, too, hold some
surprises for us. Ownership of household linen was also divided unequally
in favor of men. Although slight, this relative male advantage is enough to
disprove the hypothesis that sheets, tablecloths, towels, and napkins constituted
the female portion of the domestic patrimony.' In the seventeenth
century as in the early Renaissance, the trousseaus of girls from well-off
families did not include household linens.9 Given that our source comes
largely from postmortem inventories, one cannot exclude the possibility
that the reason for this umpteenth instance of relative female poverty is to
TABLE 4.6 Categories of household linen per person (43 men and z6 women)
CATEGORY OF LINEN MEN WOMEN
Sheets '7.5
i6.8
Pillowcases 3.3
4.0
Tablecloths 6.9 6.4
Towels 2,4-6 24-1
Napkins 12..6 8.8
Blankets 3.8 3.0
Bed canopies 1.7 1.0
Total 70.3 60.3
102. :: CHAPTER FOUR
be found in the utilitarian relationship between women and their linens. If
the trousseau was the principal reserve of wealth for women, as some wills
clearly indicate, perhaps it was in a practical way: trousseaus could not only
be preserved but also utilized productively to yield an incomei° Since lending
or renting out sheets or tablecloths ruined them, they would obviously
have tended to disappear from the trousseau. Unfortunately, it is difficult
to follow the destiny of things to find confirmation for this hypothesis. The
inventories used here to reconstruct material culture offer snapshots into the
situation at a particular moment but are silent about change over time. We
cannot usually reconstruct the effects of the passing years on clothing, linens,
and various other objects. Only Margherita Betti's documents allow us to
see how things changed over time. In the arc of twenty-five years she lost in
some categories of linen—for instance, the number of her sheets declined
from thirty to twenty—while makingsubstitutions in other categories. A few
things appeared as "new," but overall the entries found in her last inventory
were described as "used," "old," "ruined," not to mention the numerous
tablecloths and napkins by now reduced to "rags."
Clothing
The asymmetry between the sexes does not diminish if one moves from
household linen to examine personal clothing. Whereas women had z1.
shirts per person on average, men had 12.7, almost two more. And while at
least three men owned some pairs of underwear, only one woman had any in
her dowry trousseau. But the most remarkable discovery is not so much the
different number of clothes owned on average by men and woman as the fact
that male inventories contained female garments in great quantities while the
opposite never happened. We also know the fabric that went into 2.83 male
garments and 193 female ones, and can thus compare their quality as well as
their quantity. The most precious female garments—those made of brocade,
damask, or gold leaf—are almost all found in male inventories.
As in the Florentine Renaissance studied by Christiane Klapisch-Zuber,
luxury clothing continued to belong to husbands in seventeenth-century
Rome. This is apparent from other sources, such as wills: a husband often
disposed of his wife's garments. For instance, Giacomo Anguillara left as a
gift to his wife "two garments which I had made for her use," although "the
purple brocade and lace one" were to go to his heirs.''
But there is more. While female garments made of common wool, such as
revers (turned wool) or serge, were decidedly more frequent than those made
FURNISHINGS AND CLOTHING :: 103
TABLE 4.7 Female clothing in male inventories and vice versa (36 men and
2.4 women)
MALE INVENTORIES FEMALE INVENTORIES
GARMENT FOR MEN FOR WOMEN FOR MEN FOR WOMEN
Shirts 457 95
Outfits 295 88
31
8
2.67
129
TABLE 4.8 Female clothing made of precious fabric
FABRIC MALE INVENTORIES FEMALE INVENTORIES
Brocade 5
Damask 3
Fine wool 7
Gold or silver leaf 3
Satin
Taffeta 7
Gold thread 3
Velvet 8
Total 38
2
I
I
6
I
2
13
TABLE 4.9 Fabric of male and female outfits
FABRIC MALE GARMENTS FEMALE GARMENTS
Serge or revers
Gine wool
Silk
Total
47
15
57
119
55
8
40
103
of drapery or silk, in the case of male garments the proportions were inverted,
all in favor of more precious fabrics. The vanity of women and their luxurious
and squandering ways are revealed for what they were: stereotypes.
Ownership and Usufruct
An examination of the value of clothing suggests that the laments of male
contemporaries were not altogether unjustified, however. The maximum
value of a complete male outfit was worth less than half of its female
equivalent.
The female garments we are dealing with come mostly from dowry inventories
and were thus predominantly new, or at least in good condition. The
male ones, by contrast, almost all come from postmortem inventories and
probably showed more wear and tear, as the difference between minimum
and maximum values suggests. Nonetheless, this is not sufficient to explain
away the entire difference between male and female clothing. Nor could it be
imputed to ornamentation, which abounded in the garments of both sexes,
or to the quality of fabric, which was more valuable in the case of men. But
the quantity of material that went into female clothing was much greater,
and the price reflects this fact.
TABLE 4.10 Value of male clothing (44 garments)
GARMENT
NUMBER
OF TIMES
LISTED
MINIMUM
VALUE
MEDIUM
VALUE
MAXIMUM
VALUE
Breeches 3 1.5o 2.75 4.00
Cassocks z o.8o 1.12 2.00
Short cloaks io 3.00 5.00 x0.00
Doublets 10 0.50 1.16 5.00
Complete
outfits
11 2.00 5.21 15.00
Gowns 8 1.00 6.81 10.00
Total 44 3.84
FURNISHINGS AND CLOTHING :: 105
TABLE 4.11 Value of female clothing (104 garments)
GARMENT
NUMBER OF
TIMES LISTED
MINIMUM
VALUE
MEDIAL
VALUE
MAXIMUM
VALUE
Complete
outfits
3o 3 ii.6 35
Corsets 24 0.3 2.21 8
Doublets 5 2. 3 6
Sleeves 6 0.5 0.92. 4
Dresses 28 6.32 II
Gowns o.8 2.57
Total 104 4.44
The difference in value between male and female clothing is not the interesting
issue per se, insofar as it only allows us to evaluate the varying
patrimonial wealth of men and women. If such a difference is important it is
because it draws attention to gender relations. The most sumptuous female
clothing was found in the patrimonies of men. On the one hand, this is partly
explained by the groom's duty of offering his bride nuptial gifts in the form
of a "counterdowry," and, on the other hand, by the regime of separation
of goods that was the rule among married couples. A purchase remained
under the control of the spouse who paid for it even if it was to be used by
the other spouse.12
The tension between ownership and usufruct was not easy to overcome.
The fact that these costly garments remained under the male ownership was
not sufficient to erase the original spot that tainted them: a man paid for
them for the benefit of a woman who was to have exclusive use of them. The
resentment displayed byso many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century authors
against women for their obsession with novelty and luxury may be explained
by this duplicity of rights, which hinged upon the same object. For example,
the Rimini knight Pietro Belmonte, though speaking to his own daughter,
employed vehement words to denounce the avidity of so many wives: "the
uses, or to be more precise, abuses that today are the custom in the embellishment
and dress of women, in which at times the dowry is insufficientand
106 :: CHAPTER FOUR
recourse is made to the husband's wealth, is a great scandal and infamy."13
Thissame tension, which was not always or necessarily conflictual, prompted
many husbands to use their wills to give definitively to their wives the clothing
and linen they had been using for so many years. Other men by contrast
could be brought to claim their property, as Captain Anguillara did. And
some women recognized their own debt, as did a wife of an embroiderer
when she declared that all the objects found in her room were acquired with
her husband's money and therefore belonged to his heirs."
The Quality of Clothing
Despite the relative abundance of clothing in our sample, not all inventories
contained a proper list of clothing or personal linen. Listing them was probably
superfluous or unnecessary given the reasons that led to the creation
of the documents in question, or perhaps they were cataloged separately.'s
The fact remains that only thirty-six men and twenty-four women possessed
some piece of clothing, and only a smaller number (twenty-four men and
twenty-one women) could boast of a more or less complete outfit composed
of breeches, cassock, and a riding cloak, with the optional addition of a
doublet, in the case of men; and a dress, corset, and sleeves as a possible
complement to the gown, in the case of women.'6
The appearance of such clothing is difficult to imagine, especially by relying
solely on the bare descriptions in the inventories. The summary expressions
"clothing" or "garment" followed by the specifications we have
seen recall Spanish-style fashions, but they are not sufficient for clarifying
our ideas, especially considering that the definition is the work of a notary
rather than a tailor.'7 Moreover, only one woman owned the farthingale,
which completed the Spanish look; the others had nothing of this kind." In
any case, it seems that there were few major changes between the beginning
and the end of the century even in this field, at least from the point of view
of definitions. French fashions were already present at the beginning of the
century, and the terms the notaries used to designate the various kinds of
clothing were also the same.'9 Signs of development may be discerned only
through rare details.
What the documents define as male "dress"—the combination of cassock
and breeches—does not differ much from the image that is familiar to
us from the self-portraits of artists from Domenichino in 1603 to those of
Carlo Maratti toward the end of the century.2° Several men also possessed
a gown: a long, front-buttoned coat that covered most of the legs or went
FURNISHINGS AND CLOTHING :: 107
to the ground. It was a garment for mature people such as magistrates or
jurists, and it is not surprising that the lawyers Negrelli and Pari had two
apiece, and that the gentleman Neruzzi had one as wel1.2' Rotoli possessed
four, of which one was made of damask, and Ludovico Santolino (d. 1625)
had an impressive seven. But it was not by chance that this last individual
lived between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. After 165o, the gown
fell out of fashion, a fact reflected in the inventories. As a sign of his status
and wealth, the banker Rotoli also had two fur coats, one with "sleeves to
be worn" and another, even more sumptuous, with "hanging sleeves."
None of the men in this sample had only the clothes on his back, as sometimes
happened in cases brought to court. All of them had at least another
cassock or another pair of breeches, and often two or more complete outfits
of different fabrics and states of wear. The same was true for their riding
cloaks. By contrast, starched collars and cuffs were less widespread, not to
mention hats and berets.22 At least one individual out of three also had one
or two pairs of separate sleeves, to be tied to the shoulders of the cassock or
doublet according to a rather antiquated practice.
The situation was no different for women: they too generally possessed
two or more outfits complete with dress, corset, sleeves, and possibly a gown.
They also used sleeves separated from the corset that they attached to the
shoulders with laces. Collars and cuffs were much rarer, and hats practically
nonexistent.23 In recompense almost all of them had an apron and also a
kind of cloth mantle called a "dryer," which went up from the belt to cover
the head.
Although ankle socks were very common, shoes were quite rare.24 One
woman had a pair of slippers, another "string shoes." The others were completely
devoid of footwear. Even the trousseau of Maria Virginia Cartari,
daughter of Carlo the consistorial lawyer and archivist of Castel Sant'Angelo,
had only a pair of bedroom slippers: very elegant ones, adorned with "large"
gold lace, but only one pair." The same was true for men: only six (including
the goldsmith Cangiani and the painter Raspantini) had boots or shoes,
while another six only owned cloth shoes similar to those of the women,
although it is difficult to know how their soles were made. But account
books show that payments to cobblers were not rare and that footwear in
general was not frightfully expensive: a pair of good-quality slippers cost
around 0.40 scudi, and a pair of boots came to about 1 scudo.26 The shop
inventory of a "slipper-maker" shows how rich an assortment of slippers
was available on the market: pianelle, pianelloni, and pianellette of wood or
cork, with soles of different heights, not to mention scarpette and scarpini of
various types of leather.27 Despite this, from the point of view of consumers,
footwear was extremely rare, and not only in Rome; it is a rarity too well
documented to dissolve simply by attributing it to the insufficiencies of the
inventories.28 As in the case of the well-furnished dinner tables, one might
think that the slippers, boots, and shoes fastened with a bow that appear
in the paintings and prints of the period are often an idealization—or selfpromotion—with
respect to a more prosaic reality composed of many bare
feet. But if so, what was the point of so many pairs of stockings recorded
in the inventories? Perhaps only the very rich owned more than one pair of
shoes, while everybody else brought with them to the grave the only pair in
their possession, so as not to present themselves barefooted to the Creator
in contempt of all decorum.
Some of the inventories (six male and one female) mention children's
clothing as well. The goldsmith Cangiani possessed an entire wardrobe for
kids, from swaddling clothes for infants to shirts and doublets, including
three little gowns, one of which "had lace on its sleeves": an elegant little
garment similar to those which are to be found in so many portraits of young
nobles. The garments Raspantini owned were suitable for an older child that
had by then abandoned long outfits in favor of the typical male suit, comprising
breeches and cassock, although only "for a kid." They were very elegant
aswell, made of black velvet. A further piece of fancy child-wear was the little
feathered beret belonging to the embroider Bronconi.29 It is striking that all
these articles of clothing are found in the inventories of men, while the only
one owned by a woman was an ordinary "little shirt for a child."30
Fashion
Did those men and women who owned clothing follow fashion? Were they
traditionalists dressing in the conventional way, donning clothes as old as
twenty or more years, or did they change them to adapt to developments in
appearances and style? And, first of all, were they conditioned by the sumptuary
laws that prohibited certain materials and colors?
Roman legislation concerning luxury was not very restrictive. The Dress
Reform of 1586 did not distinguish between different grades of people—
townsmen and peasants, gentlemen and burghers, and so on—as happened
in Florence or France, nor did the popes institute a magistracy that occupied
itself specifically with violations of sumptuary laws.3' The bull limited itself
to detailing a series of rules on "dress for men," "for brides," "for wives,"
and "for widows" that prohibited ornamentation that was too expensive:
108 :: CHAPTER FOUR FURNISHINGS AND CLOTHING :: 109
gold and silver tassels, for instance, could not be wider "than a finger," the
"bands" on cassocks or hats should not have "more than six paddings,"
slashing should be done in a certain manner, and lining could only be of
taffeta and, in the case of women, of a nontransparent fabric.;'- However,
we have no idea of the efficacy or severity of the law's application, and the
inventories are not detailed enough to permit an examination.
Turning our attention from laws to the actual choices of individuals, the
first impression the documents give is one of great stability: the names of
clothes were always the same, as were fabrics and colors. Dowry inventories,
which undoubtedly contained more new than inherited things, do not change
this impression. Women like Margherita Betti, Angela Zericchi, or Orsola di
Maurizio, who all married between 1644 and 1647, had traditional clothes
in their trousseaus,composed of a dress, gown, and girdle of reliable woolens
such as perpignan, sometimes adorned with lace or silk tassels. The same
types of garments were found in the trousseau of Anna Agnese Marinoni,
married in 1664, and in that of Teresa Trombetta, married in 1667." Only
Teresa Marozzi, a bride of 1700, had a wardrobe decidedly different from
the precedingones. Her trousseau approached an aristocratic standard: three
"stylish bonnets," a "blouse," a "night gown," two "manteaux," and two
zamberlucchi, or hooded Turkish cloaks.34
Compared to brides of the middling classes, noblewomen obviously had
richer trousseaus. In addition, beginning with the generation of Vittoria Patrizi
Spada (born around 165o), they began to buy newclothes independently
from grand ritual occasions." As we have seen, Vittoria allotted most of her
personal resources to paying the bills of the tailor and fabric merchant. She
dressed "in the French style," bought collars "in Colbert's manner," had
"fashionable little curls" to put in her hair, and paid to have "an hongreline
of black velvet" produced.36
By the end of the century, when Isabella Vecchierelli Santacroce began to
keep her memory book, the phenomenon of fashion seemed already to have
exploded, at least among noble families. Isabella in Rome and her young
husband in Vienna did not let a month pass without buying a new article
of clothing or modifying an out-of-fashion one.37 The phrases "in style,"
"in fashion," and "in the latest fashion" appear with increasing frequency
in both their expense book and in the bills of their tailors. In addition to
promptly following changes in taste, the two were very precise in describing
what they bought. In November of 1701, Isabella recorded paying the embroiderer
"for having embroidered figures in silk and gold into a nightgown,
including the faces of the figures, which cost one scudo apiece." Some time
I0 :: CHAPTER FOUR
later she wrote of leaving for Loreto and having "made a sequined scarf with
iridescent colors for the trip." The appearance of her clothing was always
minutely detailed: "a corset open in the front and perforated on the sides";
"a manteau and petticoat with an extra piece made of yellow material, the
same color as the dress"; "stuff for the bedroom" that was "made of Indian
material"; two corselets, "one of white amuer (wavy silk) dotted with white,
with the blouse attached by a silver string and gilded galloon, and the other
of green amuer dotted with green, with a blouse attached by a golden string
and another gilded galloon," and even "a wig to wear with a travel outfit."
Among so many manteaux and petticoats of the traditional wardrobe, it is
hardly surprising that there were also a "surtout for traveling," various bonnets
in the bat-en-l'oeil (eye-fluttering) style, aside from a pair of underwear
and a pair of male stockings that were probably used in an Amazon outfit,
that is to say, when she dressed like a male."
During the same years her husband Scipione in Vienna had outfits of
English or Dutch fabric made for hunting, the countryside, and parties, as
well as various expensive costumes for masked balls (one like Pantalone, a
character from the Commedia dell'Arte, and another like a Venetian nobleman).39
Moreover, the young couple as well as the older members of the
family spent lofty sums on "adjustments" and repairs, as the surviving bills
of tailors attest. Scipione regularly paid a certain Signora Anna who modified
his shirt collars and ties for him, and the old Marquis Antonio, his father,
had his jerkin shortened and his buttonholes enlarged, apparently to keep up
with new styles.° The women of the family did no less: Isabella had various
garments modified or dyed, and the tailor Margherita Guarnier presented
another Santacroce with a bill requesting payment "for adjusting the hood
of the cedar domino, for modifying the masquerade outfit by adding silver
trimming above the green velvet waist, for remaking a farthingale with bones
of whales out of yellow thread embroidered at the bottom, and for making
it larger and more fashionable, with all its hoops changed."'"
For men of the middling classes, changes in fashion were much less important.
In their cases, moreover, it is impossible to distinguish between
the time of their wedding and that of their death. Their inventories were all
postmortem, and it is probable that all of their clothes were bought many
years earlier and were by then old-fashioned. It was not until the end of the
century that there appeared garments different from the normal stockings,
cassocks, doublets, and ridingcloaks: the lawyer Pari (d. 1667) was in possession
of four hongrelines—cassocks of a more modern appearance thanks to
their longer, more open coattails along the back and the flanks, and the frog
FURNISHINGS AND CLOTHING :: III
decorations on the front—and Nicola Salvati (d. 1700) owned "abbot collars
starched in the French style" and "handkerchiefs for tobacco." In reality,
these were only half-innovations, because ultramontane fashions had spread
to Rome many decades earlier: already in 1628, a clothier numbered among
his wares some doublets for men "in the French style."42 Handkerchiefs for
tobacco were just appearing, however, and nobody possessed snuffboxes
except Raspantini, who probably sold them.
Colors
The distribution of colors confirms what iconographers have always maintained:
black was absolutely prevalent in male garments (exactly half of the
clothes whose colors were recorded were black), while women's clothes were
TABLE 4.1z The colors of clothing (excluding shirts and other linens)
MEN WOMEN
COLOR NUMBER PERCENT NUMBER PERCENT
Blue 5 3.23 I2 8.z8
White 6 3.87 3 2.07
Tawny 8 5.16 13 8.97
Yellow or gold 9 5.81 8 5.52
Gray or silver 4 2.58 7 4.83
Black 78 50.32 45 31.03
Pink I2 7.74 8 5.52
Red 18 11.61 33 22.76
Green 7 4.52. I0 6.90
Violet I 0.65 I 0.69
Different or mul-
ticolored
4.52. 5 3.45
Total 155 100.00 145 100.00
112 :: CHAPTER FOUR
much more vivid (less than a third were black), with a strong showing in red,
followed by tawny and blue.
Although not as predominant for women as for men, the table below
shows that black nonetheless occupied a position of clear importance. It
would be interesting to follow changes in the use of colors between the
beginning and the end of the century, to be able to trace a progressive abandonment
of the austere inspirations of the Spanish style in favor of brighter
pre-eighteenth-century looks. Nonetheless, colors vary greatly according to
specific cases, and we do not have enough data to say that there was a passage
from the sober Spanish style dominated by black to a brighter, more colored
French style that used lighter fabrics. In the account books of noblewomen
there began to appear new types of material, such as the "Indian" fabric that
Maria Isabella Vecchiarelli Santacroce acquired in 1703.43 But there is still no
trace of thissort of thing in the inventories. More than any novelty imported
from abroad, the reds, yellows, and turquoises of the Romans seem to have
been the persistence of a local tradition."
Clothing and Status
What was the relationship between clothing and status? The legislators of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were convinced that there had to be
a perfect equivalence between the two, and many sumptuary laws aimed at
precisely this end.45 But we usually do not have any way to verify their efficacy.
What we can do is examine the congruency between various aspects
of the patrimony to determine how much correspondence there was between
the sumptuousness of the furnishings on the one hand and the richness and
variety of the wardrobe on the other.
Our documents show that there was a relationship between clothes and
wealth, but not a very strict one. Ippolita Venturola's home was among the
most impoverished, but she had a trousseau of clothing richer than that of
many other women: three rather severe gowns, black or tawny and apparently
quite old given their small value, but also two dresses and a red or purple
"stomacher" of Milanese serge, that is to say, of very superior fabric, one of
which was worth fully 6 scudi. In compensation, however,she did not possess
even a single shirt. Porzia Taglina, who had many paintings on her walls and
owned kitchenware, did not have much clothing: only one dress with a gown,
ten shirts, and ten handkerchiefs. By contrast, the relationship was much
more linear in the case of Maria de Litteris. A rich assortment of clothing
accompanied her profusion of furnishings: two full outfits, four girdles, and
FURNISHINGS AND CLOTHING :: 113
various petticoats and jackets—some black like the two outfits, but also red
or turquoise ones—eight pairs of stockings, about fifty handkerchiefs, some
twenty aprons, including one the color "of seawater" adorned with silk lace,
and three slips. She also had a "red silk belt with gold lace."
For the painter Raspantini and the lawyers Negrelli and Pari, the comfortable
atmosphere of their homes corresponded to the preciousness of their
clothes: complete outfits for men in black velvet or slit fabric that allowed
one to see the silk lining, lace collars, starched cuffs, shirts, stockings, hats,
gloves, shoes, and such. The three wardrobes were not identical, however.
Each had its own marks of originality: the lawyer Negrelli had a doublet in
the French style at the beginning of the century when the article was not yet
very common; having lived a long time in Naples, the painter Raspantini
had a predilection for Neapolitan and Spanish fashions, and he possessed
collars and cuffs of all types and three complete velvet outfits; and finally
the lawyer Pari (d. 1667) had four gowns in the latest fashion and a pair
of high boots. Despite this, the differences that separated them from the
banker Rotoli remained profound. Rotoli had much more clothing, in more
beautiful fabrics and with richer decorations. But that is not all. Aside from
his own clothing, he also owned sumptuous women's clothes: one was of red
brocade with gold embroidery in the Milanese style, another of turquoise
drapery with gold and silk embroidery, another still of tabine with sliced
fabric the color of turtledoves and adorned with gold fabric, or even gold
fabric adorned with gold lace and tawny taffeta, and so forth. Nonetheless,
even Lodovico Santolino, whom the notary did not call "illustrious" by
accident, had women's dresses of damask or satin with gold decoration.46
Maria Virginia Cartari had equally beautiful garments: one "the color of
lead brocaded with gold flowers, adorned with gold and silver lace from
Venice," and another "brocade of gold in the French style, the color of ash,
with black and gold silk lace."47
Clothing as Treasure
Ludovico Santolino, Giovanni Rotoli, Paolo Cangiani, and Francesco Raspantini
all left at least one small child and, more to the point, a young wife
behind when they died." It is likely that the women's garments found in
their inventories were carefully preserved wedding gifts. In addition, all the
clothes—male and female—belonging to Santolino and Cangiani were appraised,
and these figures could be added to the other three male inventories
in which women's clothing received monetary values.
114 :: CHAPTER FOUR
TABLE 4.13 Total value of clothing in scudi
TESTATOR MEN'S CLOTHING
WOMEN'S
CLOTHING TOTAL
Cangiani 33.2 182.8 2,16
Fortini 62.4 6 68.4
Giunti 33.5 7 40.5
Santolino 59.3 33 92.3
Saracinelli 45.2 2.5 47.7
As the table belowshows, the value of these wedding gifts was rather high
and in some cases truly extravagant when compared to the total worth of the
whole wardrobe. Why were they kept? Why did these Roman husbands not
quickly sell them, as the Florentine merchants of the fifteenth century did?
Usually an inheritance was appraised because of the intention of selling
it, and we know for certain that this actually happened in at least one case.
On the same day Santolino's inventory was penned, his widow sold all of
the dead man's movable goods to the secondhand dealer Simone dell'Arpa
for 565 scudi.49 Slightly more than a fourth (150.70 scudi) of the total value
was composed of furnishings and a sixth by clothing (92.3 scudi): a significant
proportion, which illustrates how important clothing was from the
perspective of the family patrimony.50 The sale of Dorotea Antolini's inheritance
shows that the value of clothing arrived at even higher proportions
for women: out of a total of 517.61 scudi earned in the sale, the "linens and
dresses" yielded 210 scudi, almost half.51 The hospital of San Girolamo della
Carita, heir to Dorotea Antolini, has preserved a list of the goods they had
to redeem: clothes, linens, some jewels, and some pieces of silver, for a total
of 147.20 scudi.52 Despite the presence of silver and jewels, half of the value
of the pawns (77.85 scudi) was in textile products: brocaded or velvet goods
adorned with gold or silver, sheets, tablecloths, and even a curtain, which
alone had guaranteed a loan of 10 scudi. A similar document, penned for the
return of a dowry to the family of a dead wife, reveals thesame model: out of
a loan worth 178.11 scudi, 78.8o scudi were backed by various linens, two
silk women's dresses, and a damask canopy." It is reasonable to conclude
FURNISHINGS AND CLOTHING :: 115
that clothing (together with bed canopies) constituted a safe reserve of wealth
and was preserved as such because it could be liquidated at a moment's notice,
during life or after death. After marriage, a man did not rush to sell the
clothes he had given his wife for their wedding, but kept them and passed
them to his heirs. They would be the ones to sell them, potentially, along
with other facets of their patrimony.
Woven Fabric, Spun Fabric, Ribbons, and Lace
A significant number of inventories (twenty-one male and fifteen female)
record the presence of a varying quantity of woven or spun pieces, predominantly
of linen. While rolls of woven goods generally belonged to men,
skeins and balls of thread are found principally in the dowry inventories.
For instance, Giovanna Bianchi brought forty-two pounds of spun linen and
eleven of silk in her dowry, and Margherita Betti in all of her four inventories
owned varying amounts of linen and hemp that was already spun or to
be spun.54 These examples offer a first glimpse of the existence of domestic
spinning that fell under the specific purview of women. Further evidence
comes from other kinds of documents, such as the notes of a husband who,
in disposing of the things in his house, entrusted his wife with the supervision
of the materials to be spun: these "were to be made into fabric, along with
the other things for working, scissors, and other things that are necessary
for the house and for her."" Considering the diffusion of domestic spinning
this evidence suggests, it is strange how few spinning implements were
mentioned in the inventories: no needles or pins, except in the Raspantini
household, only two pairs of scissors, again in Raspantini's house as well as
Cangiani's, and four linen combs divided among two women (Betti and de
Litteris) and one man (Cangiani again). Betti, Raspantini, Cangiani, Rotoli,
to whom the Santacroce family should be added for having bought spindles
and distaffs: implements for spinning were only found in the houses of the
well to do. They also belonged to some tradesmen: the Lirighetti, who were
"silk workers," owned a spinning wheel, a tool for spooling silk, and silk
reels. The embroiderer Bronconi had various embroidering frames and their
accessories. But workingwomen owned nothing of the sort.
Here we must confront a problem that we have already faced more than
once in this book: when considering the variety of objects present on the
Roman scene, there are often significant discrepancies between the objects
listed in inventories and those indicated by other kinds of sources. Women
worked, but they did not own tools;cobblers and shoemakers produced shoes
116 :: CHAPTER FOUR
for all tastes and budgets, but almost nobody had a pair in their household.
The responsibility for these discrepancies may be attributed to the inventories,
which are partial and probably selective sources. But this seems to me
an overly hasty explanation. For every careless notary there were other, more
accurate ones, and in any case, there is no reason why selectivity would have
affected scissors more frequently than knives, or flax combs rather than raw
flax. It is more likely that omissions in the inventories were not random but
reflect real absences. The silences of the records, in fact, reveal distinctive
characteristics of the society in question: the poverty of consumption and
the paucity of domestic tools. But there was also the capillary diffusion of
all those forms of temporary possession: things loaned or rented, with onerous
or generous terms." Workingwomen probably used implements that
were not theirs but were given to them for their use by the same artisan for
whom they spun or wove.57 Some evidence even suggests that they did not
work in their own houses but rather in a kind of workshop, under a "female
master.""
Domestic production was not limited to textile fibers. On the contrary, a
large part of household labor was dedicated to the production and adornment
of clothing. Aristocratic ladies participated in these activities as well,
probably aided by their servants. For instance, in late seventeenth-century
Florence the Gondi family produced all their linens—personal and household—in
their home."The domestic accounting of Roman families was not
equally precise, and as a result we do not know exactly what was produced
at home and what was purchased, but it is certain that every month Vittoria
Patrizi Spada bought ribbon, lace, and silk thread for decorating her
clothes and those of her daughter in such quantities that suggest she and
her servants embroidered the clothes in the house rather than giving them
to a tailor. In any case, the bills of fabric and ribbon merchants, tailors, and
the embroiderer attached to her expense book demonstrate that domestic
adorning and embroidering supplemented but did not replace the market.
The frogs, buttons, and bundles of ribbons, thread, lace, and braids found
in the homes of Margherita Betti, Polidoro Neruzzi, and Giovanni Rotoli
show how precious these decorations were and how they were preserved by
transferring them from one garment to another.
In more than one instance, Vittoria Patrizi's notes include an explicit
entry for "ribbons for making lace" and suggest the domestic production
of clothing decorations.6° Such a hypothesis is supported by notes on other
expenses, such as a tip given to a female embroiderer "for having helped
me," a small sum paid to a household servant "for having made a cuff for
FURNISHINGS AND CLOTHING :: 117
me," and finally a note left by her husband, Bernardino Spada, concerning
"four collars and four straight cuffs made at home."61 Moreover, many years
earlier her mother-in-law had bought lace designs in vellum.62 In the same
period the daughter of Carlo Cartari had brought in her trousseau a "new
pillow for bobbins made of green light silk, with a gold ribbon," "a frame
for making ribbon," and a "book in folio with colored pages, having various
pictures of lace and many paper designs of other grand, stylish laces for
collars."63 Even Isabella Vecchiarelli Santacroce, an elegant and fashionable
woman, bought bobbins, thread,and pillows for making lace, as well as ivory
thimbles that were certainly not intended for the servants."The production
of some kinds of lace could thus take place inside the home by exploiting
nonprofessional labor. This was the purpose of pattern books such as the
one included in Virginia Cartari's trousseau, of which Rome was an active
center of production." Two women were the principal protagonists of this
market, profiting from the potential of engravings and prints to attract clients
beyond a restricted circle of readers.66 People like Raspantini, who possessed
thirteen lace patterns, took it upon themselves to put them into circulation
among their clients.
In addition to lace, pleated collars could also be made in the house, as
the five "copper frames for collars" mentioned in five inventories suggest.
Nonetheless, many women did not limit themselvesto the creation of fashionable
accessories. With the help of the nursemaid of her firstborn daughter,
Vittoria Patrizi Spada planted a nursery of mulberries at Castel Viscardo, her
husband's fiefdom, and produced silk thread in moderate quantities.67 Every
year between September and October she bought hemp and flax in impressive
amounts, which she then had her maids spin and weave. For instance,
in October 1668 she bought 137 pounds of hemp and 163 of flax, and a few
months later she paid her nursemaid "for the manufacture of ninety-three
braccia of fabric"; in May 167z she bought a small batch (twenty pounds) of
raw wool,which she had "made suitable," spun, and finally transformed into
a serge." In the same period she bought mulberry leaves (4.70 scudi), paid a
woman "for her labors with the worms" (6 scudi), had cocoons brought to
Rome (1.5o scudi), and used them to have five pounds of silk made.69 About
twenty years later, the Duchess Livia Sforza Cesarini, lady of Genzano, did
even more: an expenditure note attached to her account books shows that
her factor had set at least thirteen women to working flax under the direction
of a "female master."" One of her expenditure books shows that she
spent remarkable sums (5o scudi) to plant mulberries in Genzano and that
she too raised silk worms.71
118 :: CHAPTER FOUR
If these enterprising activities were directed toward autoconsumption, we
could without a doubt consider them a sign of the weakness of the market:
one produces in the household either to save money, or because industry, not
stimulated by an adequate demand, offers products that are too expensive
and not varied enough. But more than a few signs suggest that it is better to
interpret these various female activities as an example of the "industrious
revolution" for which Jan de Vries argues.72
A large part of those spun and woven goods was not geared toward autoconsumption,
but rather toward the market. Even well-to-do women seemed
to sell their domestic production, especially when their activity practically
assumed the dimensions of a proper workshop: one of the batches of linen
purchased by Vittoria Patrizi Spada, for example, wasspecifically designated
for a certain "Monsieur Rubiaglio," a fabric merchant.73 But rather than
sell the spun and woven articles made in their house, noblewomen tended
to exchange them for materials of better quality.74 In 1623, for instance,
Giovanna de Rossi consigned a "large sack of yellow fabric" containing
seven pounds of raw silk to the merchant Francesco Sebregondi. The silk
was "made in the home" of the woman, and she gave it to the merchant as
payment for a certain quantity of fabric she had bought to make a dress for
one of her wards, whom she had recently married to a bookseller.75 Lavinia
Beccola Cartari, the mature and usually thrifty widow of Orvieto, was involved
in a similar exchange. When Lavinia felt the need for a cooler outfit
at the beginning of the summer of 1634, with prudent parsimony she decided
to cede 6 scudi of coarse cloth for a discounted price on "certain light material"
for a gown and a petticoat: the cost thereby decreased from 11.z5 to
only 5 scudi.76 Other account and receipt books show how widespread this
practice was.
Instead of limiting themselves to directing operations from afar, women of
lower status had to act personally, workingat home periodically or continuously
for a merchant or an artisan.77 But when they could, they too willingly
exchanged the fruit of their labor for the fabrics or laces their employers
marketed. Thus an embroideress was given a certain amount of black revers
by the merchant for whom she embroidered, and he "agreed to discount
[the price] for my work." A silk worker begged her "female master" to
exchange her salary directly for a used dress of red Perpignan adorned with
wool lace.78 Household work and domestic production were thus ways for
striking a deal with the market. On the one hand, it was a way of using it
less, for keeping oneself aloof from the market; on the other hand, such
activities were an effective means to participate in it. At least some part of
FURNISHINGS AND CLOTHING :: 119
what was produced in the house was not used directly by the producer, but
assumed the characteristics of a money-equivalent good and was exchanged
for other goods.
The Market, Exchange, and the Preservation of Objects
The textile market of early modern Europe is probably the best-documented
market of its kind, both in Rome and elsewhere.79 Since the papacy farmed
out the customs of its capital, after the first half of the sixteenth century we do
not have data on foreign merchandise imported into the city. Nonetheless, we
have lists of mercantile firms, inventories of warehouses and shops, and supply
contracts. These materials allow us to reconstruct the state of the textile
market in seventeenth-century Rome in suggestive if not precise terms.
The assortment of textiles contained in the inventories of mercantile warehouses
was characterized by a preponderance of medium-quality products.
No merchant owned the gold silk draperies of Milan (which in fact were
prohibited by sumptuary legislation) or the most precious velvets of Genoa
and Lucca, nor did they own brocades. The predominant fabrics were silks
of inferior weight and quality and especially woolens, both of which were
manufactured in Italy. A treatise on domestic economics published in Rome
in 1657 advised "importing from abroad" the most precious materials. The
author did nothing but recommend a necessary choice: those fabrics were
apparently only obtained on order."
Moving from fabrics to garments, the supply changes since there were
many tailors in Rome. People of quality only used tailors, but Roman consumers
also enjoyed a good supply of ready-made clothing. The shop inventory
of a clothier reveals a rich panoply of men's clothing—stockings,
doublets, sleeves, socks—of various makes and fabrics, for a total value of
more than i,000 scudi." Among the many articles were various "outfits"
whose prices were not different from those current in private inventories (see
the table below). A mercer's shop inventory shows a similar variety of socks
and sleeves.82 From the point of view of supply, there were no bottlenecks in
the market, at least at the level of less precious manufactures.
Secondary supply flourished alongside primary supply. Furniture, clothing,
and household linen nourished a vibrant alternative market for used
or rented objects." Secondhand dealers, professionals who dealt with used
merchandise by trade, played the most conspicuous role in this commerce.
But a small percentage of the market was also available to private people
who wanted to profit from their possession of quotidian objects that ex-
120 :: CHAPTER FOUR
TABLE 4.1 4 Men's garments present in the shop of a mercer
TYPE OF GARMENT NUMBER OF EACH TYPE
PRICE PER TYPE PER
SCUDI
Padded mixed wool 2.8 z.8o
Mixed wool with buttons
and button loops
8 3.20
Mixed wool with lace 6 3.8o
Mixed wool with nubs in
the French style
8 3.3o
Mixed wool, pleated in
the French style
4 3.00
Coarse wool with decora-
tions
14 5.30
Coarse wool without
decorations
6 4.50
Coarse wool with nubs 6.2.0
Mixed wool for young
men
z8 2.00
ceeded their own needs. The account book of the Sforza Cesarini family
shows that this activity could be rather lucrative. In 1689, for example, they
rented funeral decorations for their house and carriage from the Duke of
Acquasparta for the considerable sum of 15 scudi. Even great aristocrats like
the Colonna family nonchalantly rented both as lessors and lessees, and the
literature on household stewardship insisted on the disorders this practice
could spawn if it went on without the master's knowledge." Thanks to the
registers of notaries and tribunals, we have evidence of the renting of beds,
mattresses, sheets, tablecloths, and so forth even by those who have not left
behind account books." The same type of information is sometimes found
in wills, when the testator recommended the retrieval of goods on loan or
lease. Clothing, linens, jewelry, and silverware were also pawned, especially
if they were valuable.
FURNISHINGS AND CLOTHING :: 12.1
All of this shaped a relationship with things that is worth lingering on.
Anthropologists have argued that in many cultures, precious fabrics are
included among inalienable goods, that they must therefore be safeguarded
as much as possible from the market in order to serve as treasure. The canopies
and beautiful garments that Rotoli, Cangiani, Raspantini, and others
owned seemed to share this same goal. Nonetheless, they were also among
the objects in most rapid motion, frequently passing from one possessor to
another. It is not by chance that I have spoken of possession rather than
ownership. Renting and pawning did not constitute loss of ownership over
an object but were means created for obtaining economic advantages from
one's goods without alienating them definitively. This was the underlying
purpose behind the recommendations to redeem pawned objects so often
found within wills. And yet if beautiful clothes were left to heirs in some
cases, and not only to people but even to the altars of churches, in other cases
they were sold without regret, as was the case with Lavinia Cartari and as
happened in all the inventories accompanied by appraisals and thereafter
sold en masse."
In seventeenth-century Rome the border between the alienable and the
inalienable was uncertain, fluid, and tied to particular contingencies. Beautiful
objects were meant to be preserved in order to objectify the self through
them and to fix them as a sign of one's place in the world. But their number
was multiplying, and it was no longer only one class of goods that served this
function. The following chapters will be devoted to objects whose aesthetic
and symbolic aspects clearly prevailed over their functional ones.
122 :: CHAPTER FOUR
IIli 111111111 11111111111111111111111111111111111 11111111111111111111
Part Three
IMMATERIAL THINGS
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CHAPTER FIVE
The Great Collections
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Renaissance Italy
For a long time, the "grand narrative" of Italian history depicted thesixteenth
and especially seventeenth centuries as periods of decline. The narrative
initially focused on political and military histories, followed by accounts
of cultural and moral deterioration, and expanded to include the economy.
Economic histories have taken up questions closely linked to the themes of
this book: the rise of conspicuous consumption. Scholars have postulated that
at the beginning of this period luxury consumption exploded while sumptuary
laws fought, ineffectively, to hold back this swell. Meanwhile, investors
purchased more and more land, immobilizing wealth in the construction
of ever-larger buildings, and the merchant elite began to adopt the lifestyle
of the nobility. All these enterprises subtracted resources from productive
investments in manufacturing and commerce. In consequence, Italian cities
declined. According to some historians, there was even a direct connection
between the "hard times" of a depressed economy and the investments in
culture that made possible the extraordinary artistic flowering of the Italian
Renaissance.' This theory posits that during the period immediately following
the Black Plague, when the fortunes of commercial and manufacturing
firms became too uncertain to assure real growth in productivity, holders of
private wealth chose to direct themselves toward ennobling forms of investment
that guaranteed integration into the upper levels of the social hierarchy
and, hence, security.
This traditional periodization of Italian decline has been subjected to a
more or less radical revision. Among the first to critique this picture was
Fernand Braudel. While sixteenth-century Italy certainly saw a slowdown
of its economic growth, he argued that this did not actually represent a
real inversion of the trends that had been going on in previous centuries.
Furthermore, the balance of payments still favored Italians through the first
few decades of the seventeenth century and the appearance of new economic
protagonists—such as Holland and England—did not constitute a loss of
Italian primacy or spell her ruin.2 Even if the economy was declining, the
possibilities for accumulating public and private wealth were by no means
near to being exhausted. More recently, Richard Goldthwaite has taken up
the question again, proposing an even less harsh and dramatic picture of the
economy during this period. He has found that the diminution of foreign
demand was compensated by rising domestic consumption. This allowed the
principal economic centers of Italy, such as Genoa, Florence, and Venice,
to maintain their positions intact and even to expand their manufacturing
beyond the traditional sectors of textile production into the creation of handcrafted
goods. The development of these regional capitals also gave a push
to the economies of various smaller centers of production throughout the
peninsula. All of this allowed wealth to spread through wide sections of the
population and assured a greater domestic demand for all sorts of goods. This
in turn stimulated production of high quality objects, both those for daily
use—such as glass and majolica—as well as artwork and cultural products,
such as books and paintings.
Paolo Malanima's recent attempts to quantify the economic situation of
this period confirm these reassessments. The data collected and elaborated
on by this Tuscan historian show that the gross domestic product of central
and northern Italy continued to grow until the middle of the eighteenth century,
with a particularly marked increase in production from 1510 to 164o.
Hence, for the entire sixteenth century one can speak of a golden age of the
Italian economy, followed not by an abrupt inversion of this tendency, but
rather by a longsilver age, lasting until 1730-40. Even in 175o the per capita
product in central and northern Italy was second only to that of Holland and
superior to that of the United Kingdom.'
Sixteenth-century Italians—and even their children and grandchildren—
thus had money to spend. This was especially true because opportunities to
invest in commercial enterprises did not hold pace with the growth of wealth
in circulation. Those who had money invested it in land, which led to a rapid
rise in real estate prices. Otherwise, they used their money to provide credit
to rulers, which created a consequent fall in levels of interest for such loans.
A third option was to invest money in luxury goods, thus stimulating the
126 :: CHAPTER FIVE
production of more high quality cultural objects. In these conditions, one
should not be surprised that the art of spending money attracted increasing
interest, both from a practical and a theoretical point of view. This trend was
reflected in the composition of serious treatises on the matter.4
The Sacrifice of Utility
Classical economic motivations can thus explain the wave of consumerism
avant le lettre that assailed Renaissance Italy. Although this perspective clarifies
the conditions that made the increase in consumption possible, one must
still explain what the significance of this development was for the period.
Accumulating objects and thereby removing them from the normal circuits
of exchange was a practice that certainly was not born during the Renaissance.
It was a need that did not have to wait for the advent of the modern
man to appear.
According to Krzysztof Pomian, the origins of collections of naturalia and
artificialia—that is, collections of natural and man-made objects characteristic
of the Renaissance period—date back to the funerary decorations and
treasures accumulated in temples in remote antiquity.'Just like these original
collections of votive objects, secular collections originated through people
preservinggoods and thus keeping them "temporarily or permanently outside
of the circuit of economic activity."6 Furthermore, goods in both types of
collections exchanged their utility for a less tangible, invisible quality.Votive
objects were sacrificed to the dead or the gods in hopes of receiving their favor
or, at least, their neutrality. Similarly, "the sacrifice made on the level of the
utility" of goods dedicated to a secular collection forced a metamorphosis
of their nature, transforming them from things intosemiophores.7 Removed
from daily use and exposed for display, goods became charged with significance,
imbued with the capacity to put the visible world of things in contact
with the invisible realm of abstraction. In this realm, where the hand is of no
use, "the gaze, prolonged by an activity of language, either tacit or explicit ...
creates a connection between the object and an invisible element."'
The goods that make up collections are therefore not destined to be used
or traded. They are solely to be "looked at," and it is just this "sacrifice of
utility" that elevates them to the level of semiophores, messengers of the
invisible. The value of this type of good defines itself through its ties with
the invisible rather than through exchange or utility. However, the fact remains
that this value can paradoxically be expressed in terms of the capacity
to acquire things that do have utility and are fully enmeshed in the normal
THE GREAT COLLECTIONS :: 12.7
circuits of the economy. Even if there were societies in which these two
realms—useful goods versus meaningful goods—were rigidly separated, this
was not the case in Renaissance Italy. In this society even the most sacred
relics and the most sublime works of art could be exchanged for money or
other equivalent goods. Ownership of meaningful objects did not put one
completely outside of the market or the usual mechanisms of exchange. On
the contrary, ownership of this sort was powerfully influenced by wealth.
Riches were transformed into taste and knowledge the moment they were
used to acquire a fine object filled with artistic or cultural meaning. The acquisition
of such an object thereby altered the social hierarchy, which was
based on status and reputation. By virtue of their connections with the invisible,
semiophores confer a particular prestige on anyone who owns them. As
Pomian writes, their significance
derives from the emergence, alongside the twin hierarchies of power
and of sacred (the clergy) and secular (artistic and intellectual circles)
knowledge, of a hierarchy of wealth, which did not correspond to these
first two. All three were themselves arranged in a hierarchy, with power
dominating knowledge, sacred knowledge struggling to maintain its
pre-eminence and domination over its secular counterpart,while within
the latter, different professions were given different statuses. Wealth
wassituated at the very bottom,as it consisted solely of the instruments
of economic constraint, namely money and the means of production.
Once again, usefulness was subordinated to meaning. In this light, it is
easy to understand why the acquisition of semiophores, the purchase
of works of art and the founding of libraries or collections, represented
one way of turning usefulness into meaning and of enabling someone
occupying a lofty place in the hierarchy of wealth to attain an equivalent
position in the hierarchy of taste and learning. As we have already seen,
collection pieces were emblematic of social rank, if not superiority, and
this meant that the admission to this exclusive milieu, which depended
on the withdrawal of part of one's wealth from the utilitarian circuit,
could be obtained through the purchase of semiophores.9
In short, collections represented a means to gain prestige, a way to transform
money into superior social standing.
The wealth accumulated during the Renaissance increased the resources
available not only to lay princes and ecclesiastical elites but also to more
private investors. These greater resources in turn encouraged competition for
12.8 :: CHAPTER FIVE
cultural goods. Hence, through the efforts of rich financers, intellectuals,and
literati, collections of art and natural curiosities multiplied.10 An increasing
number of people were inspired to invest part of their money in the acquisition
of goods that were not intended to be useful and were thereby charged
with symbolic value. Religious paintings put one in communication with
the divine. Coins, marbles, and other archaeological artifacts established a
bridge to antiquity. Minerals, fossils, and other natural curiosities opened
the door to nature. The owner of these types of objects could possess culture
and the cosmos. Through ownership, one could appropriate the prestige
these objects signified."
Moving beyond semiotics, anthropologists also have something interesting
to say about the difference between goods removed from exchange and
those that are put back in circulation. At least ideally, the former are declared
inalienable, and it is precisely from this status that they derive their value. In
contrast, the latter are exchanged in order to ensure the inalienability of these
other objects.12 This distinction—between that which is inalienable and that
which is not—manifested itself in baroque Rome as well.
Collecting in Seventeenth-Century Italy
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, collecting in Italy could boast a
century of history, as evidenced by the literary production on the topic, including
the many Galeria published during this period."The vogue for collecting
had spread widely since the Renaissance to include private individuals as well
as princes and religious institutions." In any case, by the middle of the sixteenth
century it must have been a common practice if Sabba da Castiglione,
writing in 1546, was able to analyze the phenomenon by subdividing it into
various types. There were gentlemen and lords—he noted in his Ammaestramenti—"many
of whom amused themselves by adorning and polishing their
palaces, their houses, and above all their bedrooms and studies, with various
and diverse ornaments."" Others chose musical instruments, while
some adorn their houses with antiquities such as heads, trunks, busts,
and ancient statues of marble or bronze. . . . And others ancient medals
of gold, silver or metal . . . And others cameos of pink chalcedony
and other carved objects. . . . Others delight themselves by decorating
their houses with panel and canvas paintings, histories and portraits . . .
And others decorate with copper or wood engravings. . . . Others deck
out and adorn their rooms with Flemish tapestries and long cloths . . .
THE GREAT COLLECTIONS :: 12.9
othersTurkish carpetsand beds...others ingeniously worked leather...
and some others delight in new, fantastic, and bizarre things, cleverly
brought from the Levant or Germany.16
According to Sabba's description, collectible objects were many and varied.
Medallions, paintings, tapestries, and ancient statues were all used to decorate
domestic spaces and, above all, for the materialization of "splendor."
Splendor was revealed in a person's desire to surround himself with beautiful
and precious objects for hisown pleasure and for the enjoyment of his guests.
However, aside from promoting a certain lifestyle, Sabba seems to have been
describing a phenomenon that he had personally observed. A century later the
impression one gets through examining the inventories is that broad strata
of the population engaged in home decoration. Lawyers, jewelers, painters,
merchants,and other representatives of the Roman middlingclasses collected
decorative objects purely for aesthetic pleasure.
The idea behind this enterprise was to accumulate as many signs as possible
of the wonders of nature or of the grandness and beauty of human
ingenuity. At least in intention, a collection was a way to recreate the unity
of knowledge. It presented itself as a tangible and readily available summa
of all the realms of human understanding, each capable of being manifested
through a single object of the collection.'7 Every natural or artificial element
of a collection constituted in itself a summa of knowledge about nature or
art that, in its materiality, represented the synthetic whole. Thus the collection
became a summa of summae, embodying the dictates of an ancient and
authoritative literary canon."The aphorisms, commonplaces, and individual
sententiae were condensed into a concise synthesis that was the essence of
"the old and new classics, both in Latin and the vernacular."19 Printed collections
of emblems, in vogue during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
carried out the same functions and enjoyed great popularity among the reading
public.20 However, objects, as opposed to emblems, could also provide an
immediate reference, recapitulating knowledge with much greater complexity.
Indeed, the success of collections indicates the value this reference system
had for contemporaries. Like a dictionary or an encyclopedia, the collection
allowed its owner to have at hand a key with which to access the totality of
culture.2' It placed all things next to their definitions and pictures. An identical
demand for the direct synthesis of knowledge comes from the advice that
Fabio Albergati offered to Odoardo Farnese and from the oration titled In
Praise of the Commendator Cassiano Dal Pozzo, recited in 1657 by Carlo
Roberto Dati in the Florentine Academy. According to Albergati:
130 :: CHAPTER FIVE
The Cardinal-Prince, as a wise Prince with the rank of Cardinal, will
keep in his service men of letters, so that, like causal agents, they may
inculcate in him the most noble form of the most perfect sciences . . .
thus, speaking continuously with scholars and discoursing about literature,
he will become learned without effort, and knowledgeable
(scientiato).... Scholars, like living books, can in a short time use their
reason to discover and explain to other people a thousand obscure
paths in the sciences which a man enclosed in a great library might never
understand, or only after a long time. ... Thus, whereas ordinary men,
because they do not have copies of literature, cannot achieve this level
of knowledge except through a very great amount of time, study, and
effort, Princes, having every convenience, may do so with incredible
quickness, ease, and pleasure.22
Dati praised Cassiano dal Pozzo for having brought together in the twentythree
volumes of his Paper Museum "the entirety of Roman Antiquity,"
translating into images "as much of that rich treasure as was written by the
most famous Antiquaries."23Just like the scholars described by Albergati in
the service of the cardinal-prince, Cassiano was able to make available to his
readers an entire library of antiquarian studies. Furthermore, he had given
this to them in the form of a "museum," a collection of objects reduced to
images and "translated" into print.24
Splendor and Magnificence
A collection of precious things could objectify the splendor of the owner.
It gave strength to and made visible his ability to use his wealth for good
purposes. Additionally, accumulating precious objects served, through purchased
or invented material, to fashion and define the identity of the person
who threw himself into this enterprise. In the conclusion of his analysis,
Sabba wrote, "I commend and praise all of these ornaments—antiques, medallions,
cameos, paintings, etchings, tapestries, leatherwork, and the new
things coming from the Levant or Germany—because they reveal ingenuity,
politeness, civility, and courtliness."25 Collecting and conserving objects was
a way of constructing an aesthetic image of oneself as refined and cultured,
and not simply rich.26
At thesame time, collections had celebratory functions.Jacomo Contarini,
writing in 1595, testified to this use of the collection: "[from my study has
come] all of the honors and fame of my person." The declarations of many
THE GREAT COLLECTIONS :: 131
other collectors confirm Contarini'ssentiments.27 Collectionsserved to exalt
the fame of those who had made them and to perpetuate their memory. However,
according to Vincenzo Giustiniani, there was something in collecting
that made one feel both sublime and guilty. After having put together one
of the most beautiful and richest collections of antique statues and marbles,
he commissioned famous artists to draw, engrave, and print these works.
The reproduction would be appropriately titled Galleria Giustiniana.28 Both
undertakings—collecting and printing a collection—naturally had a cost,
which was so considerable that at the point of his death, the price seemed
extravagant and exorbitant even to Giustiniani himself. Consequently, in
the instructions contained in a sealed packet he left to Camillo Massimi,
the executor of his will, Giustiniani invited "the deputies of the Giustiniani
family" to take printings from the "copper engravings" of his Galleria of
not more than two hundred copies at a time, in a way that
you might derive the greatest use [from them] that one could reasonably
hope, and that from the images which you will obtain from them . . .
you must make an investment, and buy many new monti camerali [an
investment in papal land, which paid interest as taxes on the residents
who came in] or other secure ventures, as you will be able to do. . . .
And the fruit that will come forth from the said investment in the
monti . . will be distributed annually by the deputies of the above
mentioned family to the poorest and most wretched members of the
Giustiniani family. . . . Since, I made this work of engraving the things
of my Gallery and collected them together through a sinful desire (humor
peccante),29 having undertaken this for a long time at continual
and considerable expense, not only in the cost of the statues, but also
in the copper engravings; knowing well that this expense could have
been applied to another pious use, and one more beneficial to others, I
wanted in some way to compensate for my previous deficiency."
This plan proved to be absolutely unrealistic, however. Already by 165o
the printings of the Galleria Giustiana became rather rare "because in
sending the copper plates to Genoa, and selling those copies that had been
made, today the owners of the said copper plates, due to the great expense
that goes into printing, do not care to have it done, and have made them
defunct."
To remove a resource that might be beneficial to others is therefore a
"sin" and "deficiency" that must be redeemed, possibly through those same
132 :: CHAPTER FIVE
resources. Yet a collection derived its value precisely in this "sacrifice" of
goods and wealth. The idea that a collection entailed an unusual financial
obligation, but that the collector did not care about the expense, was already
present in the Life of Nicholas V by Vespasiano da Bisticci. In this work
Vespasiano recounted how, for the construction of the first nucleus of the
Vatican Library, the pope had an enormous quantity of books acquired,
"never regarding the price." Furthermore, "he brought together a number
of learned men and rewarded them liberally for producing new books and
also translating others not yet available."32 Between the end of the sixteenth
century and the beginning of the seventeenth, this theme was taken up again
by Michele Mercati ("without sparing expense or effort"), Ciriaco Mattei
("with much expense, care, and time"), Vincenzo Giustiniani ("with continual,
immoderate expense"), Cassiano dal Pozzo ("I never spared any expense
. . . for the space of many years"), and many others." Ciriaco Mattei,
moreover, was not satisfied with just a small sacrifice of time and money.
He felt the need to certify, through sworn declarations of witnesses given
before a notary, the precise amount he had spent, so that it would be preserved
for future memory.34 Years later Bellori, giving information about
the library of Felice Contelori, explained that it contained "the works of a
great number of authors, of which the transcriptions and copies alone had
cost the profuse sum of six thousand scudi."" From a subjective point of
view, then, the value of the collections could be measured first of all in the
amount of time and money that were necessary to collect them. However,
such an unusual enterprise, which was difficult and entailed great expenses,
was also valuable in that it commanded the respect and praise of others.
Gabriel Naude was very explicit on this point: "these curious works, which
are neither trivial nor ordinary, can legitimately pass for one of the good
signs of which Cardano spoke in his chapter de signis eximiae potentiae,
because they are extraordinary, difficult, and of great expense. Thus one
cannot do otherwise than speak well and nearly with admiration of those
who practice it."36 Here the reference to the sacrifice of time and money is
intended above all as a rhetorical device, as an artificial discourse that recurs
to justify the value of the enterprise. The reality of things is often more modest,
as demonstrated, for example, by the expenditure earmarked to create
and increase the collection of Scipione Borghese at the beginning of the seventeenth
century: in the span of twenty-nine years, only o.5 percent of the cardinal's
revenues were used for the acquisition of paintings and statues for his
collection.37
All the people mentioned thus far clearly intended to suspend the
THE GREAT COLLECTIONS :: 133
ordinary uses of their resources for the purpose of making a collection. Altering
the normal flow of time and money made a collection truly precious
and worthy of being treated differently from other possessions. For a collection
to have value one must commit a "sacrifice" that entails renouncing
the other possible uses of the resources used to create it.38 These other uses
could be more profitable in economic terms and more legitimate in moral
terms. However, the collection—a compendium of all art and knowledge,
at least in intent—contained elements that were capable of legitimating the
diversion of resources from "other uses more beneficial to those nearby."
Nevertheless, a private collection of precious objects always remained a form
of individual appropriation, of personal treasure making that violated the
community ethic of sharing resources. Private gain and enrichment were in
fact legitimate activities as long as they were put rapidly back in circulation
and thus enriched the entire community."From this point of view, sumptuary
expenditure, which gave employment to innumerable workers and brought
together a certain number of peers in the enjoyment of luxury foods and
goods, was in its own way a form of redistribution.4° The collection of precious
objects, on the other hand, was pure accumulation, totally estranged
from any principle of charity, and as such a blameworthy activity. It was not
by chance that one of the first acts performed by Carlo Borromeo, on the
day after his conversion to asceticism, was the dismantling of his collections,
which he sold or donated to benefit the poor.4'
The suspicion of avarice that burdened any form of private accumulation
had to be redeemed through forms of compensation that restored to
the community at least some part of the resources that had been removed
from it. Vincenzo Giustiniani chose to create an annuity to benefit the
poor members of his family lineage. Furthermore, in at least one of his writings,
he was very explicit in underlining the moral obligation that weighed
upon a gentleman by virtue of the wealth and honor he enjoyed. It was the
gentleman's duty to give back to the community something of what he received
and continued to receive from it. In his Discorso sopra l'architettura,
Giustiniani warned that in building a palace, "one must also aim for the
public and general ornamentation of the city and the country, which each of
us is obliged to counterbalance according to the riches and respect which he
receives from it daily."42 If Giustiniani opted for partial forms of compensation,
other collectors, such as Domenico Grimani in 1523 or Federico Borromeo
nearly a century later,chose solutions rather more radical,giving their
collections to their native city. As already noted, Grimani's library would
constitute the initial base for the Marciana in Venice, while Borromeo's col-
134 :: CHAPTER FIVE
lection gave life to the Ambrosiana in Milan.43 It is in this context that one
can situate the last will and testament of cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who
in 1587 arranged matters so that both his statues and his library would be
"preserved and cared for in perpetuity" in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. He
expressly forbade the exportation or alienation of the objects in his collection."As
Pontano had already claimed, the man of excellence acquired and
surrounded himself with beautiful objects not solely for himself, but also for
"the use and convenience of the entire populace."45
The opening to the public of museums, galleries, libraries, and private gardens
therefore constituted a particular form of restitution. Many bibliophiles
left their libraries to a monastery or other foundations, "with orders that
they put it in a room for the service of the public."'" At least as many people
opened their private collections of books, paintings, statues, medallions,
and natural curiosities to anyone who desired to see them. While visiting the
Vatican Library in 1581, Montaigne noted in his diary: "I saw it without any
difficulty; anyone can enter and take out from it what they want."47 Boissard
opened his Romanae Urbis topographia et antiquitates by writing that the
Roman prelates ordered their own servants to admit visitors "to the upper
levels [of their dwellings], to the gardens, and to their most secret rooms;
and in particular, men of culture, so that they can contemplate and admire
everything worthy of observation and not only take notes on the rare and
precious marbles, vases, statues, paintings, coins, and images engraved into
gems, but also peruse with care the library of the same prelate."" On the
other hand, readers of Pontano knew that looking upon refined and precious
objects "is pleasing and garners prestige for the patron of the house, as long
as the house can be visited and admired by many."49 It is not by chance that
Ciriaco Mattei used a very similar argument in recommending the care of
the garden of Navicella to his heirs: "that garden was also very relaxing and
entertaining, and a place for virtuosi of no little reputation for the house
since it was seen and visited daily not only by individuals and people from
Rome, but also by foreigners, with good praise and fame."" Removing a
few goods from their usual utilitarian functions also required that they be
exposed to view, possibly by a great number of people. Forms of sociability
arose around the exhibition of objects. This sociability fully met the requirement
of generosity expected by the community ethic.
Many viewed the opening of collections to the public and the restitution
to the city of some particular pieces of symbolic value as forms of compensation
toward the community. However, collectors and their families also
exploited them as instruments in a politics of social promotion. Putting their
THE GREAT COLLECTIONS :: 135
private splendor out for the benefit of the public transformed it into magnificence,
according to the distinctions between the various types of generosity
introduced by Pontano and other humanists. The collector thereby aspired
to a value that surpassed the prerogatives of private citizens by attempting
to match the magnificence of sovereign princes.
Likewise, collectors who attempted to prohibit the sale or dismemberment
of their collections, a practice introduced by fedecommessi, or those
who donated their entire collection to the body politic perhaps attempted to
achieve perpetual fame and immortality. However, these practices were also
ways to construct and legitimate the inalienability of the goods that made up
the collection. In fact, the symbolic value of collections did not totally supplant
their financial value and consequently led to their definitive exclusion
from the world of exchange. On the contrary, the great worth acquired by
objects that had become part of a collection exposed them to the constant
risk of being reintroduced into the circuits of commercial exchange. Nothing
prevented a semiophore from being turned back into a commodity; in fact,
its higher value encouraged this process. The inalienability of a collection
had to be constructed and defended. Yet one did not refrain from selling a
collection solely to gain immortal fame. Inalienability had immediate value
that was very concrete and present-minded, and not simply a projection into
the future. The control of inalienable goods determined membership at the
top of the social hierarchy, and success in preserving one's collection immediately
assumed political value beyond prestige and honor.'
If this research shows that the great Renaissance and baroque collectors
were motivated by contact with the invisible realm of meaning and the possibility
of immortality, what can one say about those collectors of lesser
status? What inspired the small and even miniscule collections of paintings,
medallions, curious objects, and ornamental household objects present in
the homes of lawyers, jewelers, painters, women with minimal education,
and other representatives of the Roman middling classes? Was the discourse
on sacrificing utility and renouncing the exchange of objects worthwhile for
them? Did they also attempt to make a few items inalienable—or to obtain
at least one object that would be considered inalienable—and thereby gain
prestige and, in the long run, immortality?
Collecting and Sociability
If the collection had to be an extraordinary work, capable of conferring
immortal fame on its owner and worthy of becoming inalienable, someone
136 :: CHAPTER FIVE
had to recognize its value and legitimate it publicly. In dealing with cultural
assets, legitimation could come from no other source than the public world
of virtuosi, as Ciriaco Mattei recognized and as Pontano had noted many
years earlier. They—and only they—could offer a collector those "services
of identification" he needed.52Just as agreement among consumers conferred
economic value on goods, the glance of admiring visitors was essential to
a collection. This was an important element in the construction of the collection,
which only later represented a form of restitution." Therefore, it
is little wonder that an intense sociability surrounded collections and even
singular valuable works.The same thing occurred with gardens rich in exotic
and rare plants. The correspondence between intellectuals contains constant
references to the visits they paid each other to admire handcrafted works,
natural curiosities, paintings, and manuscripts of particular value. Furthermore,
travel literature is overflowing with information on this subject, because
a visit to the "museums" and collections that would be found along
travel routes quickly became an obligatorystop for any traveler of high social
standing or with an elevated soul. Even authors of the guides to various cities
quickly began to insert information of this type in their works. Fioravante
Martinelli's Roma ricercata nelsuosito, published in 1644, offers an example
of thismentality.Speaking of the Palazzo Barberini, for example, hesaid:"you
can see the great library of Cardinal Barberini, and his most noble garden."54
Regarding the "palace of Capodiferri now of the Spada," Martinelli informed
the reader: "you will see the library, the living room, the bedrooms . . . and
the most voluptuous garden." He continued to enumerate these features of
all of the principal public and private buildings of the city. Pompilo Totti's
Portrait of Modern Rome, published a few years earlier, followed the same
model, as one would gather from the title of the second edition: Portrait of
Modern Rome, in Which the Churches, Monasteries, Hospitals, Brotherhoods,
Colleges, Seminaries, Palaces, Architecture, Libraries, and Museums
Are Portrayed.55 The same formula was used again in Giovan Pietro
Bellori's well-known Notice of the Museums, Libraries, Galleries, and the
Ornaments ofStatues and Paintings in the Palaces, Houses, and Gardens of
Rome.56
The marvels collected in Roman palaces and gardens were also places for
gatherings and meetings that were more mundane than learned. For example,
every year on the first of August, Giovangiorgio Cesarini invited around one
hundred Roman gentlemen and foreigners into his garden of San Pietro in
Vincoli and offered them refreshment. His wife, Cleria, did the same thing
with the ladies.'' Other Roman noble families adjusted rapidly to this new
THE GREAT COLLECTIONS :: 137
practice, and soon the Roman Avvisi were full of reports on parties and banquets,
such as the gathering in Cardinal Flavio Chigi's garden at the Quattro
Fontane whose arrangement was organized by Carlo Fontana and which
was considered extraordinary for its magnificence and elegance." Beautiful
objects and sociability were inextricably intertwined.
11111111111111111111111 11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
CHAPTER SIX
Paintings
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The Diffusion of Paintings
While the princes and great aristocrats could allow themselves the luxury
of locking up enormous resources in the construction of imposing galleries
filled with paintings, learned people of more modest means had to content
themselves with smaller investments. However, paintings or pictures, even
if done by "an ordinary hand" instead of a famous artist, and on paper
instead of canvas, were found in most inventories. Indeed, by the beginning
of the seventeenth century the acquisition of paintings had become a
fashion, a simple element of decoration, to such an extent that, according to
Vincenzo Giustiniani, "not only in Rome, Venice, and other areas of Italy,
but also in Flanders and France, the practice of completely adorning palaces
with paintings has recently begun, thus varying the sumptuous adornments
of the past."' In effect, two concomitant phenomena were in full bloom by
the middle of the seventeenth century: the vogue for exhibiting art, and the
turn to the painting of more popular pictorial subjects such as still lifes,
landscapes, scenes from daily life, or genre works.2 These two phenomena
"helped to make painting a far more 'public business.'"3 In this way approaching
art became the prerogative of not only well-established collectors
but also people, as Mancini wrote, of "middling or low social standing."4
Nearly all of the people whose inventories are considered here belonged to
this more modest group.
For the most part, great collectors commissioned and purchased original
works according to their needs and taste directly from artists. More modest
art lovers turned to ready-made works, not to mention works produced en
masse that began to appear around the middle of the century.' Beyond the
138 :: CHAPTER FIVE
venue of the art exhibit, this encounter between producers and consumers
of artistic goods was made possible by a discreet channel of specialized
dealers. They sold paintings in artists' or art dealers' workshops and also
in the shops of people in totally unrelated occupations. Frequently, tailors,
barbers, and masons dealt in paintings.6 The painter Francesco Raspantini
was just this kind of person: he left his heirs 1,778 paintings and prints,
and more than four hundred empty frames of all sizes and types upon his
death in 1667. The numbers alone suggest that Raspantini—pupil and heir
to Domenichino—in addition to painting on commission, kept a stock of
ready-made works to be sold. Close analysis of the quality of these works
fully confirms this hypothesis: at least five hundred printed sheets of various
subjects, including more than one hundred prints of battles or of ancient and
modern buildings in Rome, along with the associated copperplate engravings,
114 prints of Lady Olimpia and the accompanying engravings, four paintings
representing the Ecce Homo, five with Mary Magdalene, thirty Madonnas,
two portraits of Cardinal Pamphili, three of Pope Innocent X, and five more
of Lady Olimpia. Evidently, part of this collection was produced as a series,
which left some of the stock of Pamphili portraiture unsold after changes in
the pontificate.
The Value of Pictures
Giustiniani's comments suggest that decorating walls with paintings was,
in effect, a way of saving money, in addition to an easier way of varying
decoration.The appraisals that sometimes accompany the simple description
of objects in the inventories demonstrate how inexpensive paintings usually
were. Indeed, often the frame cost more than the painting.'Thus the Duchess
Sforza Cesarini could enter at least ten payments for paintings in her account
book for 1689, spending in total 107 scudi along with some payments made
in loaves of bread and loads of coal.' However, it was the scrupulous record
keeping of Marquis Santacroce's master of the house that allows for a closer
comparison. Even in a noble house with important portraits, a frame could
cost more than the painting it contained.
The desire to emulate the nobility that perhaps came with the success of
painting did not exclude the more profound desire, for more ordinary people,
to possess a part of their culture and the signs of its status. The high number
of copies of famous works that circulated in Rome during the seventeenth
century supports this thesis.9 The success of copies is well attested by two
inventories considered here: Alessio Moglia owned a copy of Michelangelo's
140 :: CHAPTER SIX
TABLE 6.1 Prices of paintings and frames acquired by Antonio Santacroce in 17oz
OBJECT PRICE IN SCUDI
Portrait of Clement XI
Frame engraved with flowers for the portrait of the pope
Retouching of the papal portrait
Portrait of Emperor Leopold and Archduke Charles of Habsburg
Frame designed with leaves for the portrait of the Emperor.
Portrait of the king of the Romans
Five gilt frames for these portraits and for that of His
Excellency [the Marquis]
Four views of Rome by Gian Girolamo Monti
Four black frames with two orders for engraving
1.50
2.40
0.30
2.50
4.50
1.20
2.50 each
7.00 each
o.8o each
Note: ASR, Santacroce, b. z86, February, March, July, and August 1702.
Last Judgment and of a Savior by Raphael; a woman from the Contelori
family owned a work listed as Pieta on Black Diaspro by Michelangelo of
Caravaggio.'' An equally significant testimony comes from the will of a lawyer
who left to his sister-in-law, as a precious gift, a Madonna Copied from
Titian)' An even more fitting example comes from the signed contract of
the Milanese Carlo de Ferrari, who in 1645 charged the Neapolitan painter
Sebastiano Coccurulli "to make for him 15 painted copies on large canvas
[about 95 x 135 cm], of which ten will portray the niches of the Chigi loggia
in the Lungara, and the rest will be designed to the satisfaction of Signor
Carlo provided that they do not exceed three figures for each painting, which
should be copied well and diligently" for 3.5o scudi each.'2 In truth, the loggia
of the Lungara garden seems to have enjoyed a great symbolic prestige and
fortune among "mid-level" collectors: Alessio Moglia also owned a painting
on large canvas that depicted it. Indeed, his painting was of a much greater
value than usual since its estimated worth was 16 scudi."
Beyond the question of copies, with an average of 2.3.5 pieces per head,
inventories demonstrate how widely spread ownership of paintings was even
PAINTINGS :: 141
among the middlingclasses.14 Painting truly had become a "public question,"
as Haskell asserted.'' Nevertheless, such a large quantity of paintings in
male and female patrimonies that were in other respects rather poor, or even
devoid of other decorative objects, merits some further reflection. Paintings
were objects removed from the normal circuits of trade, and as such even
the most ordinary of them possessed that capacity to make contact with the
invisible, as Pomian has discussed.16 The value of these paintings resides in
this feature. Such a capacity was particularly evident in devotional images.
Paintings and statues of religious subjects possessed a metaphysical virtue,
they were a key to accessing the afterlife, "they stimulated the imagination
of the faithful to the point of making a presence perceptible; they made
such a presence a living reality and hence true."17 According to Alphonse
Dupront, this quality is a specific property of all religious images, especially
anthropomorphic ones. However, this turns out to be a shared characteristic
of all images, provided that they have been removed from the realms of use
and exchange. Sacred or profane, cheap or refined, paintings were capable of
speaking the language of the invisible world, composed of ideas and abstract
concepts. Paintings manifested the desire to communicate with the realm of
transcendence. It is likely that both sacred and profane images had many
meanings beyond our analytic simplifications and could therefore reflect a
variety of abstract concepts. Sacred meaning does not exclude the possibility
of a connection with culture, innovation, or even eroticism. Similarly, an
object designed for elegance or for the creation of pleasant surroundings can
in turn imply an attempt to communicate nobility or a desire to convey the
magnanimity of the family.i8
In light of these considerations, the paintings that decorated the walls of
even the most modest habitations assume a new significance. Many were
paintings of a religious subject, evidently designed to entrust the house and
its inhabitants to the protection of Christ, Mary, or the saints. Among the
saints depicted, a few representatives of Counter-Reformation piety such
as Saint Carlo Borromeo or Filippo Neri stood out. These however did
not manage to wrest primacy away from Saint Francis or, above all, Mary
Magdalene.
The most interesting question concerns the imagery in male versus female
patrimonies.The genders differed in what images they collected. This difference
helps indicate how the attempt to make contact with the invisible—turning
a few objects into semiophores—could become a reality.
In contrast to men of their same social standing, women were both financially
and, perhaps more importantly, culturally more impoverished. This
142. :: CHAPTER SIX
TABLE 6.2 Paintings of a devotional subject, out of a total
number of 2,040 known subjects
SUBJECT NUMBER OF PAINTINGS
Madonna 165
Christ 72
Sacred history 64
Mary Magdalene 33
Saint Francis 24
Saint Carlo Borromeo i8
Saint Filippo Neri
Angels 16
Saint Jerome T4
Nativity scene 13
Saint Peter I2
God the Father
Other Saints 458
Total 909
poverty was reflected in the quality as well as the quantity of their goods.
Since they were poorer, women could renounce the utility of an item more
rarely than men, and their "collectible goods" had to be fewer in number.
Similarly, their lesser cultural standing meant that when they sacrificed the
utility of their items it was usually for the purpose of an immediate and
elementary form of legitimation.
Women possessed far fewer paintings than men, both in the sense that
there were more female inventories that contained not a single painting
and in the sense that on average women had fewer paintings than men—an
PAINTINGS :: 143
TABLE 6.3 Quality of the paintings for men and women
NUMBER OF PAINTINGS MEN WOMEN
In which the subject is
mentioned
2,633/3,I 37 83.9 2.49/405 61.5
In which the technique is
mentioned
1,805/3,137 57.5 54/405 13.3
On paper or fabric 51/1,805 z.8 10/54 18.5
Defined as "ordinary" 62.13,137 1.9 2.4/405 5.9
Defined as "small" 639/3,137 2.0.3 137/405 33.8
average of twenty paintings per woman versus forty-one per man. 19 In general,
women had fewer than half the number of paintings than men did. In
addition, women's paintings were more often of an anonymous subject, of
smaller dimensions, and of more ordinary quality and poorer technique than
those men owned.
Finally, the paintings women owned in large part depicted devotional
images." In contrast, men preferred profane subjects.2' With less means,
both economic and cultural, women evidently worked harder to renounce
the utility of their goods, and when they did it was almost exclusively for
the purpose of establishing contact with the realm of the sacred. It is not
random chance that they tended to prefer images of the Madonna, Mary
Magdalene, and other female saints, which were three times more present
proportionally in female versus male inventories.22 Natalie Zemon Daviswas
correct to argue that Catholic women could find in the Virgin and the saints
a sacred patronage specifically addressed to them and denied to Protestant
women.23 Evidently, given that they filled their houses with these images,
women held dear these female patron saints, preferring them to the more
publicized masculine saints of the Counter-Reformation.
The differences in imagery found in the estates of men and women appeared
again in the case of profane subjects. Women did not seem to be
interested in historical or architectural representations. The breadth of their
interests was much more limited: landscapes, still lifes, and portraiture
exhausted the entire panorama. In contrast, in men's houses the range of
144 :: CHAPTER SIX
subjects included, in addition to history and architecture, birds, fish, and various
subjects that ranged from cherubs to allegorical compositions ("the five
senses," "music," "the four seasons") and genre paintings ("a kitchen," "a
seated soldier," "supper," "blind men singing and playing"), which at times
echoed famous paintings. This echoing of famous paintings again presents
the issue of the value of copies.24
Women's relative poverty explains the simplicity of their image choices.
Histories and architectural images were notoriously more expensive than
landscapes. Only portraits—members of the family or illustrious personages—reflected
an invisible realm solemn and elementary enough to justify
the expense of a painting.25 A portrait that celebrated the grandeur and
continuity of the lineage or the authority of the prince justified the removal
of resources from the realm of utility in a manner more immediate than history,
antiquity, or culture in all its diverse aspects. This explains the fact that
Caterina Francescona owned nineteen portraits of members of the Medici
family while the rest of her estate included only nine images of the Madonna
and other saints.26 Furthermore, this also explains the enormous quantity
of portraits of illustrious people, clearly destined for sale, that the painter
Raspantini kept in his study.27
Some of the inventories are detailed enough to provide information about
the display of the paintings inside the house. The owners of these estates
probably never read Mancini, who suggested placing paintings of secular
subjects in the salon and devotional ones in the bedroom. Nevertheless, they
too preferred to entrust religious images to the intimacy of their bedroom
and to display paintings of profane subjects in the salon.28
The result is that there was a scarcity of secular works hung in the bedroom
(see the table below). Thus in his recommendation Mancini did nothing
other than "theorize" a widespread practice. However, the significance
of this discovery is that this arrangement of paintings confirms once again
the potential that religious images had of making themselves intermediaries
between the earthly world and the realm of the sacred. Additionally, one
might speculate that other nonreligious images had the capacity to reflect a
type of "worldly" invisible realm. This realm was no less important than the
sacred. The example of portraits serves as particularly eloquent testimony.
They had the power to portray an individual as a transcendent entity, and
therefore when they were of the same family as the owner to construct an
image of the lineage that went beyond a single generation.29 The fact that one
finds a great number of portraits of dead relatives in the inventories suggests
that in addition to this capacity to connect with the invisible, they were also
PAINTINGS :: 145
TABLE 6.4 The subjects of paintings in the inventories of men and women
SUBJECT MEN WOMEN
Known subject
Unknown subject
1810
132.7
230
175
Total 3137 405
Agnus Dei 3 0.2 7 3.0
Angels 16 0.9 0
Christ 57 3.1 15 6.5
God the Father 2. Insignificant Insignificant
Madonna 123 6.8 42 18.3
Mary Magdalene 25 1.4 8 3.5
Nativity scene 10 o.6 3 1.3
Male saints 461 25.5 44 19.1
Female saints 28 1.5 10 4.3
Sacred history 56 3.1 7 3.0
Total devotional images 782 43.2 137 59.6
Miscellaneous subjects 115 6.4 5 2.2
Animals 30 1.7 0 0
Architecture 115 6.4 0 0
Battles 39 2.2 3 1.3
Flowers 94 5.2 8 3.5
Fruits 10 o.6 9 3.9
Landscapes 168 9.3 20 8.7
Portraits 259 14.3 48 20.9
TABLE 6.4 Continued
SUBJECT MEN WOMEN 0/0
Portraits with
landscapes
45 2.5 0 0
Secular history 65 3.5 0 0
History and architecture 89 4.9 0 0
Total secular subjects 1028 56.8 93 40.4
by nature inalienable. Another indication of this comes from wills: many of
the objects the owners rescued from anonymity, naming them so as to leave
them in legacy to relatives or dear friends, were portraits. In her last will,
written in her own hand, a certain Cleria Giustina gave explicit instructions
on what to do with her own portrait, her father's, and that of another relative.
She ordered that they be separated from the undifferentiated collection
of "all her movable objects," left to her daughter Lucrezia, and delivered to
the husband of her second daughter, also named Cleria."Another woman left
the portrait of her dead husband to his nephew, recognizing and emphasizing
the tie that united them by a common surname." Yet another left a canopy
and her portrait to her nephew as her sole legacy.32 However, it is in Venice,
and not in Rome, where we find the most eloquent testimony for the value
of portraits. The will of a certain Girolamo Pesaro, who died in 1664, warns
that the images of Saint Anthony, Saint Dominic, and Saint Paul that were in
his house represented in reality his grandfather, his father, and his brother.
These men, he explained, "had been put into this religious habit because they
did not want to be sold at the auctions or above the mats with contempt, and
that they did not want to be bought by those who should not buy them.""
Family portraits could not be exposed to the risk of ending up decorating the
walls of an undeserving house-perhaps even the house of a courtesan-and
to protect such paintings one could even disguise them as devotional images.
For Rome we do not have any declarations of such significance, but it is not
by chance that the portraits were all, without exception, displayed in the
salon and visible to any visitor.
PAINTINGS :: 147
TABLE 6.5 Number of paintings of sacred and profane subjects in various types
of rooms
MEN
TYPE OF ROOM
TOTAL NUMBER OF
ROOMS OF THIS TYPE
SACRED
SUBJECT
PROFANE
SUBJECT TOTAL
Bedroom 8 42/5.25 per 20/2.5 62/7.75
room
Salon 19 47/2.47 119/6.16 166/8.73
Other rooms 98
90/0.92 115/1.17 205/2.09
WOMEN
TOTAL NUMBER OF SACRED
TYPE OF ROOM ROOMS OF THIS TYPE SUBJECT
PROFANE
SUBJECT TOTAL
Bedroom 7 2,9/4.14 8/1.14 37/5.28
Salon 7
14/2.00 39/5.57 53/7.57
Other rooms 9 31/3.44 6/0.67 37/4.11
Pictorial Subjects
If the comparison between female and male art collections illustrates the
significance of these small, popular collections, the subjects of paintings men
possessed encourages another comparison, namely, their relationship to the
great noble and princely collections.34 The number of landscapes present in
the inventories reflects the contemporary passion of collectors for this pictorial
genre. The popularity at all levels of society of the Flemish painters, and
the success of great,cultured artists like Poussin, Domenichino, and Lorrain,
further demonstrates these tendencies." With the dozens of landscape and
architectural perspective paintings (at least 258) that filled his study, Francesco
Raspantini, a former pupil of Domenichino, seemed ready to pass on
148 :: CHAPTER SIX
to potential "mediocre" clients the suggestions of Cassiano dal Pozzo.36 Dal
Pozzo recommended displaying paintings in a way to make one stand out
against another, based on the principle that "a perspective put in the middle
of two landscapes creates a beautiful image; it is of the greatest effect if the
images of the countryside and the perspective are of matching grandeur."37
As a painter, Raspantini was well aware of the current tastes of great nobles
and kept abreast of what was fashionable. Perhaps thanks to intermediaries
such as Raspantini, even the middling classes held a widespread predilection
for landscapes and architectural scenes: the lawyer Pari owned at least five,
the goldsmith Cangiani had seven, the furrier Vittori twelve, Onofrio Lansi
fourteen, and Francesco Bava had as many as twenty-eight.38
Pictorial "series" were present in Rome if not widespread. They were
groups of five or more paintings of equal shape and dimensions that depicted
the same subject.39 The term series was never used explicitly, but it
is possible to detect a few instances of it in our inventories: a collection of
paintings that depicted "The Twelve Apostles" or another comprising "Busts
of Twelve Sibyls" with identical frames were probably both a series. People
liked serial paintings because they allowed the walls to be fully decorated.
They alternated other paintings in with the series to give a sense of order and
symmetry to the gallery. It seems quite proper, then, that Pietro Antonio Vittori
decorated his little study with three series featuring "fourteen octagons
of flowers," five da testa size [48.4 x 4o cm] paintings of "flower vases,"
and another five analogous "flower baskets."40 Along the walls Vittori hung
about another forty paintings of various sizes, depicting saints, landscapes,
and sacred and profane history, the latter preferably lascivious in nature. It
is easy to imagine how the three series enhanced the role of memory and the
need to make connections in the arrangement of paintings. Vittori decorated
this rented apartment very much in the latest style.
The most well documented popular gallery belonged to Alessio Moglia.He
was the owner of a "stove," or public bath, located in via Giulia, decorated
with paintings of greater than average value done by fairly well established
painters.'" As can be seen from the table below, even in a public bath, landscape
pictures constituted the dominant choice of image. Here, for the first
time, the artists were mentioned: Davit, probably to be identified with David
Han, a Flemish painter who died in z6z2, and Filippo Napoletano, noted by
his contemporaries for his real-life paintings of the Monti Tiburtini.42 We
do not have a single scrap of information about any of the other painters.
It is therefore difficult to say if the choice of one or another iconographic
theme constituted a tendency in taste or a particular cultural option. Yet the
PAINTINGS :: 149
TABLE 6.6 Landscape paintings owned by Alessio Moglia in 1645
SUBJECT
PRICE IN SCUDI
Battle featuring a bridge over water and a man leading an ox I0
Woods featuring a horseman hunting with dogs and other 8
figures
Woods, by Davit
Garden with many figures taken from the Garden of Longara
Seashore featuring many ships and other figures, by Davit
Seashore featuring a rock and other figures
Countryside with some little figures, by Filippo Napoletano
Countryside with old objects, cows, and other animals
Countryside with woods and many shepherds, one of whom is
playing a pipe, by Davit
Countryside featuring many small figures
Countryside imitating the Camaldoli di Frascati, hand of Davit
Countryside imitating the Camaldoli di Perugia, hand of Davit
3
16
10
TO
6
8
IO
TO
TO
TO
success of landscapes as well as the popularity of architectural scenes and
flowers perhaps can reveal something about the owners of these paintings.
If one can draw conclusions about the aesthetic tastes of the Roman "middling
classes" from a simple list of subjects in paintings, I would say they
are situated on the side of Arcadia and antiquity rather than that of smug
bourgeois realism.
Moglia was not the only example of a bathhouse proprietor who displayed
paintings at his business. Many others did the same. A barber, for example,
left an inventory of the goods from his workplace in the Tribunale del Governatore.
He owned twenty-two paintings." Giacomo Cagnacci sold all the
household effects of his bathhouse situated "behind the Banchi" for a total
of 530.82. scudi in 1645.44 Besides the barber's instruments and the contain-
150 :: CHAPTER SIX
ers for heating water, the sale inventory included fifty-eight paintings, all
anonymous, whose total value amounted to 136.5 scudi. In the first room,
Cagnacci virtuously had hung the portrait of Cardinal Barberini, images of
the Madonna, and female saints. We have to wonder, somewhat maliciously,
why were there only female saints in a "warming room" (stufa), a place
presumably frequented only by men? In the second and third rooms profane
subjects were displayed instead—that is, images of Venus, satyrs, Cupid, and
so on. Cagnacci's bathhouse would seem to have been a much more libertine
environment than Moglia's establishment.
Portraits
Nobles and plebeiansshared a predilection for portraits of great men.45 While
Caterina Francescona owned nineteen images of members of the Medici family,
the Marquis Antonio Santacroce enriched his collection of princes and
sovereigns, commissioning portraits of the Emperor Leopold of the Hapsburgsand
Archduke Charles, hisson.46 For both Santacroce and Francescona,
the ownership of these effigies equaled a declaration of political fidelity,
recognizing a debt of honor and loyalty.47 Similarly, Orazio Spada—who
purchased "a canvas with paper printed with life-like images of the emperors,
to be displayed in Castel Vicardo"—was transparent in his desire to use images
to further justify his feudal jurisdiction over the land he received as part
of his wife's dowry."Such images immediately recalled to the viewer the idea
of sovereignty and Spada's proxy representation of the imperium.
However, the aristocrats who purchased images could not restrict themselves
only to the world of politics. Equally important was collecting the
likenesses of philosophers and literary men, which bespoke their cultural
rather than political ambitions. In his Advice for Establishing a Library,
Naude advised hanging portraits of illustrious men on the walls of the library.
Such images were not just decorative, they also evoked the wisdom
and magnanimity of these sages. It made these scholars participants in the
room that held them and with the people who contemplated their work." In
homage to these principles, Cassiano dal Pozzo began collecting portraits of
artists, writers, and philosophers, asking Naude himself to write an epigram
for each of them."The significance Cassiano attributed to these images was
stated explicitly in a 1641 letter to Galileo:
Since due to the long distance, I cannot enjoy your presence as I would
have liked, I have succeeded as best I could in supplying myself with a
PAINTINGS :: 151
portrait, which lends nobility to my miserable little library and offers
me frequent opportunity to declare to its visitors the cordial servitude
which I profess to you and to show them a likeness of a most eminent
virtuoso, that is, my Signor Galileo, who is worthy not of portraits
but of statues:5'
The collectors of "middling status" who have left us their inventories contented
themselves with images "on printed paper" of a few philosophers.52
Not all of the images that adorned studies and libraries were necessarilyso
austere. While others kept portraits of philosophers, the playwright Giovanni
Azzavedi owned instead twelve "pastels in the hand of Padovanino," which
depicted women who were excellent not for their learning, but for their
beauty."In the possessions of this writer of Portuguese extraction, who died
in 1667, we find the first example of a collection of "beauties." Cardinal
Chigi, along with other high nobles and members of the Roman curia,would
soon create similar collections.s4 In 1671-72, in fact, Chigi would commission
the Flemish painter Jacob Ferdinand Voet to make at least twenty
paintings of the young women most visible in the Roman court. From this
moment on collections of female portraits, either by Voet or other more or
less famous painters, spread with great success into many noble residences,
both in Rome and abroad. Azzavedi'sseries of pastels contributed to the diffusion
of the fashion for cabinets des dames in the papal capital, a practice
that already had been established elsewhere with success."
Images were capable of evoking memories of and feelings for places as well
as people. Among the hundred or so paintings he possessed, Vincenzo Giustiniani
chose views of Genoa, Scio, and Bassano to adorn the space above the
doors to his private apartments.56 In this instance, Giustiniani combined the
contemporary taste for city maps with the more personal pleasure of always
having in view images of places that were dearest to him and symbolically
important: Genoa was the cradle of his family with which they maintained
strong ties, Scio the city his forefathers had had to abandon, and Bassano
the land from which he took his noble title. In the wardrobe of the palace at
San Luigi dei Francesi the marquis kept another "view from the windows of
the antechamber where he used to eat."57 Art thus became an instrument to
reproduce and permanently fix what one normally could not see. Furthermore,
from the moment an image was put into a painting, even on a large
canvas, it was once and for all transportable. The view from the windows of
the house was probably similarly useful, as Cassiano declared, "for supplying
in a portrait" a presence "that due to distance one cannot enjoy."
Geographic Maps and Printed Illustrations
Halfway between books and images, there existed a series of products including
everything from geographic maps to engravings of famous works. To this
list we must also add printed illustrations of important events to accompany
their descriptions in the Avvisi.
Geographic maps were rather rare: among the "middling" collectors only
two people possessed a few during the course of their career. The same two
collectors also owned two mappamundi each. The first owner was Giovanni
Battista Contelori, who in 1602 went to Rome to take up his office as judge
in the tribunal of the Auditor Camerae." The second was a member of the
Febei family, which in every generation provided at least one lay or ecclesiastical
magistrate. Febei's study contained three "geographic maps" of Spain,
France, and Italy, along with "five smaller maps of the four parts of the world
and Germany."" Along with various paintings and a few modest pieces of
furniture, these constituted part of the austere furnishings of a magistrate's
house. Nevertheless, he also possessed a "harpsichord in three registers with
an ivory keyboard" and a "gaming table with boards and rings for playing."
These objects marked him as a person conscious of the latest fashions and
interested not only in geography but also in other sorts of cultural products.
Anton Stefano Cartari exhibited identical traits when he asked his father
to send him two geographic maps while he was simultaneously studying
mathematics, taking lessons in music, and exploring the ancient history of
Orvieto." Similarly Isabella Vecchiarelli Santacroce, a fashionable woman
of elegance, bought twelve maps all at once.6'
Printed reproductions of renowned works enjoyed the same sort of diffusion.
This genre included drawings of ancient marbles, commissioned by
the great collectors, up through engravings of famous paintings. In effect,
print representations constituted a very important vehicle for communication
and the spread of information. Circulating much more easily than the
originals they depicted, "print translations," that is to say, engravings of
existing sculptures or paintings, contributed in a definitive way to the creation
of a common artistic language among the various European countries.
These images promoted what has been called "the extraordinary increase
in 'translatability' of ideas and art forms in Europe during the sixteenth
and two successive centuries."62 However, drawings and prints constituted
a means of conveying information in a more strict sense. They allowed the
great collectors to document exactly what they wanted to buy and what they
were looking for.63 At the same time these reproductions familiarized a much
152 :: CHAPTER SIX PAINTINGS :: 153
wider public with images of medals, archaeological finds, and famous works
of art, all of which would otherwise have been inaccessible to them. It was
in this spirit that Vincenzo Giustiniani had the copper plates of his famous
collection of ancient marbles engraved." Engravings of people, buildings,
and daily events—produced and distributed in great numbers and with surprising
speed—also effectively transmitted information and documentation.
Raspantini was a probable producer and vendor of this type of product; he
owned fourteen prints of battles, forty-nine of ancient Roman buildings,
and forty-nine of modern Roman palaces and churches. He also had various
copperplate engravings of the same subjects and of Titian's Triumph of
Christ. Once again, however, other sources provide better information than
the inventories.
Battles and wartime deeds were the primary object of printed works. In
July of 1672., for example, Carlo Cartari wrote to his son: "In this instance
I had Signor Don Antonio take eight large sheets of paper, on which eight
places acquired by the King of France in his war against the Dutch were rather
well engraved, and they are currently engraving the other places as well."65
A few days later Cartari sent an "account of a naval battle" and added:
"another four Dutch military sites have been engraved, as they have been
acquired by the arms of the most Christian king [of France], and engravings
of the others will follow. I have ordered Don Antonio to provide me with
what they publish. Let me know if the said engravings have appeared there,
and if the reports being printed have appeared.""
The events worthy of being engraved could also be papal funerals or the
parade of possesso for the pope's successor. The Effemeridi Cartarie, a sort
of diary that Cartari wrote almost daily, contained many of these printed
scenes, at times so large as to have to be folded two or three times to be fitted
into a quarto-sized volume. On Thursday, the first of February 1691, for
example, Alexander VIII died. A few days later, Cartari noted: "with their
usual diligence these Roman printers are selling through Sunday the attached
report and engraved page. When it comes they will publish the other reports
concerning the catafalque, and the possession of office by the new pontiff.""
The next page indeed contains the Report of the Last Sickness and Death
of Our Saintly Lord Pope Alexander VIII by Giovanni Francesco Buogni.
In a note to this entry it was written "Sold by Francesco Leone, bookseller
in Piazza Madama."" The two next pages contain prints with designs of
the Funeral Service Carried Out on 2 February x691 for the Death of Our
Lord Pope Alexander VIII. One of these prints proclaimed it was "printed
by Matteo Gregorio Rossi in piazza Navona."69 In the same book there was
154 :: CHAPTER SIX
an account of the funeral rites, an engraving with a map of the conclave,
and another engraving of the funeral bier. In all three cases the printer-seller
made sure to make his name visible to the reader.7°
From politics to culture, the likenesses of illustrious persons also enjoyed
popularity and wide diffusion. For example, in an Academy held in Rome
during August of 1672. there circulated
a printed portrait which represented rather well Signora Cornara, a
Venetian lady and a great virtuosa of our century. It is said that besides
erudition in Latin language and Italian (volgare), both in prose and in
verse, she frankly possesses more languages, especially Greek. She is
also as knowledgeable about the celestial as the earthly sphere and is
versed in the lessons of the Holy Fathers and those of the philosophers.
She is about twenty-five years old and wants to live in her paternal
house without marrying or entering a nunnery.''
Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, who in 1678 would become the first
woman to receive a doctorate in philosophy, from the University of Padua,
was therefore already an "event" that merited the attention of her contemporaries
and, consequently, the market of engravings in print.
Although void of the evocative power of images, the Avvisi and other reports
on the events of the day were closely related to printed representations.
They circulated in manuscript form in great quantities, as one can ascertain
from Carlo Cartari's allusions to them.72 Bernardino Spada Veralli's account
book records the first instance of an expenditure for procuring this type of
information. In 1667 he recorded the purchase of a "narration on the creation
of Clement IX," a "map of the new cardinals," and "capitulations of
peace between France and Spain," as well as between Spain and Portugal."
However, it was only with Antonio Santacroce that the purchase of Avvisi
became a regular practice: every month his chamberlain recorded the expenditure
of o.6o scudi for this purpose.74 Like his daughter-in-law Isabella,
Marquis Santacroce attentively followed current events, buying works that
spoke of recent happenings, such as La Rochefoucauld's The Moral Reflections
or Abbot Magnati's Historical Notes on Earthquakes!' The acquisition
of this latter book was evidently brought about by some seismic event, as it
was accompanied, to help avoid bad luck, by "2.75 pages of names for Jesus
and Mary [that would work] against earthquakes."76 Everything was very
cheap. The price of the reports purchased by Spada Veralli varied from 2 to
o baiocchi. The books bought by Santacroce were both o.3o scudi. Only
PAINTINGS :: 155
the "printed pages against earthquakes" cost a little more (1.37 scudi), but
then, there were 2.75 of them.
While paintings enjoyed a direct connection with the invisible and the transcendent,
these "intermediate" products were primarily a means of information
and, as such, vehicles of an absolutely contingent language, as opposed
to the transcendent one of paintings. Should one then leave these objects in
the realm of utility rather than of meaning, considering them things rather
than semiophores? It is difficult to believe that Carlo Cartari bought engravings
of the places conquered from the Dutch by the most Christian armies
for utilitarian reasons. Indeed, what use did he have for this information,
given that he was not an officer of the papal armies or a magistrate who was
somehow involved with the war or foreign politics? He was not even a papal
counselor, a cardinal-nephew, or a secretary of state. Cartari was a lawyer
of the consistory whose interests extended at most as far as Orvieto, where
part of his family lived. He loved books and erudite pastimes; he enjoyed
attending the academies held in Rome during his lifetime. He did not have
sonsor even nephews or other relatives in the war. He was far away from any
involvement in war that would have implied the necessity of staying informed
so as to make decisions. The information he so avidly collected was not used
for any sort of action; on the contrary, it was justified in and of itself.
More ambiguous in this particular context was the nature of a book such
as Magnati's Historical Notes on Earthquakes or flysheets reporting the
death of the pope or the living arrangements of the cardinals who came together
for the papal conclave. This type of news could effectively have some
practical utility and may have been bought for this purpose. However, this
is not enough to cancel out the impression that these works served more to
create an informed reader than simply to provide information. They functioned
in the exact same way that representations of strongholds cleared by
the French or the portrait of "Signora Cornara" did: they made a reader
more worldly and aware of current events.
When an art market and its artistic products came to life, establishing a
buying public larger than just the great patrons and purchasers, the entire
sector of cultural production underwent a change. The ambition to possess
semiophores, and the concrete possibility of sacrificing the utilitarian function
of some of their objects on the altar of meaning, involved a growingcircle
of people. These included people of lesser means who expressed a demand for
less expensive cultural products. Paintings that were not especially well made,
books, prints, and news pages served this desire well enough. These items
were sufficiently far from the realm of utility to be charged with significance
156 :: CHAPTER SIX
and, at the same time, in some circumstances, they could even be useful. They
maintained their marketability and exchange value, yet nonetheless conferred
prestige on their owners. Their value was thus charged with an additional
fundamental quality: they constituted supplementary resources of taste and
knowledge that were available to the public for only a few pennies.
PAINTINGS :: 157
111111111111111111111III 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111III
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ostentatious Things
Devotional Trinkets
If goods removed from useful purposes became charged with significance
and had a superior value, it is understandable that the growth of disposable
wealth stimulated an increasing demand for semiophores. Artistic and cultural
goods began to appear in greater number than ever before, a fact that
hasstruck Renaissancescholars. Thesescholars have frequently explained the
new prevalence of such ostentatious goods as the quick response of the market
to new demand. But goods removed from the normal rhythms of everyday
use and exchange did not consist only of those objects we associate with the
Renaissance collector, such as paintings, medallions, marblestatues, antique
vases, natural curiosities, or scientific instruments, as these items were rather
expensive and accessible to relatively few people. Furthermore, industrial
production and great international trade were not the only means by which
demand for luxury objects was met. Rather, as one can see from the table
below, the products available to Roman consumers were quite varied.
As far as product demand, sculptors could not in any way compete with
painters: Roman consumers were strongly biased in favor of painting. The
sample set covered in the table does contain around 13to statues, however.
This number includes about thirty busts and heads of Roman emperors, along
with a few bronze or low-quality silver medals. Wesee here in the ownership
of this sort of object thesame difference in attitudes that divided women and
men noted in nonreligious paintings. Out of thirty women, only Margherita
Betti owned three "carved stone objects for reception rooms," which she
brought with her from one house to another. In time she also acquired four
TABLE 7.1 Number of "miscellaneous" objects contained in the inventories of 42
men (excluding Raspantini) and zz women
TYPE OF
OBJECT MEN
AVERAGE PER
MAN WOMEN
AVERAGE PER
WOMAN
Fonts and other
devotional
objects
Sacred and secular
dolls
Partial total
Ink wells and
other tools for
writing
Paper
Books
Lamps and
candle holders
Candles
Partial total
Swords and
harquebuses
Heraldic insignia
Partial total
Cases and boxes
Curiosities
Picture frames
Silk flowers
49 1.2. 6 0.7
8 0.2. 10 0.5
57 1.4 26 1.2
12 0.3 2 0.I
21 0.5 9 0.4
2,16 5.3 84 3.8
191 4.7 6 2.8
47 1.2. 0 0
474 r.6 149 6.8
61 1.5 2 0.I
27 0.7 0 0
88 2.1 2 0.T
34 o.8 7 0.3
18 0.4 0.1
19 0.5 0 0
23 o.6 0 0
Cages 4
Umbrellas 2.
0.I
0.1
4 0.2
0.1
TABLE 7.1 Continued
TYPE OF
OBJECT MEN
AVERAGE PER
MAN WOMEN
AVERAGE PER
WOMAN
Clocks
Plants in vases
9
26
0.2
o.6
3 0.I
0
Mirrors 59 1.4 16 0.7
Statues 107 2.6 22 I.0
Musical
instruments
14 0.3 4 0.2.
Scientific
instruments
I2 0.3 0.0
Vases 37 I.0 12 0.5
Partial total 364 8.9 73 3.3
Toiletries 28 0.7 5 0.2
Fans and
tobacco boxes
0 8 0.4
Partial total 28 0.7 13 o.6
Total 938 22.9 270 12.3
busts of emperors.' In contrast, there were at least fourteen men who owned
a statue, that is, one in five.
However, there were also categories of collectible objects that were often
produced in a series at moderate prices. Dolls from Lucca, for example,
were already present in Florentine inventories from the fifteenth century.2
Roman inventories from twocenturies later reveal that this object wasstill in
great demand. In the meantime, demand for woven Agnus Dei, which were
both embroidered and painted, little saints on parchment, and silk flowers
began to match that for terra-cotta dolls. On this issue the inventory of the
painter Francesco Raspantini is particularly revealing. It listed sixty "little
OSTENTATIOUS THINGS :: 161
baby Jesuses" from Lucca, positioned as standing, sitting, dressed, naked,
accompanied by their glass chime or alone, along with sixteen little dolls of
other types. In this case the total number of these objects isso high it suggests
that Raspantini owned them to sell rather than to contemplate. Among his
clients could have been Margherita Betti or Cornelia Alicorna, owners of the
ten "baby Jesuses" that appeared in the female inventories.3 Similarly, the
youngVirginia Cartari could also have been one of Raspantini's clients: after
her wedding, she brought figurines of two cherubs with embroidered wings,
a lap dog, and a good seven "Babies" with her into her husband's house.4
Sacred dolls evidently continued to be fashionable, given that Vittoria Patrizi
spent a small fortune in 1674 making a crown gilded with silver and studded
with diamonds and pearls for her "Little Jesus from Lucca" and preparing
a cradle for it with "a mattress and accompanying cushion."'
The same held true for silken branches and flowers, a typical Italian product
normally fashioned in convents.6 Raspantini's inventory is particularly
full of this item. A few flowers or branches in his collection were expressly
stated to have been gifts made by him for his wife's nativity scene, but even in
this case the total number of these silken objects—which exceeds 14o—seems
to go beyond the devotional needs of a single family. Silk flowers enjoyed
wide popularity, though. Groups of them appear as entries in the expenses of
Lavinia Beccoli, mother of Carlo Cartari.7 Similarly, Vittoria Patrizi owned
some to be used in her nativity scene, like Raspantini.8 Silk flowers also appear
among the gifts that Virgilio Spada made to his relatives, and, thanks
to his precision, we know that the value of these flowers varied from 3 to 4
scudi.This was not a small expense considering the price of paintings or that
of the coral rose Virgilio donated to his niece, which cost z.so scudi. Cassiano
dal Pozzo intended to give to his sister-in-law "silk and gold flowers" made
"to look as natural as possible and all of different designs."' Yet not a single
female inventory recordssilk flowers or plants. Like dresses and jewels, these
objects seemed to be intended for women but owned by men."
Similarly, Raspantini possessed a large number of Agnus Dei, little images
of saints, reliquaries, and even frames and paintings, which he undoubtedly
produced himself. He actually owned 407 empty frames, 37o images of
saints, seven Agnus Dei, fifteen reliquaries, an unspecified number of small
images of saints and relics, and some twenty-three natural curiositiessuch as
a "bezoar egg," a piece from the claw of the "great beast" (usually the elk),
and the tooth of a wolf." In addition to being a painter, Raspantini seems
to have also been a merchant who sold curious, decorative, and devotional
objects that were of scant economic and artistic value. One or more examples
of such devotional trinkets were found in the dwellings of at least another
twenty-six men and women out of the total of seventy-six inventories. Virginia
Cartari's dowry, in addition, contained around eighty small images of
saints on vellum and other materials, some illuminated and others not.12 Both
Agnus Dei and silk flowers were often used as gifts. Thus they were at times
made at home, but more often were acquired from nuns who specialized in
their production."
Beyond these analogies, the difference between the amount of these objects
that Raspantini owned and how much other people possessed again
raises the problem of the gap between supply and demand. In the case of
Raspantini, one finds 2.95 devotional objects or curiosities, 1,778 paintings
and prints, 407 frames, and twenty statues. In all the other seventy-five cases
taken together, devotional trinkets numbered only 13 2., accompanied by
another 1,359 paintings, 129 statues, and nineteen empty frames. If we let
Raspantini's estate serve as an indicator for supply and the goods listed in
the other sixty-three inventories stand for demand (disregarding the twelve
inventories that do not list products of this type), evidently the balance of
trade faced a serious obstacle: supply seems to have been superabundant in
comparison with the capacity of the Roman market to absorb it.
On the other hand, the relatively high number of a few luxury objects
in the inventories skews the totals and thus conceals the fact that distribution
was extremely unequal. As one can see from the table below, even oil
lamps and candleholders remained outside the grasp of many people. If one
considers that Margherita Betti was the sole woman who possessed writing
TABLE 7.2 Number of male and female inventories that contain at least one
devotional trinket or other type of specific object
OBJECT
MALE
INVENTORIES
% OF THE
TOTAL FROM
MALE
INVENTORIES
FEMALE
INVENTORIES
% OF THE
TOTAL FROM
FEMALE
INVENTORIES
Dolls 8 17.39 4 13.33
Fonts 8 17.39 3 10.00
162. :: CHAPTER SEVEN OSTENTATIOUS THINGS :: 163
TABLE 7.z Continued
OBJECT
MALE
INVENTORIES
% OF THE
TOTAL FROM
MALE
INVENTORIES
FEMALE
INVENTORIES
% OF THE
TOTAL FROM
FEMALE
INVENTORIES
Devotional
objects
14 30.43 5 16.66
Silk flowers 7 15.2.1 0 0
Natural
curiosities
4 8.69 3.33
Perfume 6 13.04 0 0
Toiletries T/ 26.08 0
Lamps and
candle holders
29 63.04 13 43.33
Writing
implements
8 17.39 I 3.33
Scientific
instruments
6 13.04 I 3.33
Musical
instruments
14 30.43 4 13.33
Umbrellas 2 4.34 I 3.33
Clocks 7 15.21 2 6.66
Fans and snuff
boxes
I 2.17 4 13.33
Note: ""Devotional Objects" includes crucifixes, reliquaries, images of saints, etc.
implements (an ink pot), scientific instruments (a "spyglass"), clocks, and
umbrellas, the gap between supply and the effective diffusion of these objects
becomes even more pronounced. One gets a similar impression by comparing
the inventory of a china merchant's shop and the incredibly small number
of plates and glasses to be found in contemporary homes. But we will return
to this topic later.
164 :: CHAPTER SEVEN
Exotic Plants and Little Birds
If the consumption of devotional trinkets was nothing more than the expansion
of a practice that dated to at least the start of the Renaissance, then the
taste for flowers, exotic plants, and little singing birds seems also to have
been part of a tradition. Throughout the seventeenth century Romans were
seized by a true passion for gardening." At the beginning of the century
Bernardo Bizoni, who accompanied Vincenzo Giustiniani on a long voyage
across Europe, took note above all of the gardens he visited and the unusual
plants he found.'s Several years later, while building a new palace in Bassano,
Giustiniani wrote systemized rules for the layout of a park and even ended
up composing a little discourse on the subject." In the meantime, tulips,
anemones, hyacinths, and daffodils were conquering the Roman public. The
great figures of the curia such as Cardinal Sannesio or diplomatsand scholars
like John Barkley spent conspicuous sums on the acquisition of bulbs. The
most passionate collector was Francesco Caetani, who in 1651 already had
collected in his garden at Ninfa more than two hundred varieties of anemones.17
These he obtained thanks to a channel of correspondence extending
throughout Europe and stretching even to Constantinople." This high level
of competence was shared by Cassiano dal Pozzo who, as superintendent
of the Barberini garden at the Quattro Fontane, introduced the yellow jasmine—the
same flower that was admired in France in the gardens of the great
botanist Robin.19 Dal Pozzo's gardening knowledge was such that Giovanni
Battista Ferrari, the author of an innovative botanical treatise in 1638, declared
himself to be indebted to the former for a few "most beautiful secrets"
concerning citrus fruits and flowers in genera1.2° Among these secrets was
how to create "pictures" using petals glued onto a plate or paper instead of
paint.21 Cassiano would later recount that "the joy of gardens, flowers, and
citrus has become very dear to some cardinals and princes. Thus, the Spanish
ambassador has brought over three types of plants: a sort of orange which
is very valuable in Lisbon, a sweet citron, and a very sweet lemon . . . and he
gave these plants to Signor Cardinal Francesco Barberini."22
Collectors of naturalia such as Dal Pozzo, and on a smaller scale Virgilio
Spada, accumulated exotic specimens systematically and with zeal. Others
were animated by more casual sentiments and mundane interests. In any
event, the passion for gardening created numerous adepts. Carlo Cartari
purchased lemon and orange tree saplings, cultivated tulips, and most importantly
acted as go-between for some enthusiasts and the Roman botanical
garden: "If you ever go for a walk in the Garden of Simples or in another
OSTENTATIOUS THINGS :: 165
lorplace," he wrote to a friend from Florence, "and you happen upon some curious
seeds of a unique and bizarre plant, know that I still cultivate that same
taste, even more so than before."" "It seems to me that you were a friend,"
Cartari insisted, "if I remember correctly, of Signor Trionfetti, the superintendent
and custodian of the Garden of Simples in San Pietro in Montorio,
from whom one could get seeds of some curious and new plants, or other
luxury specialties" Plants and flowers were therefore galanterie—luxury
goods—and it is hardly surprising that so many fashionable people enjoyed
them." Orazio Spada, Antonio Santacroce, and Livia Sforza Cesarini all
lavished considerable money on the care of their gardens, both in Rome and
on their country estates.26 Even libraries were decorated and furnished in
such a way to seem as if they opened onto a garden.27 A good number of the
inventories, even among people infinitely less wealthy, attest to the presence
of vases of citrus plants or carnations arranged in the loggia or along the
sides of the door to the house. Girolamo Amatelli de Grotti cultivated bitter
oranges and little lemons in the courtyard while he kept carnations and
jasmine in the loggia on the first floor. Polidoro Neruzzi held vases of "mixed
greens" on his windowsill.28 But the cultivation of flowers could also be a
good investment, as Orazio Spada happily discovered, when after eight years
he made no less than 65 scudi by selling roses to a pharmacist.29
In addition to exotic plants, singing birds attracted the attention of Roman
consumers. Scholars and collectors of naturalia were interested in birds.
This was true to such an extent that the first gift from Cassiano dal Pozzo to
the Accademia de' Lincei was "a book of birds printed by a young man of
the house" titled The Aviary, or a Discourse on the Nature and Properties
of Different Birds, and in Particular Those That Sing, along with How to
Catch, Understand, Breed, and Maintain Them. Accompanied by Figures
Taken from Real Lifeand Diligently Engraved in Copperfrom Tempesta and
Villamena. The work of Giovan Pietro Olina from Novara." However, the
passion for singing birds conquered people even less learned and with more
mundane interests. In Spada's house the care of birds seems to have been a
tradition: among Orazio's monthly expenses, his chamberlain notes money
spent "for the care of the nightingale, blackcap, and canary."" His son
Bernardino paid a bird keeper to borrow the keeper's finches for a month."
Orazio's daughter-in-law, Vittoria, spent nearly a scudo (o.8z) to buy a
nightingale with a little cage." Carlo Cartari possessed a goldfinch "singer,"
and Livia Sforza must have had many of the same, given that she spent more
than two scudi a month to have them fed and attended to.34 At least six inventories
report the possession of wire cages: the merchant Giovanni Rotoli
166 :: CHAPTER SEVEN
had one "for a goldfinch," the painter Raspantini had "a dome-shaped bird
cage," Captain Alberto Battistoni had a "large round cage," and Margherita
Betti owned as many as four, one of which was even gilded."
Along with the real birds some people enjoyed fake animals, particularly
the little terra-cotta dogs that were made, like the sacred dolls, predominately
in Lucca. Fashionable wives, such as Virginia Cartari, Vittoria Patrizi, and
Isabella Vecchiarelli, had one each, which they kept on a silk cushion. However,
just like the holy dolls, the little dogs were not a new thing. They dated
from at least the start of the sixteenth century, when Lorenzo Lotto created
a portrait of one that resided in the study of a prelate.
New Drinks and New Dishes
Historians of the consumer revolution attribute great importance to the
diffusion of exotic products such as tobacco, coffee, and chocolate. Their
use became established during the course of the seventeenth century and
wrought changes both at the level of social practice and at that of material
culture. They brought in tow new tableware specifically designed to be
used with hot beverages and new, more-or-less luxury objects, including
pipes and especially snuffboxes. Walter Raleigh introduced the practice of
smoking tobacco in England. From there it enjoyed rapid diffusion into
Holland—where very quickly "pipe smokers" became a popular pictorial
subject—Germany, and the rest of Europe. The consumption of chocolate
began in Spain, but soon spread into Italy and, with the marriage of Louis
XIV to the Infanta Maria Teresa, into France. As coffee was of Middle Eastern
origin, in contrast to tobacco and chocolate, the Venetians launched its
popularity around 1650.36
All of this brought profound changes not only to the economy but even
to the customs of the various European countries. However, one must not
forget that cold drinks had their place alongside hot ones. Especially in
Mediterranean Europe the consumption of these beverages predated and
was probably favored over that of tea, coffee, and chocolate. Their presence
in Rome has been attested from at least the middle of the seventeenth
century: Vittoria Patrizi and her husband Bernardino Spada, for example,
noted regular purchases of lemonade and sorbet, along with exorbitant
quantities of sugar.37 They even bought "fresh water from Nocera" or from
other renowned sources. Livia Sforza Cesarini paid huge sums to the snow
vendor, that is, a person who kept snow or ice to be used in cold beverages
or other confections." Apparently, therefore, sorbets, lemonades, and
OSTENTATIOUS THINGS :: 167
mineral waters enjoyed the favor of fashionable ladies and gentlemen. They
were also served to celebrate special occasions for a family: in July 1669,
for example, Bernardino Spada noted the expenditure of z.zo scudi to pay
for "fresh water on the day of baptism" for his firstborn daughter." However,
sweet and fresh drinks were also very much appreciated by nuns, who
made up the vanguard of consumers for the most refined foods. In May
1667, for example, Bernardino Spada recorded the expense of 0.75 scudi
"for five mugs of lemon water with sugar, snow and lemon, for the nuns of
Tor di'Specchi [sic] when they went to the vineyard."40 A month earlier the
same Bernardino spent I scudo for a pound of chocolate to give as a gift to
his sister the nun.'" The predilection for fresh water was also marked north
of the Alps: in Vienna Scipione Santacroce spent much more for "fresh water"
sipped at the Prater or in the garden of Favorita than he spent on tea,
coffee, or chocolate.
About all of this, though, the inventories give us only scant traces. Glasses,
of crystal or glass, were present only in eight houses and two shops.42 However,
these two shops had a very rich assortment of tableware. The Lirighetti
merchants, who owned one of these stores, had more than two hundred
pieces of "Romanesque crystal," among which were 140 "friar's glasses"
and seventy "glasses for spirits."43 The other shop, owned by Stefano Del
Chenne, offered an even richer assortment. He possessed an enormous quantity
of all types of plates and of "various glassware." He had no fewer than
1,415 "pieces" of crystal, among which were at least three hundred crystal
objects from Venice. Even the "display" of the window was full of crystals.
Nevertheless, the term "drinking glass" appears explicitly only twice, in describing
four "drinking glasses alla ceciliana," of majolica, and an imprecise
number of "double glasses."'"
In people's houses, glasses were just as rare and summarily described.45 On
the occasion of his move from Cesi to Rome, for example, Giovanni Maria
Contelori drew up a detailed list of dishes that were displayed in a dresser in
the living room of his house—that is to say, well in view, serving a decorative
function—or closed in a cupboard, or even packed in a chest.
Glasses and salt containers must have been of little interest, given that
they were not displayed. They were evidently worth little, as Contelori did
not linger to describe them in detail, as he had done with the other tableware,
and did not even take the trouble to count them. They must also have
been few in number and overwhelmed by the presence of numerous plates.
Yet as a contemporary handbook on home economics stated, cosmopolitan
men in fact used two types of glasses: gilded silver ones when they were in
168 :: CHAPTER SEVEN
the countryside and crystal ones on other occasions. As the manual noted,
"truly one derives better taste and satisfaction from crystal glassware than
any other types. They sell glasses and cups of every sort and one can have
made every model of the greatest products found in Venice, where they work
with every diligence."46
TABLE 7.3 List of Giovanni Maria Contelori's tableware
OBJECT NUMBER
In the sideboard
Large plates in the form of half basins
with the family crest, to be put on the
table
Similar but Without the Crest
A bucket in the grotesque style with
tankards
Terracotta basins with one painted
tankard and another with a crest
Brass basins
Tin flasks
Tin tankards
Large and small tin plates
Terracotta flasks
In the Cupboard
Used half bowls with a cross
Used round plates
Used half bowls with the family crest
Used round plates with the family crest
Used and new little plates
Saucers
9
6
3
2.
6
2.
7
5
22
TO
14
TO
I2
4
OSTENTATIOUS THINGS :: 169
TABLE 7.3 Continued
OBJECT NUMBER
Fruit bowls
Terracotta basin
Diverse glasses and salt containers
In a Chest
Unused little plates with the crest
Unused half bowls with the crest
4
2.
N/A
13
I0
Little plates and round plates with the 9
crest of the Bishop of Todi
Plain white little plates 49
Flat round plates made in the French style
If glasses were rare, bowls and cups were even scarcer. As noted above,
in 1667 Bernardino Spada bought a pound of chocolate to send to a sister
who was a nun.47 But almost no inventories list mugs, cups, or other types
of tableware suitable for sipping chocolate in liquid form, as was the custom
during this period. The two exceptions were Polidoro Neruzzi, who owned
two majolica cups, and Margherita Betti, whose inventory mentioned "three
little cups of dark porcelain."48 One must wait until 1681 to find a specific
reference to the designated use of cups. In that year Orazio Spada noted
the purchase of twenty-four mugs for chocolate.49 To these he added two
boxes covered with worked red leather and gold thread, a roller, and a silver
spoon, all "for the chocolate." In total this setup cost Spada 2.21 scudi."At
the end of the seventeenth century the consumption of new hot drinks, and
the possession of household objects appropriate for serving them, seems to
have been extremely limited." The aforementioned inventories from the two
large shops, which contained significant quantities of bowls, cups, plates,
and saucers (respectively forty and z8o), certainly do not suggest that this
tableware was destined to be used for chocolate or coffee. The materials
170 :: CHAPTER SEVEN
from which they were made—Romanesque crystal, Roman chalcedony, and
glazed ceramic—make one think that these items were more decorative than
practical.52
Twenty years later, while the inventories continued to be silent on this
issue, other sources illustrate that consumption by the nobility was rising
and becoming more refined. From the account book of Isabella Vecchiarelli
we learn that she purchased "two mugs of fine porcelain in which to drink
coffee" for a total price of z scudi. In the two decades that separate her
purchase from that of Orazio Spada the quality of material used must have
improved enormously: the price of each of Spada's mugs did not surpass 4
baiocchi, while Vecchiarelli's cost z scudo apiece." In the following months
this young woman would complete her supply: she bought ten pounds of
chocolate (4.17 scudi), then a pound of coffee (0.3o scudi), a jar in which to
keep the coffee (1.5o scudi), and two "tobacco handkerchiefs for the coffee"
(0.35 scudi).54 Isabella's in-laws also recorded their expenditures for these
years, and it would seem that they regularly purchased coffee, tobacco, and
chocolate as well.SS Scipione Santacroce in Vienna bought snuff, pipe tobacco,
a silver snuffbox, tea, chocolate, and coffee from a Dutch merchant."
He also purchased a large quantity of tableware suited to the consumption
of these substances, including twenty-five little cups for coffee, two for tea, a
sort of jug called a cuccumo for the coffee, a caldarino con suoi piedini, that
is, a freestanding boiler in which the water was heated and the coffee was
ground, and a little pan for roasting the coffee.s7 As the century progressed the
practice of drinking chocolate in the morning had entered into the convents,
encompassing not just the nuns but also the girls who boarded there. In fact,
the rules for the Barberini convent stipulate that at breakfast "those who
have their own chocolate may enjoy it."58 Furthermore, the Conservatori
of Rome were offered chocolate, in a cup with a little silver plate and a silk
napkin, every morning.
As new drinks, both hot and cold, increased in popularity, we see more
frequent and numerous purchases of cups and glasses in which to drink
them. A "note of expenditure" Santacroce made during a brief trip to Tivoli
in October of 1702., for example, clearly reveals the insufficient supply of
tableware in the suburban villa and their need to adjust to the new style of
consumption. In a list of expenditures largely for foodstuffs, the only purchases
of household objects were "two little glasses for spirits," "twenty-four
crystal carafes," "thirty-six little glass lids," "six crystal glasses in the pan di
zucchero style," "two decks of French cards for playing," and "six chamber
pots with fine coverings.""
OSTENTATIOUS THINGS :: 171
The spread of housewares such as crystal and porcelain, which were as
precious as they were fragile, was built around the new consumption of hot
and cold beverages. Plates and bowls did not, in themselves, constitute a
new thing. The novelty, in this case, came from the material with which they
were made. At the beginning of the century, Vincenzo Giustiniani, whose
ancestors had maintained strong relations with the Orient, possessed at least
2.35 pieces of porcelain, including plates, cups, and bowls. To this he added
i5o gilded "plates from Constantinople," but also fifteen "little puppets
for children." Nevertheless, it seems that he did not possess a single crystal
glass or carafe."His inventory, however, is one of the first testimonies to the
presence in Rome by the 163os of porcelain objects. Margherita Betti's documents
confirm the presence of porcelain as she brought a basin, five bowls,
and three little plates all of fine porcelain as a dowry to her first marriage in
1644, for a total value of 4 scudi. No one else owned porcelain, though, and
even majolica was not commonly used: onlyseventeen out of forty-seven men
had plates, basins, or other items that were explicitly listed as being made
from majolica. Furthermore, at least three of these men possessed majolica
for professional reasons, as they made or sold these products. Isabella Vecchiarelli,
with her two coffee mugs, was far from the equal in style to her
husband Scipione, who in Vienna paid at least 41 scudi to a Dutch merchant
"for a lottery of porcelain."61
The same thing can be said for pipes, which were absent from every
inventory, and for snuffboxes. Raspantini, who might have sold them, had
five fairly precious snuffboxes made of bone and silver or gilded copper. But
among the other seventy-five inventories, only Margherita Betti ended up
owning a snuffbox, in 1669.
In contrast, many people owned silverware, including flatware as well as
plates, bowls, washbasins, and saucers. Like nearly all other objects, these
housewares were predominately owned by men. A good percentage of men
(nineteen out of forty-seven inventories) possessed at least one set of silverware,
that is, a paired spoon and fork, and fourteen owned at least four sets.
Rotoli, who was a banker and therefore dealt in silver, had fifteen sets at the
beginning of the seventeenth century. Lucatelli, a more modest merchant,
had twenty at the end of the century; Raspantini had twelve during the same
period. Much rarer was the presence of a knife with a silver handle: Rotoli
and Lucatelli did not have even one and Raspantini owned only seven. In
1625 Carlo Cartari's father had nine silver spoons and ten forks, but not a
single knife. A few years later, his son Carlo listed six knives "with a silver
handle and a gilded crest" in addition to the flatware inherited from his fa-
172 :: CHAPTER SEVEN
ther.62 For their part, female inventories were poorer." However, the silver
"flatware set" made a recurring appearance in the trousseau of brides, and
some wives even had multiple sets. The frequently cited Margherita Betti
owned seven, accompanied by as many knives."
Silverware in general and "flatware sets" in particular could be turned
into fine gifts: Virgilio Spada gave three sets to his nephew Orazio." Carlo
Cartari recorded that among his silver there was "a bread plate with our
and his crest, which Signor Febei gave us as a large gift on Christmas, along
with a spoon, fork, and a knife with a silver handle."" Years later Isabella
Vecchiarelli gave as a gift a "flatware set" to the wet nurse of her children on
multiple occasions: when the children had their first tooth, when they came
out of their swaddling clothes, or again when they were weaned.67
Weapons and Good Manners
If the goods people owned reveal their patterns of consumption, hence their
patterns of behavior and participation in a culture, what emerges from our
inventories is the wavering influence of the chivalric-military ideal. Fewer
than half of the men (nineteen out of forty-six) possessed weapons. Only
twelve of these owned a sword, the symbol par excellence of knightly status.
In practice, if not by law, master artisans of a certain financial status, who
make up nearly all those whose inventories have been surveyed here, were
allowed to own a sword. More numerous (sixteen), were those who had a
firearm, a few of which were clearly to be used for hunting. However, hunting
and the imitation of knightly accoutrements does not explain everything.
In fact, at least four people (three merchants and one bathhouse proprietor)
owned harquebuses. These were probably possessed in connection with
military service in the militia, the quarter of the city, or one's trade. Even in
the seventeenth century, men were required to guard the gates of the city."
Given that two owners of pikes came from the diocese of Bergamo, perhaps
geographic origin was connected to weapon ownership. The legislation on
weapons forbade those who were not knights to possess a sword, but participation
in the militia allowed for dispensation.
The fact that owners of weapons were a minority does not imply that
chivalry was incompatible with trades of the robe such as judges or lawyers
or even with the ecclesiastical estate. On the contrary, it was understood
that a great noble like Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna could leave in his will two
carbines to Cardinal Flavio Chigi. Colonna justified the incongruence of
his gift with Chigi's social status by explaining that "although they are not
OSTENTATIOUS THINGS :: 173
appropriate mementos for an ecclesiastic, nevertheless I leave them to you so
that they may be kept in your museum and so that you will remember me."69
A comparison between those who owned swords and harquebuses and those
who owned books and other cultural products demonstrates that there was
no strict correlation between owning one type of item or the other, neither
in a positive nor a negative sense. There were members of the curia, like
Nicola Pari, who owned a sword and a drum, while gentlemen like Polidoro
Neruzzi did not have even one little sword. The majority of people did not
see any discrepancy between the ownership of weapons and that of musical
instruments or books.
Surviving account books of nobles reveal that they acted in a similar
manner. Bernardino Spada spent large sums to go hunting, but this money
went to tips for his staff, gifts for those who invited him, and to those who
let him borrow a horse. All of these costs were greater than what he paid for
weapons and ammunition. His passion for hunting did not stop him from
buying luxury items such as wigs, from having songs and sonnets copied
for him, or from regularly attending social gatherings. Similarly, Antonio
Santacroce paid hissword maker's bill and bought La Rochefoucauld's Moral
Reflections. His son, Scipione, was banished from Rome for having killed
a rival in a duel, but in Venice he comported himself like a noble dandy. As
for Isabella Vecchiarelli, in addition to a fashionable bonnet and a fan, she
also bought a steel flint lock!' If there ever had been a conflict between chivalric
ferocity symbolized by swords and the gentleness of manners associated
with life at a court, it seems to have been happily resolved in a shared
compromise that included nobles as much as individuals of a "middling
condition."
Musical Instruments, Scientific Instruments,
and Natural Curiosities
As one can see from the table below, eighteen inventories contained at least
one musical instrument. For the most part, these were guitars (ten of them,
divided between two women and five men), to which one could add a colascione,
another plucked instrument. These were popular means of making
music that had little to do with the lutes and other refined instruments that
were portrayed in so many compositions from the period. The popularity
of the guitar was also attested by the testimony of people brought before
the papal tribunals: courtesans owned them as did the dissolute bands of
young men who stirred up their neighbors with their music playing. Nine
174 :: CHAPTER SEVEN
other inventories had more complex keyboard instruments: an organ, six
harpsichords, and four spinets. Both Raspantini and Cangiani, who were
included in this latter group, also owned "music books," among which were
two volumes of the manual by Giovan Girolamo Kapsberger titled Entablature
for the Chitarrone (a type of lute).71 The ownership of these more
complex musical instruments and the associated musical books indicates a
more elaborate musical culture and perhaps also a more pronounced desire
for respectability on the part of these owners. No other individual owner
surveyed here managed to equal the richness and variety of instruments
possessed by the Jewish doctor Abraham fu Martio di Cameo, who died in
1626. In his inventory there were "four wooden trumpets, a harpsichord, a
violin, a bassoon, three small flutes, six large flutes, a small zither, and three
chitarrini or mandolins." These instruments were accompanied by a variety
TABLE 7.4 Ownership of weapons, hooks, musical instruments, and other items
NAME SEX DATE WEAPONS BOOKS CLOCKS
MUSICAL
INSTRU-
MENTS
SCIENTIFIC
INSTRUMENTS
Contelori M 1617 Yes Yes Spinet World map
Bertone M 1614 Yes
Cusida M 1624 Organ
Scapucci M 1625
Fortini M 162.6
Jani M 1628 9
Mayno M 1628 Harpsichord
Negrelli M 1628 4oz Atlas
Rotoli M 1628 Yes 49 2 Spinet and a
spinettina
Neruzzi M 1641 424 Spyglass
Bellini M 1644 Yes 134 Spinet
OSTENTATIOUS THINGS :: 175
TABLE 7.4 Continued
NAME SEX DATE WEAPONS BOOKS CLOCKS
MUSICAL SCIENTIFIC
INSTRU - INSTRUMENTS
MENTS
Betti F
Fran- F
cescona
1644
1644
Yes 2-4
Guitar
Harpsichord
Battistoni M 1645 Yes Guitar and
drum
Bava M 1645 I0 Harpsichord
Lirighetti M 1648 Yes 12. Colascione
(a sort of
popular lute)
Betti F 1656 Yes I
Mansueti M 1666 Guitar
Albertini M 1667 Yes II
Arpini M 1667 Yes
Bronconi M 1667 Yes Guitar
Cangiani M 1667 Yes 97 Guitar and
harpsichord
Diana F 1667 Guitar
Lansi M 1667 7 Spinet
Pari M 1667 Yes 406 r Drum
Raspantini M 1667 Yes i6o 5 Harpsichord Compass
Trombetta F 1667 Harpsichord
Vittori M 1667 Yes Guitars
Betti F 1669 I
Spyglass
of books on Jewish music and a large folio volume of Giuseppe Zarlino's
Harmonic Institutions.72
Although ownership of music instruments was relatively widespread, scientific
instruments were much more rarely found in inventories: only six men
and one woman possessed one. One must also distinguish between those,
like Raspantini, who possessed tools for their trade—including compasses,
straightedges, squares, stonecutters, a "perspective crystal," various "little
wooden models," and many unspecified "mathematical instruments"—and
those, such as Betti, Neruzzi, Contelori, or Raspantini again, who owned
"tools" that were clearly not for professional use.73 These might include a
"looking glass" or a world map. With this second set of owners one can
measure not so much scientific culture as curiosity about it. It is not chance
that it was exactly the most cultured people in the sample set who owned
these types of scientific instruments. Carlo Cartari, for example, spoke in
his correspondence about a particularly powerful telescope. Cartari was the
same man who discussed that intellectual phenomenon of the late seventeenth
century, Elena Piscopia Cornaro, admiring her perfect knowledge of the two
"spheres": the celestial and the terrestrial. That astronomy was important for
seventeenth-century intellectuals, independently from their principal specialization,
is a well-known fact. However, the discovery that small and obscure
scholars like Cartari or individuals who owned a few books and knew how
to read also took part in this passion is important.
Interest in natural science expressed itself both in the ownership of scientific
instruments and in natural curiosities. One should not be surprised
that it was Contelori and Neruzzi again who owned respectively a "paw"
and a "sea turtle shell." As for Raspantini, in addition to the bezoar stone,
the piece from the claw of the "great beast," and the tooth of the wolf that
have already been mentioned, he also had a "small Indian bean," a "small
piece of a unicorn," a "little piece of mother of pearl," two "little jugs with
manna from Saint Nicholas," and like the bezoar, "other concoctions to
combat against various evils."Although being a great collector—interested,
however, more in art and antiquity than in natural curiosities—Giustiniani
did not own diverse objects of a rare or sophisticated nature: his naturalia
were limited to about twenty bezoar stones,some rhinoceros horns that were
mounted on glasses, two pieces from the claw of a "great beast," the shell
of mother of pearl, and three "gourds of blond balsam." As for his scientific
instruments, he only had a "celestial globe" and a few books, among which
Andrea Cesalpino's De metallicis libri tres stands out. However, the superior
quality of his cultural curiosities and his connections was manifested in his
OSTENTATIOUS THINGS :: 177
ownership of a copy of Basilica Chymica by Oswald Croll, a medical doctor
and alchemist at the court of Rudolf II, along with a "book of Indian
hieroglyphs," and twenty-four "idols from the Indies."
Powders and Perfumes
The transition from the old to the new century did not bring only an increase
in the consumption of chocolate or in the acquisition of porcelain. Ladies
and gentlemen began to invest ever-increasing sums in creams, powders,
perfumes, wigs, combs, brushes, and little dressing tables. Elite males started
to be shaved more often, defying the ridicule laid on them by Lucrezia Marinella,
who at the beginning of the seventeenth century accused men of being
as vain as women, if not more.75 Obviously, these types of objects are among
the most poorly documented in the inventories. But the account books are
rich in information. At the start of the century the banker Rotoli owned six
flasks of rose water, but not a single comb or other object for grooming. In
contrast, the Marquis Giustiniani—one of the richest men in Rome—had a
comb as well as a brush, although his "perfumery articles" end there. The
lawyer Negrelli had a sponge and some "pieces for his head," but went no
further. In the second half of the seventeenth century things did not change:
even Raspantini, whose home was otherwise so rich with things, had only a
box of perfume balls, a little vase of soap, and a beard brush. Yet the list of
goods for the two public Turkish baths demonstrates that perfumed water
and powders were readily available. Again, there seems to have been a gap
between supply and demand. The account book of Vittoria Patrizi Spada
reveals that around 1670 a noblewoman did not have difficulty procuring
combs of horn or ivory, orange flower water,and almond oil. The same holds
for her husband Bernardino, who bought perfumed oils and creams, combs,
brushes, and wigs. At least a part of the perfumed essences consumed in the
Spadas' house depended on domestic production. In many cases, in fact,
the account book records the acquisition of raw material, that is, flowers
to be "distilled": elderberry flowers, rosebuds, jasmine, and orange flowers.76
However, from the 167os the acquisition of finished products came to
dominate: "water of bitter oranges," "Grand Duke's oils," "almond oil,"
and "violet oil."77 But it is with Isabella Vecchiarelli that the consumption
of powders and perfumes appears to have really taken off. Her application
of these cosmetics seems to have become a nearly daily habit. Creams and
powders were by then "of various odors" and their use brought with it an
expansion of appropriate furniture and home wares: a dressing table, two
178 :: CHAPTER SEVEN
cases with silver studs to complete them, "a little traveling case for the care
of the head," and a bottle of gilt silver "for the Hungarian Queen's water."78
Not to be outdone, her husband, Scipione, bought jasmine powders and oils
nearly every week and regularly paid a barber who came to shave him every
two or three days."At the beginning of the seventeenth century, beingshaved
daily was derided as a sign of femininity or as an absurd desire to appear as
a beardless youth." One hundred years later fashion evidently imposed the
smooth cheek on gentlemen as well. Santacroce moreover acquired wigs and
"a mannequin bust" on which to store them. Additionally, there was at least
one man of "middling condition" who was able to imitate Santacroce: in
1700 Nicola Salvati left to his heirs, among other things, a "little wig along
with its box."81
Jewelry
Given what we have already learned about the division of goods between
women and men, we should not be surprised that jewelry was in large part
owned by men: out of a total of 537 pieces, 429 were found in male inventories
while only io8 were in female ones. However, proportionately, there
were many more women who possessed a piece of jewelry: thirteen out of
thirty, that is, 43.3 percent, while for men the percentage was lower, at
32.6 percent. Excluding reliquaries, medals, and a few other anomalous objects,
and focusing instead on more traditional types of jewelry only partially
changes the result, and men continue to have more, in total, of these luxury
items. Yet aside from jeweled studs, all the other items were predominately
female ornaments. This observation holds true also for the gems that adorned
the jewelry in question.
Precious stones—in particular diamonds, but also coral and the garnets
that we are so accustomed to associating with women and wives—belonged
largely to men. This conforms to the same trend we saw with fine and brocaded
clothing: husbands purchased and remained the owners of the most
expensive items their wives used. Men thus made use of the last will to finally
give their wives the jewelry and other items that in practice was already
theirs. The silk vender Tommaso Brancavalerio, for example, left to his
"most sweet wife a diamond, a ruby, and a turquoise held together in a gold
band, which she regularly wore, so that she would remember to say prayers
for my soul."" It also happened that some pieces of jewelry recorded in a
will had been removed from it by the time of the owner's death, pawned
to the Monte di Pieta or to a private party. There were at least three (male)
OSTENTATIOUS THINGS :: 179
inventories that described this phenomenon, for a total of eight objects of
widely varying values, from 3 to 55 scudi.
The type of precious stones seventeenth-century goldsmiths used merits
a bit more commentary. As has been frequently noted, the inventories surveyed
here represent the goods of people from the "middling classes." They
excluded incredibly rich people and great nobles. Yet the stones most used
were diamonds, followed closely by pearls, while coral and garnets were in a
clear minority. On the other hand, every type of jewelry had a preferred type
of stone: for necklaces and earrings, the most used were pearls; while diamonds
were mostly mounted on rings, as is the practice today. In contrast,it
seems amazing that the use of all the semipreciousstones, like garnets,amber,
and especially coral, was confined essentially to rosaries. Apparently, their
production was not such to make them competitors with the more precious
stones: a true piece of jewelry called for something else. In spite of this, the
average value of a single piece of jewelry was not very high, especially if one
compares it with prices for clothing.
TABLE 7.5 Number of pieces of jewelry recorded in male and female inventories
(15 men, 13 women)
TYPE OF
JEWELRY MEN WOMEN TOTAL
Rings 46 41 87
Jeweled studs 213 i6 229
Crowns (rosaries) 19 5 24
Crosses 8 9
Pendants 36 i8 54
Brooches and
bracelets
8 4 12.
Charms, necklaces,
or chains
45 17 62_
Total 376 102 478
180 :: CHAPTER SEVEN
TABLE 7.6 Number of pieces of jewelry with precious stones
PRECIOUS
STONES MEN WOMEN TOTAL
Corals
Diamonds
20
51
5
I2
25
63
Garnets 2I 4 25
MI! Pearls 36 25 61
1But
it was the jewels themselves—not just the low quality piecessurveyed
here—that were not worth much more than precious fabrics, which, moreover,
often contained gold. Comparison with the dowry jewelry of Maria
Isabella Vecchiarelli Santacroce confirms this:while the diamond ring of the
young marquisewas worth 55 scudi, the scarf with Flemish laceand gold that
TABLE 7.7 Value of appraised goods (in scudi)
TYPE OF
JEWELRY NUMBER VALUE
MINIMUM MEDIAN
VALUE
MAXIMUM
VALUE
Rings 24
Rosaries 3
Pairs of 8
earrings
Brooches and 3
bracelets
Charms, II
necklaces, and
chains
Total 49
1.5 ("turquoise")
3.o (coral)
2.5 (pearls)
5.o8
7.66
12.62
2.5 (jet) 3.87
4.o (baroque
pearls)
15.44
7.8
4o (diamonds)
IS (coral)
25 (pearls)
6 (claw from a
great beast)
45.23 (gold?)
OSTENTATIOUS THINGS :: 181
she received as a wedding present cost 50. The distance between nobles and
the "middling sort" appears profound in every case: although Margherita
Betti also owned a ring worth 4o scudi, Maria Isabella had a diamond cross
with a loop that was worth 300, that is, double the value of all Margherita's
jewels put together." Rotoli and Cangiani, who could perhaps have rivaled
the Santacroce, unfortunately did not leave estimates of the worth of their
valuables.
Acquisition and the Circulation of Information
The inventories from the Lirighetti and Del Chenne shops, which provide
us with information on the availability of plates, glasses, and other tableware,
and that of Raspantini's house, which instead testifies to the availability
of decorative objects of varying worth, raise a few questions about
the correspondence between products available on the Roman market and
those that were regularly found in people's houses. This issue has already
been confronted in part through consideration of the lack of paraphernalia
from the workplace or the rarity of shoes in the inventories. It seems to me,
though, that these gaps cannot be explained by the incompleteness of the
sources. Rather, this additional example of the difference between products
available and those actually owned recalls the problem of the slender market
of consumers. Thus the inventories confirm a fact that has been recognized
by economic historians for some time: in preindustrial society demand was
weak and widely fluctuating.
Supply, on the contrary, seems to have been solidly guaranteed. Two
financial rolls listing merchants by name, the first from 1628 and the second
from 1708, for example, demonstrate that in Rome there were between
thirty and forty merchant firms dealing in fabrics, woolen clothing, and
other textiles." To these must be added about another twenty companies
that engaged in similar activities but were affiliated with guildsseparate from
the merchants. The haberdashers would be one example of this practice."
In 1708 the contribution requested from each of these firms was quite high,
in the majority of cases greater than 3o scudi. This indicates that these were
important firms with a wide range of business dealings. At the beginning of
theseventeenth century nearly all the merchantswho operated in the Roman
market were of foreign origin, including people from Tuscany, Umbria, the
Marche, and especially Bergamo. This fact additionally indicates a trading
network that was by no means limited. The names that appear in successive
lists, from the middle of the seventeenth century until the beginning
182 :: CHAPTER SEVEN
of the eighteenth, illustrate that after decades things did not change and
Rome continued to be filled with merchants from north-central Italy. From
the middle of the seventeenth century, if not before, the French joined the
competition, being fairly numerous among the makers and resellers of fabrics
and more prominent among the tailors. This information comes from
the lists registering merchants by name and is confirmed by a seventeenthcentury
author who observed that "the Flemish and French merchants hold
in theirstoresdiverse fabrics that are both durable and inexpensive.""Rome
was therefore fully enmeshed in thecircuits of international trade—given the
importance of the papal court it would have been strange if this were not the
case—and its inhabitants apparently were able to find in the city any type of
good produced and sold in Europe. Nevertheless, the reports from voyages
reveal thatsuch an image of greatsupply was not necessarily always thecase
in reality. Scipione Santacroce expressed wonder when confronted with the
wealth of goods displayed in the shops on the Pont Neuf in Paris. In London
the things he saw were so unusual and ingenious he felt the need to describe
them individually:
Near the Church of St. Paul's I entered an eyeglass maker'sshop,which
had many nose glasses of fine quality for twenty shillings. He had as
well an instrument similar to a microscope with which one saw the
circulation of the blood in a living fish in such a way that onecould not
doubt it. The owner asked four poundssterling for this instrument. He
also possessed spyglasses and "fist" glasses and everything was made
to perfection."
The clockmaker in particular attracted his attention:
Thecraftstooare excellent, and theymake clocks to perfection. Among
the most highly esteemed and who are paid for the favor of theirworks
are Tampion and Quarc.Tampion'sprices for his clocksare as follows:
the large weighted pendulums that run for eight days and show the
hours, minutes, seconds, and days of the month cost between twelve
and eighteen pounds sterling."
Santacroce felt it worthwhile to note other objects as well: "In London they
also work very beautiful things with steel, such as locks and keys for a very
high price. They make beautiful steel sword guards as well as snuffboxes,
[and] watch chains, and table clocks with springs for which they charge five
OSTENTATIOUS THINGS :: 183
pounds.' Regarding textiles, their fame was not usurped: "All of the woolen
products like clothing and caps are excellent as much for the quality as for
the colors of the fabric. I have seen and purchased some beautiful ones in the
shop at the sign of the Cat. It is the best in London."'"
Through Santacroce's eyes London appears truly to be a consumer's paradise,
where one could find everything. However, Scipione was certainly not
the only person to use travel as a way to make a few purchases. Vincenzo
Giustiniani, while in Murano—an island in the Venetian lagoon known
for glassmaking—bought "a quantity of glasses." The young noble Filippo
Orsini, while completing a grand tour across France and Germany, profited
from a stop in Lyons by purchasing fabrics in the latest fashion.91 The picture
of the relationship between supply and demand that one can reconstruct
from the private archives illustrates that the options available to the Roman
consumers were not limited to the two that we have just witnessed—that is,
dealing with merchants in the city of Rome or going abroad to find products.
In addition to these one must also note the role of figures other than the
normal merchants. In fact, if local demand was weak, supply as well seems
to have been insufficient, at least if one judges from the number of shipments
of goods or purchases made through the correspondence not of professional
intermediaries but rather private persons. Purchases via correspondence were
also treated in a manual for the head of the household, published in Rome
in 1657. The author strongly advises against supplying oneself via the Roman
market and suggests instead turning to foreign merchants who "hold
in commission all things, and from these one gets every advantage, good
things, fresh and also with a little time to pay."92 However, one would ideally
have sent directly from abroad the most important foreign goods, such
as "fabrics from Naples, Venice, and Florence," as well as "groceries, sugar,
wax, spices," while for silk lace and silver and gold ribbon it was preferable
to turn to local workers, as it was easier to be on guard against false goods
at the price of the real thing."
The advice of this author simply reflects the normal practices of the Roman
consumers. The correspondence of Carlo Cartari, an intellectual of modest
ability and limited connections, illustrates how the mechanism of trade and
different types of exchange operated among friends living in different cities.
The model is similar to that of the networks of great scholars with dozens
of correspondents spread throughout Europe.94 This comparison makes the
letters Cartari received from Bernardino Saracinelli, sent for the most part
from Florence, interesting. Even at a modest level, either in regard to wealth
or in number of connections, many acquisitions, mainly of rare and curious
184 :: CHAPTER SEVEN
objects, could arrive only thanks to channels of friends and correspondents,
spread in many places and therefore able to have access to an ever-greater
number of suppliers. As we have seen, Saracinelli asked a Roman friend to
procure for him "a few curious seeds of unique and bizarre plants," going
to the Botanical Gardens to get them.95 Two weeks later, the friend having
thanked him for the "pumpkin seeds sent to me," he proposed to have distilled
in Florence a bottle of fragrant water to send to Saracinelli. He then
added at the end of the letter:
I had occasion in a library to see a frontispiece, or to put it better, an
account of the contents of the book designed to explain it to those who
wanted to purchase it. The said notice began with Recreation for the
Eye and for the Mind through the Observation ofSnails. This was the
title of the folio. I'm telling you because if you could send me a copy of
this book, I would be very pleased. It is printed by Varese at Cesaretti's
expense at the sign of the Queen. I would like to send it to Bologna and
would be very much in your debt.96
Sometime later, in another letter, Saracinelli wrote: "I am delighted that the
seals pleased you. Do not worry about the price because it is a small thing."
In return Saracinelli asked for "a plant of the Iris Pharaonis" and new seeds
from curious plants.97
Others did not leave correspondence, and we must therefore be content
with different sorts of less detailed information. Maria Veralli, Virginia Patrizi,
and Isabella Vecchiarelli's account books contain payment entries for
goods arriving from abroad or, in contrast, records of objects sent to friends
not living in Rome. Behind these registries of expenses it is not difficult to
imagine an exchange as rich and full as that which we have just observed.
Maria Veralli had ten pounds of "half silk" and two sable muffs sent from
Venice, and thread and ribbon from Viterbo.98 For her part, Veralli sent to
Florence "a collar of thin fabric with pleats" and various pairs of gloves.99
Virginia Patrizi spent z.8o scudi to send "a box to and from Venice" and
received a few "shoulder veils" from Pesaro and fabrics from Florence:100
Additionally, her husband, Bernardino Spada, paid for the transport of some
goods coming from Venice and Naples.1°1 However, his most interesting
expense concerned "a wig brought for me from France" for which he reimbursed
not a merchant but rather a friend who had evidently acted as an intermediary.102
This little episode reinforces the hypothesis many other examples
suggest: the acquisition of new products occurred through the professional
OSTENTATIOUS THINGS :: 185
work of merchants who managed their commercialization, but the informal
network of friends and acquaintances that circulated first information and
then also real objects through the regular exchange of correspondence had
an equally important role.m
Isabella Vecchiarelli, the most active consumer of all, had little cases of
"orange cream," lace, and fabric from Florence; girdles, velvet, and chocolate
from Genoa; ribbon from Lucca; silk handkerchiefs for tobacco from
an unidentified location; and even "a silver watch from England" sent to
her for a price of 33.zo scudi including "transport and other expenses." In
exchangeshesent little black-sequined berets,gloves, violin strings,and even,
in turn, "a black tabinet girdle with a silver clasp" to a Signora Lomellina
who lived in Genoa.m All these exchanges of objects, which were certainly
not unobtainable and not even particularly rare, must have been preceded by
an exchange of notes on the advantages that one could gain in having these
items acquired by a friend in their own city and then having them shipped.
Similarly, it is likely that there wascorrespondence regarding the differences
of quality or style of objects that were used or sold in Rome and elsewhere.
On the other hand, when acquiringa "littlewriting desk" garnished withsilk
flowersand "glass luxurygoods" to be given as a gift to hissister-in-law,even
Cassiano dal Pozzo preferred to turn toa Florentine merchant with whom he
was already in correspondence rather than commissioning a Roman artisan
to do the job.1°5 Yet mercantile firms were not lacking in the Roman market,
and Roman consumers did not disregard them. In Vittoria Patrizi's account
books one can discern at least four such shops, and in the book of Isabella
Vecchiarelli one finds six, including some that were clearly French.'°6
Finally, there was a significant role for domestic production, as we have
seen in regard toclothing.Yet even these productscould enter intothe circuits
of exchange, as has been demonstrated for the case of silk flowers, which
were normally produced in convents, or that of yarn and fabrics made by
housewives, which were given to merchants in exchange for finer articles of
clothing.
186 :: CHAPTER SEVEN
PLATE 1. Jacopo and Francesco Bassano, Christ in the House of Mary, Martha, and
Lazarus, ca. 1577. Oil on canvas. Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston.
PLATE z. Vincenzo Campi, In cucina, ca. 1580. Pinacoteca de Brera.
PLATE 3. Giuseppe Maria Crespi, La pulce, ca. 173o. Museo di Capodimonte, Naples.
B.
PLATE 4. Giuseppe Maria Crespi, La sguattera, ca. 171o. Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
PLATE 5. Domenico Feti, Parable of the Lost Drachma, ca. 16zo. Oil on wood. Gemaldegalerie,
Dresden.
PLATE 6. Caravaggio, Boy Peelinga Pear, i 593. Oil on canvas. Longhi Collection, Rome.
PLATE 7. Tommaso Salini, Boy with a Flask and Cabbages, ca. 161o. Oil on canvas.
\luseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.
PLATE 8. Agostino Verrocchi, Dispensa con fruttiera, bicchieri, recipienti di vetro, terracotta
e metallo (particolare), first half of seventeenth century. Museo Duca di Martina,
Naples.
P LATE 9. Annibale Carracci, The Beaneater,1583. Oil on canvas. Galleria Colonna, Rome.
Ate,
i4
1'11ios
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17-zhg•'‘
•
:4,14VAIVAYI.i'VA466,71:1:•*: #1,64*iltr*4 -Akilir»S:A`4~4#4:19NAitY;€14'VAI%
PLATE 10. Abraham Bosse, Les femmesa la table. Etching. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
PLATE II. Annibale Carracci, Ragazzo the beve, ca. 1583. Private Collection.
PLATE i 3. Bronzino, Ritratto di giovane donna, ca.I541-45. Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
PLATE 12.. Lorenzo Lotto, Gentiluomo con zampino di leone, ca. 15z7. Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna.
r PLATE I 5. Maestro di Leid, Natura morta con libri, ca. 16z8. Alte Pinakothek, Monaco.
PLATE 14. Domenico Feti, Aristarco di Samo, ca. 16zo. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen,
Dresden.
PLATE 16. Spanish artist, Still Life with Books, first part of the seventeenth century.
Staatliche Museen, Berlin.
PLATE 17. Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Scaffali di libri, ca. 1725. Museo Bibliografico
Musicale, Bologna.
PLATE 19. Cecco del Caravaggio, The Fluteplayer, ca. 1615-2o. Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford.
PLATE i8. Domenichino, St. Cecilia, ca. 1617-18. Louvre, Paris.
PLATE z1. Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Woman Playing a Lute, ca. 1700-1705. Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston.
PLATE zo. Antiveduto Gramatica, The Theorbo Player, ca. 1615. Galleria Sabauda, Turin.
P LATE 23 . Abraham Bosse, Compagnia dimusici,ca.1635. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
PLATE 21. Caravaggio, Amor Vincit Omnia, ca. 1602.— 1603. Gemaldegalerie, Berlin.
s
PLATE 2.4. Evaristo Baschenis, Still Life with Musical Instruments, 165o. Accademia
Carrara, Bergamo, Italy.
PLATE z5. Evaristo Baschenis, StillLife with Musical Instruments, ca. 166'7-77. Gallerie
dell'Accademia, Venice, Italy.
PLATE 26. Evaristo Baschenis, Musical Instruments, second half of the seventeenth
century. Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.
PLATE 2.7. Walnut table, seventeenth century. central Italy.
PLATE 29. Franz Franken IT, Gallery ofArt, ca. 1636. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
P LATE z8. Chairs. seventeenth century. France.
PLATE 3o. Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli, Portrait ofAnna Eleonora Sanvitale, 1562. Galleria
Nazionale, Parma. PLATE 31. Giovan Battista Moroni, The Tailor, ca. 156o. National Gallery, London.
PLATE 3 2.. Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli, Portrait of a Tailor, ca. 1540-45. Museo di
Capodimonte, Naples.
PLATE 33. Caravaggio, La Maddalena, ca. 1594-96. Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome.
,I11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
CHAPTER EIGHT
Books
Book Collections
The few studies of reading practice in Italy have underscored the low levels
of literacy for both men and women.' It is therefore a pleasant surprise to
discover that fourteen out of the forty-six men surveyed possessed at least
a pair of books. The lawyers Negrelli and Pari along with the gentleman
Neruzzi, each with more than four hundred volumes, led the group, followed
by the painter Raspantini, who had 16o, the jeweler Cangiani, with ninetyseven,
and Onofrio Lansi, who had only seven books recorded in detail
and an imprecise number of other "various little books of fine literature."
However, there were also owners of small libraries who recorded their books
only in total numbers without specifying an author or title. Such owners
included Silvestro Bellini, whose profession we do not know (134 volumes),
the embroiderer Bronconi (fifty-eight) and the banker Rotoli (forty-nine volumes).
The other five bibliophiles—among them the merchants Lirighetti
and Lucatelli—were satisfied with a much smaller number of texts: about
ten each. One of them, the blacksmith Giunti, had only three, all related to
his "art."'
Women, in contrast, rarely owned books. The only ones to have any were
Cornelia Alicorna, who owned a Little Office of the Madonna, and Margherita
Betti, who, in the inventory of her first dowry in 1644, had appraised
"twenty-four pieces of different books" and an "office of the Madonna with
a large gilded cover printed at Paris in France," for a total of 2..3o scudi.3
Margherita held onto these items for some time since in a survey carried out
shortly after her death in 1669 her heir found "a little trunk" in the "bedroom
of signora Margherita" in which was kept, amid hemp and spun and
raw linen, "thirty-three small, large, and broken books." Such a tendency
to preserve books, especially on the part of a woman, indicates a particular
attachment to this type of object. On the other hand, for Margherita, this
was an attachment that was equally demonstrated for other thingsshe owned
and preserved from her first marriage until her death.`'
In loving books Margherita was not totally alone: her distant relative
Dorotea Antolini refused to sell what must have been a beautiful "library" of
"spiritual and temporal" works. Her heirs waited until after her death to sell
it, along with the twelve bookcases that contained this library, to Monsignor
Acciaioli for the considerable sum of 769 scudi.s During the last years of her
life Dorotea had probably found herself in economic difficulties, given that
she had been forced to pawn clothing, jewelry, silverware, and linens to get
147 scudi.6 Nonetheless, she preserved her books, which were certainly salable
and worth much more than the things she pawned.
Margherita Betti and Dorotea Antolini were both daughters and wives
of lawyers, and they both died without direct heirs. Probably this combination
of factors led them to believe that they should preserve their books.
In making this decision, their actions mirrored those of men of the same
social standing. A similar care for books characterizes the four gentlemen
of legal professions—judges and lawyers—who have left inventories. More
extraordinary was the case of the playwright Giovanni Azzavedi. In his last
will and testament Azzavedi ordered the sale of all his goods and the profits
reinvested in credit titles, "except for the books in five bookcases, for which
there is an index in my own hand and which must be kept in the house. . . .
I expressly command that the said books not be alienated, either in whole
or in part, but rather saved for the abovementioned sons or for any one of
them who occupies himself with letters and learning."7
Like art galleries, "libraries" were a great fashion among the cultured
elite of seventeenth-century Rome. Instruction manuals on collecting a great
library became a rather popular genre. High profile scholars, like Gabriel
Naude, as well as more modest intellectuals such as Carlo Cartari, tested their
skills in writing this type of manual.' Cartari in fact undertook the setting up
of libraries for noble estates, such as the Altieri and the Rocci, as well as for
one of his colleagues, a law professor at the "Sapienza." Thanks to Cartari
we have descriptions of the libraries in Palazzo Altemps as well as Palazzo
Barberini. The former opened on a loggia that was frescoed in such verdant
colors it gave the illusion of being in a garden.' An excellent collection of
books was therefore a necessary complement to the furnishing of honorable
people's homes. In this respect books were not much different from paintings.
188 :: CHAPTER EIGHT
"Great ornament and utility is brought to each house or palace with a copious
library," one booklet explained. Bellori's guide to collections of works of
art kept "in the palaces, houses, and gardens of Rome" included libraries,
which were put on the same level as "statues and paintings."" We should not
be surprised, therefore, that during the final years of the seventeenth century
an elegant woman such as Isabella Vecchiarelli Santacroce felt the need to
include books among the "beautiful things" with which she surrounded
herself, and turned to a scholar such as Gian Vincenzo Gravina for advice
on what to read and which works to buy. The virtuous and pedantic tone
Gravina adopted in response to her question does not seem to acknowledge
how unusual it was for a woman to make such a request. Yet he recognized
that there were new social pressures that imposed the weighty burden on
women of readings things other than "offices" for the Madonna:
in our times, when it is the custom to allow noble women to engage and
converse with men, such practices and familiarity [must be] nurtured
by sublime and erudite discourses [in such a way that] one does not
encourage base, evil, or disreputable thoughts.12
He therefore advised reading Cicero's On Duties, which "described all the
laws of suitable behavior and the precepts of natural and civil honesty," immediately
followed by Giovanni della Casa's Galateo "so that reading Cicero
you principally will cultivate your interior, and with Galateo the exterior.""
Finally, one should complete this list by reading Baldassare Castiglione's
Book ofthe Courtier, which teaches the way "in which every genteel person
must behave in negotiation and in conversation."'4 Otherwise, he considered
"histories" and the "fables" of the ancients and moderns suitable for a
woman.'s Obeying these instructions, Isabella recorded the acquisition "of
the book of Giuseppe Flavio" together with the poetry of Anacreon in i7oz.16
A little bit later the young woman recorded the purchase of a book "to cover
Biondi."' Did one therefore have to purchase the works of Biondi, a successful
novelist, secretly? Evidently, in Isabella's social circle reading novels was
considered improper, and in fact the Santacroce library contained very few
of them. Jewelers, painters, and others of the middling class, whom we have
treated before and will again shortly, did not suffer these same restrictions.
If, like paintings, books were also collectible objects, "ornamental and
useful" for houses and palaces, it was natural to pass them on to children,
whether or not they were encumbered by fedecommesso. This is exactly
what Giovanni Maria Contelori, a book collector, did. In 16oz he came to
BOOKS :: 189
Rome from Cesi to take up the position of criminal judge at the tribunal of
the Auditor Camerae." When he divided his goods among his three sons
in 1617, in splitting up houses, lands, and furnishings he did not forget his
books. He left his first son Felice, a doctor in philosophy, theology, and
law and destined to become prefect of the Vatican Archive in 1643, the
books of "proverbs and mottos" as well as those on theology, philosophy,
law, and various other subjects.'9 Giovanni received his books on medicine
and natural philosophy while Cristoforo received those on "histories" and
war.2° Sixty years later, Bellori did not neglect to mention the "library" of
Monsignor Felice Contilori, filled with more than eight thousand volumes
on jurisprudence, science, sacred and profane literature, as well as precious
bibliographies of "a very large number of authors."2'
Polidoro Neruzzi's library of 424 titles clearly originated in a similar
division of inheritance, since Neruzzi only owned half of these books; the
rest belonged to his brothers.22 We know almost nothing about Neruzzi
except that he was a "Sienese gentleman"—with all the vagueness that such
an expression implies. In all likelihood, Neruzzi's father, not Neruzzi, had
put together the collection since about half were legal manuals. Perhaps the
elder Neruzzi had been one of those university-trained lawyers who came to
Rome from Siena and other smaller cities in central Italy to practice law in
one of the city's tribunals.2' This would explain the high number of Consilia
and Decisiones that Polidoro and his brothers inherited.24 But either the elder
Neruzzi or his sons were interested in other subjects than law. The nonlegal
titles alone constituted a corpus noteworthy for its size. Thus the behavior
of the Neruzzi was similar to that of Giovanni Maria Contelori from Acquapendente
who divided his books among his three sons.25
TABLE 8.1 Subject areas for nonlegal texts in Neruzzi's library
SUBJECT NUMBER OF BOOKS PERCENTAGE OF LIBRARY
Classics 36 19.4
Religion 28 1- 5.1
Philosophy 27 14.5
Literature 25 13.4
190 :: CHAPTER EIGHT
TABLE 8.I Continued
SUBJECT NUMBER OF BOOKS PERCENTAGE OF LIBRARY
History and current events 23 12.4
Language 17 9.1
Medicine 9 4.8
Other 5 2.7
Unknown i6 8.6
Total 186 100.0
Whoever compiled Neruzzi's inventory counted 17o volumes in both Latin
and the vernacular.26 This list included at least thirty-six works by ancient
authors as well as about thirty books on religious subjects, ranging from the
gospel to acts of the church councils to an inquisitors' manual. Finally, there
were about one hundred volumes by "modern" authors. This final category
of books gave the library its distinctive character. Above all, Neruzzi displayed
an interest in acquiring compendia, collections, and exempla. In fact,
he possessed seven letter collections, of which only one can be ascribed to
a single author (Pietro Bembo).27 He also possessed five "encyclopedias" of
moral philosophy or science, such as Reisch's Margarita philosophica—"one
of the most successful Renaissance humanist encyclopedias"—or Leonardo
Fioravanti's Specchio di scienza universale.28 Finally, he had seven collections
of verse, and at least four of them were certainly anthologies of various
authors." The next most interesting subject to Neruzzi, or whoever created
his library, seems to have been the structure of speech since it contained seven
Latin or Latin-Greek vocabularies or lexicons, two grammars, five treaties on
logic, and one on dialectic. His medical texts (nine total) were primarily in
the form of aphorisms, and at least two works on "magic" by Giambattista
della Porta and Salomone Jamblico were in the same style. Classics were also
present though they tended to be extracts: four of the five works of Cicero
recorded in the library were collections of sententiae, or commentaries on his
orations and letters, while the fifth was made up of Topics, in other words,
a collection of Cicero's "commonplaces."
BOOKS :: 191
During theseventeenth century the practice of making anthologies was not
new. Born during the Hellenistic period, this genre had been revived successfully
by scholastic authors in the late Middle Ages, when the development
of university studies and the multiplication of writings led to the parallel
flowering of summaries and collections of citable phrases, designed to facilitate
the work of masters and students. Only a few books were read in their
entirety; the rest were read in abridged versions or in sections selected for
a specific subject." The reasons for this evolution were already clear in the
twelfth century when Peter Lombard declared his intention to bring together
the opinions of the church fathers in an anthology: "so that the seeker need
not consult an abundance of books [because] the brevity of the extracts assembled
offers, effortlessly, what he is looking for."31 The traditional work
of retrieval and citation of learned authorities became much easier, and the
reading of original texts tended to disappear in favor of "exclusive consultation
of extracts.""
In the Renaissance this process did not disappear but rather underwent a
final acceleration.33 In response to the risingdemand of "ready to use" knowledge,
summaries and florilegia originally written in Latin were translated
into different vernacular languages; they took their place next to the new,
rich production of books of which we have seen some examples in Neruzzi's
library:" Bibliophiles did not display any sense of guilt for a practice that
debased texts, substituting the collection of selections for the full version of
a work. On the contrary, Naude considered this practice useful and necessary
since the brevity of human life did not allow us to learn all one ought
to know." Moreover, he was absolutely certain that a great deal of success
in speaking and writing depended on the study of such anthologies." At the
same time, scholastic teaching continued to encourage the development of a
style of reading and memorization based on compendia. Such books offered
a dual advantage of facilitating the work of students, supplying them with
citations assembled according to their needs, and of being securely cleansed
of any heretical or lascivious ideas that could be present in the original.37The
enduringsuccess of anthologies was therefore connected with more stringent
censorship and the intensification of the practice of "expurgating" every type
of work, both ancient and modern."
The primary goal of this sort of scholastic training and the tools it provided
was a formal style of written and spoken communication. Collections
of Cicero's phrases helped one to create works in a Ciceronian style, while
anthologies of memorable sayings or deeds allowed readers to multiply their
citations and buttress their arguments with the strength of auctoritates.39 The
192. :: CHAPTER EIGHT
presence of florilegia and exempla in the library of a private gentleman who
did not write essays or make speeches makes one think that such tools—probably
carried over from school years—constituted the shared kernel of literary
culture in this period, making them the essential library that formed the
bookish patrimony of every person who "studied."
Neruzzi's choices of books on "history" and "current events" reveal the
same encyclopedic passion. Here we find a History of China, Letters from
Japan Written by Fathers of the Society ofJesus, a Summary of Miraculous
Things in the City of Milan, a Crushing of the Moors of Spain, and finally
Tommaso Garzoni's Hospital for the Incurably Insane.40 The fact that Neruzzi
also possessed Fioravanti's Mirror of UniversalScience, which was one
of Garzoni's sources, among his various philosophical-scientific encyclopedias,
is a testimony to the consistency of his choices.'"
In addition to being a lover of compendia of knowledge, Neruzzi was
also a fashionable reader. He had an evident penchant for contemporary
literature, or rather nearly contemporary, given that his library, as so often
happened, contained books whose first edition dated to the previous
century.42 His taste in literature included different comedies, all of them
anonymous, a few novels—includingJacopo Caviceo's The Pilgrim's Book,
which more than a century after the author's death continued to enjoy the
public's favor—and various successful poems such as Giovan Battista Gelli's
Circe, Gaspare Murtola's The Creation of the World, Torquato Tasso's
Jerusalem Conquered, and Tomasso Stigliani's Songbook. He was missing
Ariosto and Bembo, who was present in his library only as the author of letters.
Did Neruzzi therefore see himself as a fan of the "modern" style, that
is, the baroque?43
Finally, the books of this "Sienese patrician" alsocontained an anonymous
tract on The Arts of Memory whose presence is rather significant. The art
of memory was closely connected with "those mnemonic systems that are
placed halfway between dictionaries and encyclopedias: theyare great lists of
commonplaces and florilegia of varying types."'" Equipped with indexes and
other apparatuses for ease of consultation, these books "assumed a double
value: they were organized schemes within which one could place elements
derived from the 'anatomy' of texts and they were at the same time the key. . .
for writing other books."4s
We also know where exactly fifty of the books in Neruzzi's library were
published. It should come as no surprise that a minority was printed in
Rome. Only fifteen books were printed there as opposed to twenty-two in
Venice and thirteen beyond the Alps (eight in Lyons, three in Antwerp, one
BOOKS :: 193
TABLE 8.z Place of publication for Polidoro Neruzzi's 194 books
PLACE OF
PUBLICATION
NUMBER OF
LAW BOOKS
PERCENT OF
LAW BOOKS
NUMBER
OF OTHER
BOOKS
PERCENT OF
OTHER BOOKS
Venice 90 62.5 22 44.0
Lyon 30 zo.8 8 16.0
Rome 2.2. T5.3 15 30.0
Antwerp 0 0 3 6.o
Basel 2 1.4 I 2.0
Paris 0 0 I 2.0
Total 144 100.0 50 100.0
in Basel, and one in Paris). If the calculation is also extended to include law
books, thesuperiority of Venetian and Lyonnais editions becomes even more
evident: 83.3 percent of the juridical texts come from these two cities. While
its editorial production was increasing, Rome in 1641 evidently had not yet
succeeded in surpassing Venice."
A Lawyer, a Jeweler, and a Painter
Neruzzi was not the only person who had an interesting library. Although
the lawyer Negrelli had virtually only collections of Decisiones or Consilia,
they were accompanied by juridical treatises on various subjects and a few
classics.47 By contrast, another lawyer (Pari), a jeweler (Cangiani), and a
painter (Raspantini), owned respectively forty-two, seventy-one, and 107
titles of poetry, art, history, travel, and current events in addition to legal
and devotional texts."
The lawyer Pari obviously knew Latin. Raspantini also seems to have
understood it a little since he owned about a dozen titles in the language.
Cangiani instead only had books in the vernacular, but this does not make his
library incomparable with the other two. Different aspects of their libraries
194 :: CHAPTER EIGHT
had much in common. First of all, none had an overwhelming number of
religious works. Only in the case of the lawyer Pari did this category reach 3o
percent of the total—and here only because I have excluded his legal books
since their number is, in fact, so great that they would have skewed any percentage.
In the other two cases devotional literature made up between io and
zo percent of the total, as was the case for Neruzzi's library." Devotional
books were thus important, but they do not seem to have aroused more
than some curiosity in our collectors since their assortment was limited to
the Bible, some saints' lives, a few compendia of sermons, and confessional
manuals. The number of sacred texts did not reach the quantity of books
they owned in other topics. Instead, their secular works were more varied
in scope—from literature and classics to history and art—and there was a
corresponding tendency to accumulate a much larger number of titles.s°
A second point of contact between these libraries as well as Neruzzi's
collection was the large number of books intended for "action" more than
for amusement or reflection. These works included not only books of a true
vocational character—jurisprudence for Pari, painting and architecture for
Raspantini, military arts and mathematics for Cangiani—but also the many
compendia and anthologies that filled these libraries and whose function
was eminently practical. Grammars, vocabularies, collections of letters, but
also frequently Cicero's Topics or Sententia were there to be consulted and
used in the same way in which lawyers consulted decisiones from the Rota
TABLE 8.3 Religious and nonreligious books (excluding legal texts)
PERCENT
OF
OWNER RELIGIOUS TOTAL
PERCENT PERCENT TOTAL
OF OF NUMBER
JURIDICAL TOTAL OTHER TOTAL OF BOOKS
Pari 17
Cangiani 19
Raspantini 16
Total 53
28.3 (327)* NA 43 70.0 6o
20.9 I 1.1 71 78.o 91
10.2 34 21.7 107 68.2 157
17.2 35 11.4 220 71 .4 308
Note: These data are not taken into consideration because Pari was a lawyer.
BOOKS :: 195
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or consilia of illustrious jurists for practical models and immediate instructions.
Just as a lawyer would turn to collections of decisiones and consilia
when he needed to draw up a legal opinion, this other genre of publication
was a resource for writing a letter, developing a good and proper speech, or
constructing an efficacious argument.
The presence of four manuals on correspondence in a jeweler's house
and Annibal Caro's familiar letters and the epistolae of Cicero, Simmacus,
and Marsilio Ficino in a lawyer's house was therefore an eloquent sign of
the success of printing, a phenomenon that has been attested in many other
ways.51 Between 1538 and 1627 around 54o volumes of contemporary letters
were published in Italy. In fact, it was the publishers themselves who promoted
their printing: Gabriele Giolito published thirty-eight of these books,
while Paolo Manuzio produced twenty-two. Other works that presented
themselves as "selections of `sayings,' flowers' of speech, and repertories
of infinitely reproducible discursive situations, for every occasion in which
epistolary communication could be used" were closely tied to correspondence
manuals.52 Books like Adages for the Two Best Written Languages,
published by Manuzio and found in Pari's collection, or Giovanni Gisano's
Treasure of Poetic Concepts owned by Cangiani, were intended to be "support
apparatus" and therefore meant for practical purposes. Of course this
did not exclude the possibility that a reader instead might also be content
to use a compendium or a collection of exempla solely for edification or
recreation.
Nonetheless, the primary reason for the success of these anthologies or
encyclopedic collections was perhaps different from the ones we have mentioned
so far. As we have observed with the scholastic manuals, the goal of
the authors and publishers involved in creating these works was to "produce
useful books, capable of helping the public, and offering the user a short,
easy, verifiable, and repeatable guide to literary writings and, more generally,
knowledge."" In this spirit, a bibliographic collection such as Anton Francesco
Doni's The Library, published in the mid-sixteenth century, defined
itself as "a useful and necessary book to all those who need to understand
language and who want to know, write, and discuss all authors, books, and
works."'" From such comments we can see the importance of and public
consensus on the many different kinds of anthologies that filled Neruzzi's
library, as well as indexes and the increasingly copious aids to consultation
that accompanied old and new classics, including "commentary, allegories,
rhyme index, commonplaces, and sayings."" Equipped with specula, synoptic
tables, and other visual aids, these texts allowed immediate reference
BOOKS :: 197
to a much larger corpus of knowledge, supplying the reader with a key for
accessing the universality of culture." As Doni described the process:
We put ourselves in front of a mountain of books, inside of which there
is a flood of words, and from this mixture we make others, so that from
so many books we arrive at one. Those who come afterward will again
take this or that fact and, remixing words with words, create another
mishmash and from that a work. Thus turns this wheel of words up
and down a thousand times per hour: yet one does not depart from
the alphabet, nor from saying in the same style and way (and the same
things, I should say!) all that others in the past have said.57
This activity of indexing and publication was not limited to belles lettres.
On the contrary, the sixteenth century saw the publication "of every sort of
encyclopedic manual, including books for everyone from barbers to meat
carvers to stone engravers."58 For every possible intended reader the words
of a Spanish scholar at the end of the sixteenth century held true: "the reader
should choose as if he were seated at a table richly laid with everything that
seems appetizing, healthy, and fortifying. If the text seems to be too long, he
should read only as much of it as he can stand."" While it is a bit of a strain
to call thisgenre of works "encyclopedias," since these volumes often lacked
any principle of subject classification and the taste for variety dominated over
the need to be methodical, nonetheless assuccessive editions of thesame work
evolved, it is often possible to see traces of its systematic transformation into
the approach of the summa, including the adoption of an alphabetical or a
chronological order and a more precise principle of classification.°In making
these changes publishers seem to have responded to the demands of readers
who wanted instruments with which they could immediately identify what
would be useful in the text.
Traces of this profound tension between an easily accessible literature and
a tool for action appear in the libraries surveyed here." The jeweler Cangiani
owned at least eight titles that pertained to the art of writing:correspondence
manuals, grammars, and dictionaries. But technical works also were not neglected
since he possessed two treatises on firing a harquebus and a volume
on the Universal Discipline ofthe Military Arts. He owned an additional five
texts on war, which were less technical and more historical-political. They
included Galeazzo Gualdo's The Prudent Warrior, Giovanni Pontano's Reports
of the Wars of Naples, and Giulio Rosso's The Book of Portraits and
Eulogies of Illustrious Captains.62 To this list we can also add a volume of
198 :: CHAPTER EIGHT
Tacitus's HistoricalAphorisms and another titled Pleasing Deeds of Various
Princes Collected by Ludovico Guicciardino. Three manuals for "social"
or "sociable" professions then followed: Lelio Pascali's The Preceptor, Bartolomeo
Scappi's The Butler, and Francesco Listini's The Chamberlain. The
presence of these works in Cangiani's library confirms the ability of this type
of literature to serve diffuse audiences. However, Cangiani also had a very
active interest in current events, as his books on universal history and above
all by his copy of Pietro della Valle's Travels demonstrate."This predilection
made his collection of books the most up to date of all. Indeed, Cangiani was
the only owner surveyed who could boast a consistent presence (nine works)
in his library of authors who had died after 165o, while in the other three
libraries the "moderns" were primarily from the sixteenth century.
For his part, the lawyer Pari owned some classics in abridged versions,
such as Cicero's Sententiae insignes and a commentary on Cicero's dialogue,
De Oratore.64 He rounded out his collection with a volume of Exemplorum
memorabilium cum ethnicorum tum christianorum, a learned manual on the
art of gymnastics, and two tracts midway between economics, agronomy,and
botany." Finally, he possessed two works by Erasmus well hidden beneath
the name of their publisher, Paolo Manuzio: the Apophtegmatum ex optimis
utriusque linguae libri and the Adages.
Raspantini's library was also filled with anthologies and encyclopedic
collections. However, being a painter, his interests largely centered on emblems,
images, and figures. Thus he owned a book of Diverse Imprese Accommodating
Different Morals Taken from Alciato's Emblems,at least three
handbooks of ancient and modern medals, Cesare Ripa's Iconologia, Cesare
Vecellio's Ancient and Modern Clothing of the Whole World, and Vincenzo
Cartari's Images of the Ancient Gods. Ovid's Metamorphoses, which evidently
constituted a privileged subject for a painter who also had literary
interests, merited a place apart. Indeed, Raspantini owned a book of Ovidian
figures by Antonio Tempesta, the Metamorphoses itself, two copies of Ovid's
Letters translated into the vernacular by Remigio Nannini Fiorentino, and a
final volume in Latin of select passages. Completing this catalog was the work
of Gabriele Simeoni titled The Life and Metamorphoses of Ovid Illustrated
and Abbreviated in the Form ofEpigrams. The style of this last work recalls
that of the Handbook of the Medals of the Most Illustrious and Famous
Men and Women from the Beginning of the Word. . . With Their Abridged
Lives, which Raspantini also owned. Both demonstrate the pervasiveness of a
model that we could call "Giovian." Giovian works were characterized by a
repertory of images accompanied by explanatory epigrams.66 The preface to
BOOKS :: 199
the 1593 edition of Ripa's Iconologia is very indicative in this respect. Ripa
declared that "images are made to signify something diverse from that which
one sees with the eye. Images have no more certainty, nor a more universal
truth than the imitation of memory which one finds in books" unless they
are in medals and engraved marbles.67 There was traditionally a very strong
relationship of equivalency and mutual reinforcement between images and
words, but by the mid-seventeenth century the icon was diminishing in its
power to convey meaning. Increasingly there was a need for words that alone
could clarify the significance of the icon."
Next to these illustrated encyclopedias, Raspantini also had more traditional
works, such as Lucio Fauno's Italian translation of The Customs,
Laws, and Fashions of all Peoples Divided into Three Books Collected by
Johannes Boemius of Ulm German; Mauro Fiorentino's Italian translation
of the Latin original of Alessandro Piccolomini's The Vulgar Sphere Newly
Translated with Many Notes, Geometrical Additions, Cosmography and
Other Things; and Mario Antonini's volume On the Various Practices of
Things Resolved in Three Ordered Books. The technical manuals in his
library also were not limited to the topics of painting and perspective. Raspantini
possessed a New Vocabulary with Which One Can Learn by Oneself
Various Languages, That Is, Italian, Greek, Turkish, and German. This
title explains rather well how texts in this genre fulfilled the goals of a good
manual, namely, a didactic purpose tied immediately to practice. From this
point of view one cannot differentiate between the works of Daniele Barbaro,
Giacomo Barozzi, Andrea Palladio, Vincenzo Scamozzi, Sebastiano Serlio,
Domenico Fontana, Giovan Paolo Lomazzo, Raffaello Borghini, and others,
that is, the many manuals on perspective, painting, and architecture owned
by Raspantini.
In addition to these fairly heterogeneous summae that represented, at
least in theory, knowledge resulting in action, our book collectors owned
numerous examples of purely edifying or recreational works, beginning with
some of those poetry collections that were often republished from the middle
of the sixteenth century onward.69 The lawyer Pari contented himself with
Angelo Poliziano'a Works and Giovanni Battista Guarini's The Loyal Pastor.
However, in the house of the jeweler Cangiani one in four books belonged
to the category of belles lettres, while with Raspantini the proportion jumps
to one in three. Cangiani did not have a particular proclivity for lyric poetry
even if he owned four poetry collections and two works each by Marino and
Guarini. Instead, narrative prose and drama commanded his attention. He
especially loved picaresque novels (e.g., I/ picaro, Il picariglio, La vita della
2.00 :: CHAPTER EIGHT
picara), and even owned two modern novels that had enjoyed great success:
Giovan Francesco Biondi's Eromena and Giovan Battista Rinnuccini's The
Scottish Capuchin. Judging from his collection of chivalric stories, Raspantini
also loved narrative. He owned both serious and comedic examples of
this genre, including Amadis and Miserable Guerin, along with recently
published novels such as Carlo della Lengueglia's Prince Ruremondo or
Giovan Ambrogio Marini's Calloandro.7° However, the painter Raspantini
also enjoyed satire since he possessed the works of Cesare Caporali and
Giovan Francesco Loreadano's WittyJokes. Finally, he loved poetry, and in
this area his titles were the most up to date of the three book collectors. He
even preferred modern poets and the writings of Cortese, Gelli, Sanazaro,
Stigliani, along with Tasso and Marino. Ariosto was present in two editions,
both with commentaries by Ludovico Dolce. The only work by Petrarch he
owned seems more a book of art than one of poetry; it was described as "a
little book adorned with the most beautiful copperplate engravings."
As for Lansi, we have only a partial catalog of his library. He owned
various literary works in a small and manageable format. His other books
were particularly interesting. Together with Pari and Cangiani, he was one
of the few members of "the middling class" who owned a Tacitus, and he
was the only person to have a contemporary work on the art of government:
Paolo Paruta's Political Discourses. He seems to have had a real interest
in reason of state. However, Lansi also had another peculiarity, which deserves
attention: he was the only owner of a treatise on good manners,
Stefano Guazzo's Civil Conversation.7'
The literary preferences of these three people were perfectly consistent with
those of the great contemporary artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini who, despite
appearances, was from the same middling social group. In Bernini's house,
like Lansi's, one can find manuals on comportment such as Castiglione's The
Book ofthe Courtier and Della Casa's Galateo, even if the works that dominated
his library were, on the one hand, professional manuals and, on the
other hand, narratives, with a massive presence of novels and romances, the
same ones found in Cangiani's and Raspantini's libraries. In fact, the genre
of the novel enjoyed great popularity in the seventeenth century; between
originals and translations during the course of the century there were more
than eight hundred published editions of them.72 The libraries surveyed here
reveal the public that determined this degree of success, confirming the opinion
of one writer from the period who stated that these works were read by
"every level and condition of person, whether learned, of a middling sort, or
even fools."" The authors whom we have just encountered were among the
BOOKS :: 2.01
most well read: during the course of the century Biondi's works appeared in
thirty-seven editions, those of Ambrogio Marini in thirty-eight, and those
of Loredano in forty.74
A Noble Library
If we compare these "middling class" libraries with the more well furnished
libraries of the Giustiniani or the Santacroce—whose inventories were taken
respectively in 1638 and z7o7—the results are most instructive. While the
differences are noteworthy, the collections do not lack certain similarities;
at their core, even noble libraries were largely composed of "professional"
manuals. Indeed, what else were treatises on the art of government or
on courtly etiquette if not works intended for a specific field of action—
politics—in which their owners were involved?
Vincenzo Giustiniani, who most likely inherited the books of his cardinal
brother,owned a good number of controversial texts concerning the Venetian
Interdict and the separation of the Anglican Church from Rome—England
was a country that Giustiniani visited as a youth!' Yet as one can see in the
table below, books on history, current events, politics, the art of government,
military practice, and reports on exotic countries such as China or the
Congo dominated his collection enough to give it a certain feel. Indeed, the
few classics present in the library represent only writers consistent with this
preoccupation, such as Tacitus, Plutarch, Suetonius, and Valerius Maximus.
There was not a single work of poetry or even an edition of Cicero in the
whole collection! Naturally, the principal thinkers on contemporary politics,
including Antonio Guevara,Justius Lipsius, Giovanni Botero, Paolo Paruta,
and Ludovico Zuccolo, were present and, next to them, numerous volumes
of history (including works on the papacy, the Republic of Genoa, Milan,
the kingdom of France, and so on) and reports on recent events (the war
in Flanders, Bohemia, and such). A good half of the books the Giustiniani
brothers owned were therefore made up of works devoted to professional
utility, just as was the case with Raspantini, Bernini, Cangiani, and Peri.
Despite these similarities, there were also differences between the noble
and middling libraries. For example, the Giustiniani were interested in astrology,
signs from dreams, and heraldry, but other book owners did not share
these interests. Most importantly, the Giustiniani owned books in French
and Spanish besides works in the Italian vernacular and Latin. Thus among
the few literary works in their possession the Life of Don Quixote from
La Mancha, and especially Barclay's Argenis and Chavigny Beaunois's Les
202. :: CHAPTER EIGHT
TABLE 8.5 The Giustiniani library: subjects that can be securely identified
SUBJECT NUMBER OF BOOKS PERCENT OF TOTAL
Art 4 I.1
Literature II 3.3
Controversies 27 8.i
Religion 51 15.3
Saints' lives 24 7.2
Classics 1.2
History/current events 76 2.2.8
Politics 27 8.1
Military arts 6 1.8
Reports on countries 5 1.5
Philosophy z6 7.8
Science I2 3.6
Medicine 4 I.1
Secrets 2. o.6
Language o.6
Correspondence o.6
Exempla 5 1.5
Law 44 13.2
Total 334 roo.o
Pleiades, stand out. The cardinal and his collector brother do not seem to
have been great lovers of literature. Yet they did not fail to procure French
novels and poems, and even the fashionable novel par excellence, the Argenis,
which, together with Urfe's Astree, was the most read narrative work
of the period.
BOOKS :: 203
Thus for the owners of the libraries we have considered, books were not
solely an ornament or a cultural product devoid of practical purposes, but
like law books for judges and lawyers, they were collected for professional
purposes, to be used as works of reference whose purpose placed them fully
in the realm of utility.76 Yet they also made up a library, that is, one of the
most typical kinds of collections containing objects to be preserved. Perhaps
their use was not entirely in contradiction with their transformation from
useful to meaningful objects.
The Power of Censorship and of Chance
Cardinal Giustiniani was authorized to keep any type of book that could
be useful to him, even if that work had been listed on the Index of Prohibited
Books.77 His library cannot therefore serve as a test case with which
to measure the pervasiveness of censorship or, alternately, the ability of
prohibited books to circulate!' The situation of the other four bibliophiles,
who respected without exception the decisions of the Congregation of the
Index, was quite different. Neruzzi was the most audacious; he owned a
copy of the Tommaso Stigliani's Rhymes, condemned in 1605. However,
he might simply have benefited from the professional status of his father
who, since he was a judge or a lawyer, could more easily obtain permission
to keep prohibited books. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the
other two lawyers—Negrelli and Pari—were the only ones who also owned
banned books. Negrelli had Girolamo Cardano's Desupplement°almanach
and the De restitutione ternporum et motum coelestium, while Pari owned
Marchino's De bello Divino, which was condemned in 1647.
While the field surveyed is fairly small, the fact remains that out of nearly
42.0 titles only four works were prohibited, and, moreover, their owners
were probably authorized to have them. The evidence suggests that during
the second half of the seventeenth century censorship in Rome still
functioned rather well." If Cangiani, who died in 1667, came to possess a
copy of Giovan Battista Marino's Lira, he must have acquired it at least ten
years before it was put on the Index in 1678, when it was still legal to do so.
However, Cangiani and Raspantini owned the entire Bible in "the maternal
language," as did Bernini, despite the fact that it was still prohibited." The
title of Cangiani's copy of the Bible of the Old and New Testament is very
reminiscent of the edition Giovanni Diodati translated that was present in
the library of this great Roman architect, since the typographic characters
from the frontispiece of the first edition of 1607 were arranged in such a way
2.04 :: CHAPTER EIGHT
as to induce the reader to synthesize the slightly longer full title in this fashion."
In the 166os and i67os a jeweler and a great artist allowed themselves
to own the most well known Protestant version of the Sacred Scriptures
in Italian and have it included in their library inventories without incurring
particular censure. The Bible Recently Printed in the Mother Tongue
with Theological and Moral Notes in Raspantini's possession, while also
in Italian, was not heretical. Its author was Nicole Malerbi who completed
the first vernacular translation of the entire Sacred Scriptures at the end of
the fifteenth century." During the first decades of the sixteenth century his
work was reprinted several times, remaining the canonical text until at least
153o." From this point onward, other versions appeared, some of them
suspect, such as Antonio Brucioli's version, which ended up on the Index,
and other more reassuring versions such as the one by Sante Marmochino
that we find in Bernini's library."
All of this is fairly surprising. In Italy the prohibition against access to
complete translations of the Bible, definitively introduced by the Clementine
Index of 1596, remained officially enforced until the mid-eighteenth
century." Nonetheless, the Inquisition's strength must have been rather attenuated
after 165o if the prohibition against reading sacred texts in the
vernacular could be so easily circumvented. Or perhaps in the course of the
seventeenth century it became so easy to obtain a license that even members
of the artisan elite succeeded in getting one.
The composition of these libraries did not depend, however, only on
censorship but also on chance, which is far more difficult to measure. The
arguments I have presented up until this point presume that book owners
had in some way chosen the works they possessed, and that these choices
reflected their interests. However, one can become the owner of a book—just
like any other artifact—randomly. A few volumes or even an entire library
can enter into a house through inheritance, as happened to Neruzzi. Raspantini
probably inherited the thirty or so juridical books he owned from
a relative who was a jurist." Indeed, there are signs of books being left to
heirs in wills. The lawyer Carmillo Moretto, for example, ordered all of his
books to be sold "except those humanist texts which could serve Tommaso
di Girolamo Vannini and Cecchino my nephew." He then added: "I leave to
messer Tommaso Vannini the Theatrum orbis et imagines civitatum."87 The
ex-governor Francesco Maria Frollieri had books to leave to his heirs, but
added that "there are some books, which are legal texts that I have kept in my
care as security for a certain Pietro Paolo Schieggio, to whom I have lent 5o
scudi."88 His legatee found himself in possession of books chosen by a person
BOOKS :: 2.05
very far away from him, with whom he had no contact and whom perhaps
he had never even met. Probably he would have been very content to restore
these works to the rightful owner in exchange for the settling of the old bill
of 5o scudi. Frollieri had come into possession of these legal books by chance
as well, as they were ceded to him—temporarily in theory—as a guarantee
for a debt. Next to involuntary owners who were probably not readers of
the books, there also existed readers who were not owners. It could in fact
happen that a person had access to books that were not his own property
because he had obtained them on loan from someone else. The practice of
loaning books among erudite individuals and bibliophiles has been amply
documented. In the inventory of Negrelli's library, next to a certain number
of juridical texts a note was added, "loaned to . . ." demonstrating that the
practice of lending was widespread among professionals as well, who considered
these books the tools of their trade." On the other hand, in his youth
Bernini borrowed and never returned a copy of Cesare Ripa's konologia."
The diversity of ways in which objects, including books, circulated—being
bought and sold, but also exchanged, offered as a guarantee, sequestered,
loaned and borrowed, and even given or received as gifts—conditioned the
way in which libraries were put together in a manner that is difficult to evaluate,
but certainly important to assess.9'
The libraries that appear in these inventories contained a maximum of
about a hundred volumes. It is probably unrealistic to try to find traces
of the contemporary method of classification in which books were first
divided according to size and then by a few large thematic categories such
as theology, medicine, jurisprudence, history, philosophy, mathematics,
fine literature, and such."' However, Polidoro Neruzzi respected at least
the division according to size, even if it is rather difficult to discern a division
according to subject. Vincenzo Giustiniani's books underwent a more
rigorous organization by size and subject matter, even though his library,
containing a little more than 3 5o volumes, was closer to those of Neruzzi
or a Raspantini than a bibliophile like Cassiano dal Pozzo, Cardinal Del
Monte, or even Carlo Cartari. The criteria that determined the organization
of the Santacroce library were even more precise, rich as it was with several
thousand tomes.
Imposing Tomes and Manageable Books
Regarding the way in which these books were used—whether they were read
in silence or aloud, consulted frequently and intensively, or each read from
206 :: CHAPTER EIGHT
beginning to end—we unfortunately do not have any clues. We must base
our conclusions on circumstantial evidence. Historians of the book have
coined the expression "intensive reading" to define a rapport with texts based
on the continuous and repeated consultation of a small number of works.
Whoever possesses only a small number of books generally uses them in this
way, while those who have many can decide to engage in "extensive reading,"
that is to say, a diffuse reading practice not concentrated on only one or two
works. Cornelia Alicorna probably devoted herself to the intensive reading
of her only book, The Office of the Madonna. Meanwhile, the rich libraries
of Neruzzi, Cangiani, or Raspantini would have allowed them to vary their
choices, passing from one book to another. An analysis of the format of those
texts for which we have this information yields results that partially support
this hypothesis: books that were small and manageable, that is, easy to pick
up and leave off, comprised the great majority of works in these libraries."
Works of philosophy or classics were for the most part in octavo versions,
while poetry, narrative, prose, and some works of devotion were presented
in the even smaller format of sextodecimo, or the generic "small" form. By
contrast, collections of decisiones and consilia, and in general all juridical
texts, were exclusively available in folio versions."
The size of a book naturally affected its value, but even some of Raspantini's
little books, described as "small but rather good," "decorated,"
or "historiated," must have been quite expensive. Nevertheless not a single
library inventory was accompanied by an appraisal, and thus we do not
have detailed information about the value of individual pieces.95 We do
know, however, that Dorotea Antolina's heirssold her library for more than
700 scudi—the equivalent of a good dowry—and that the procurator Pietro
Paolo Schieggio gave his books as a guarantee for a loan of 5o scudi. We
have seen how some bibliophiles recorded their own libraries in their wills
and recommended their care to their heirs. Even if every one of these books
could not be worth more than a few dozen baiocchi, altogether the books
had a commercial as well as an emotional value.96 This can also be deduced
from the way in which the books were kept and preserved. Only Margherita
Betti kept hers in a little trunk; everyone else placed them on bookshelves
or in credenzas made for the purpose. Those individuals—like the playwright
Azzavedi or the lawyer Moretti—who due to their profession or their
passion came to identify themselveswith their books, could do no less than to
extend this connection with books to their entire family. They established the
inalienability of their libraries, entrusting the continuation of their biological
and spiritual inheritance to their permanence in time.
BOOKS :: 207
Ways of Reading
The small and manageable format that distinguished the majority of nonjuridical
books is a primary indication of the way in which books were treated
and used.97 Some other indications can be taken from the typology of works
in the libraries. Many of them were designated for a practical purpose, and
a good number could even be considered professional tools for work. The
academic model of the compendium, furnished with indexes and synoptic
tables, and organized in a way to allow information or citations to be found
immediately, therefore influenced a considerable portion of library production,
as we learned from looking at contemporary publishing practices. However,
this model was evidently capable of influencing the consumption of
printed works and orienting the direction of public taste. People continued
to choose anthologies and collections even when they treated subjects that
were devoid of practical value for the owner, and hence should be thought of
as entertainment. A jeweler certainly did not read the Historical Aphorisms
drawn from Tacitus or The Pleasing Deeds of Various Princes as a guide
for his actions. Even edifying literature conformed to this model. Poetry, for
example, existed in many anthologies of ancient and modern poets that our
bibliophiles owned. The true exception seems to have been prose literature,
that is, comedies, tragedies,and novels that filled the libraries of seventeenthcentury
readers in ever-growing numbers. These works were therefore the
true progenitors of the evolution in reading styles.
Yet there was probably something else at work in our bibliophiles' choices.
The diffusion of compendia, dictionaries, and encyclopedias did not depend
only on the influence of the academic model that defined the scholarly genres
by which such books might be categorized. This type of work attempted
to offer to the reader the sensation of being able to dominate every type of
knowledge or field of inquiry. It allowed him to find the response to any genre
of question or problem. It made every book into a library and multiplied its
potential uses. This expansion of the possible uses of texts—no longer presented
as a compact and well-defined system but rather as an assemblage of
distinct parts to be infinitely dismantled and recombined in diverse ways and
for diverse uses—became the principal reason for their success. This conclusion
is perfectly consistent with what we have begun to know about ways
of reading in the early modern period. The reader occupied a dominating
position over a text that was dismantled and reassembled according to the
common categories of humanist education." Compendia were commonly
organized according to the same principles. Even the practice of rereading the
2.08 :: CHAPTER EIGHT
same book multiple times, pursuing again and again the answers to various
questions, reveals an analogous rapport with written works." In northern
and central Europe—Germany and England—a reader made this way of
reading tangible by redacting selected passages extracted from the books he
owned in a personal notebook.'" In Italy it seems that the printing industry
itself took charge of this task.
Domestic Writing
Next to true and proper books, domestic account books and family correspondence
also became objects of systematic collection and cataloging. After
her first purchases of Giuseppe Flavio and Anacreon, Isabella Vecchiarelli
did not buy many more books. However, she did have a group of sonnets
bound that were dedicated to her.'°' Many years earlier, Orazio Spada collected
the letters that he exchanged with his wife and other members of his
family and regularly had them bound.102 Carlo Cartari, who sent his son
detailed instructions on how to put together and catalog the private papers
of the Febei family, who were relatives of the Cartari, did the same. Cartari
advised his son:
the letters that must be chosen to create books of them are those from
illustrious people, that is, cardinals, prelates, and other men of status,
either in letters, arms, or worth. ...The other letters either will be about
domestic affairs and must be kept, or will be letters from other people
about unimportant things and likewise should be kept. . . . Using these
distinctions, you should makesome bundles, and write out in ink on top
of the bundle the sort of writings contained therein; if there are historical
writings or other learned works, make a separate bundle."'
Infected by a similar passion for archiving, Orazio Spada had bound even the
bills that various suppliers gave him.104 He also invested considerable sums
in the acquisition of ledgers for household accounting.105
Domestic writings were kept as the most precious treasures. As Leon
Battista Alberti noted in an earlier century, they were absolutely inalienable
because they contained the family's memory. The greater and lesser nobles
who constructed well-organized archives confirmed Alberti's statement.106
However, the "extravagance" of Orazio Spada, which led him to have his
proofs of payment sewn together and recopied onto vellum, can only be
fully understood by considering the ordinary uses of paper and writing. For
BOOKS :: 2.09
TABLE 8.6 The Spada Veralli family: the paper maker's bill, 166z
DESCRIPTION OF THE OBJECT SUPPLIED PRICE IN SCUDI
A book in the "imperial" format with 500
paper pages and covered with red leather
from Cordoba. The book is painted at the top
in miniature with the letter A and the family
crest. Another painted crest appears atop the
gilded and lined cover.
15.00
A golden family crest in miniature atop the o.8o
cover.
An alphabet covered with vellum with forty
paper pages for the mentioned book written
in Venetian style inside.
1.00
A book in the "royal" format with zoo paper z.00
pages marked on top with "Journal A"
this purpose, however, inventories are not the most useful source; some of
them mention papers and documents, but none undertake to describe them.
Instead, the parts of family archives left to pious institutions such as the
Hospital of San Giacomo or San Girolamo give us a fairly good idea of the
rapport that many people had with the material culture of writing and record
keeping. For example, in the midst of moving to Rome, Giovanni Battista
Contelori wrote various reminders to himself, his wife, and a trusted associate.
He listed all of the movable goods that must be taken to Rome and
those that instead must remain in Cesi. Always recycling paper, Contelori
used the backs of letters addressed to him or the blank parts of pages full
of other writings, or scrap pieces.107 Aurelio Baldini did the same, writing
on the back of some legal notes, and even dividing his paper into rectangles
that were about 6 x Io cm. He would then fill in a different section every
time he wrote in a way that separated the various notes in each square.'"
None of these writings were sewn together, and parchment was used less
and less frequently.
This parsimonious recycling of paper did not depend on the relative importance
of the notes written on it, however. On the contrary, at the head
210 :: CHAPTER EIGHT
of one of the pages lined into several squares by Baldini it was written: "this
reminder [memoria] is extremely important." The same attitude led people
to fill in all the empty spaces and to exploit fully every blank page, as, for example,
happened in memory books, which contained receiptsof payment and
other notes in addition to their more central subjects. There were also explicit
declarations about being thrifty with paper. Lavinia Beccoli, for example,
advised her son Carlo Cartari: "when you write you should write smaller so
that everything can fit on one sheet, as I am spending too much."109
Paper was thus rare and expensive and so could not go to waste."° Yet
some people left blank spaces on their pages and did not fill the margins with
words. They left blank pages in their diaries, and they failed to recycle letters
and receipts; instead they kept these things in bound volumes. These acts
implied a sacrifice of the utility of a product invested with certain economic
value. They were therefore all acts intended to create meaning. On the other
hand, when Orazio Spada spent 20 scudi for a ledger, his motives were fairly
transparent: the glory and greatness of the house was also present here. The
same aspirations of greatness evidently inspired Antonio Santacroce, who
purchased a book for his memories with a cover made not from cardboard or
vellum, as was usually the case with books of this sort, but rather of "black
sharkskin from France with silver buckles."'
Although these examples might seem to suggest the contrary, those who
collected and bound their domestic writings were the exception. There were,
TABLE 8.7 Inventories that mention objects necessary for writing
NUMBER OF
MALE
OBJECT INVENTORIES
PERCENT OUT OF
ALL THE MALE
INVENTORIES
NUMBER OF
FEMALE
INVENTO-
RIES
PERCENT OUT
OF ALL THE
FEMALE
INVENTORIES
Lamps and
candlesticks
2.9 63.04 13 43.33
Pens and
inkwells
7 15.21 3.03
Sheets of
paper
3 6.5z 1 3.03
BOOKS :: 211
in fact, very few people who had the means to preserve their papers, let alone
to bind them.
As one can see from the table above, only a tiny minority of people owned
paper and pen. Surprisingly, even the owners of objects to make light constituted
little more than half of the total surveyed, alongwith the usual disparity
between men and women. One should not be surprised therefore that only
thirteen people (eleven men and two women) had letters, bills, receipts, and
other domestic writings in their house. Indeed, only the banker Rotoli owned
a diary." 2 These results, though, reflect very improbable absences. The lawyers
Pari and Negrelli, for example, did not possess either a pen or an inkwell.
Negrelli did not appear to have had any private writings.''3 Francesco Bava's
inventory, made at the behest of his creditors, mentions instead at least eight
registers and notebooks for sales, expenditures, bank receipts, and copies of
letters. This illustrates how full and accurate the bookkeeping practices of a
representative of the middling class could be.
The postmortem inventory of a tailor sheds even more instructive light
on the situation: he had seven books of receipts, a similar number of diaries
and memory books, eight records of the compagnie di ufficio (credit bonds),
a dozen shares in the Monte, "a tailor's book with bills marked by an MB,"
five bundles of writings and bills, a set of notarial instruments, and another
of "information," that is, judicial documents, the dowry agreement from
his first wife, a second wife's miscellaneous writings and insurance policies,
and finally "a half sack of bound, poorly written things." 114 This tailor's
heirs, who likely also inherited his profession, kept and had inventoried the
details of the papers in his archives. Others, like the two lawyers' heirs, did
not show any interest in having documented exactly what could be found
in their studies, except for the books, which had a value. Pari's papers were
only named as accessories to "a shelf for writing," while Negrelli's papers
remain totally unmentioned.
Books and Other Things
What else did book owners own? Can the fact of having books indicate a
recognizable cultural orientation, or even a quest for distinction? Could it
also mark certain boundaries in lifestyle between those who did and did not
read?
As one can see from the table below, book ownership undoubtedly correlated
with the possession of other categories of goods such as musical and
scientific instruments or natural curiosities. This correlation also was appar-
U
U
CRYSTALCURIOSITIES
PAINTINGS
0
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>-
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0 0 0 0
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Wolf'sTooth
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ent with "novelties" such as clocks, powders, and perfumes as well as fragile
and decorative objects made from crystal, porcelain, or fine ceramic.
Those who did not own books, in contrast, had a much smaller chance of
owning even some of the items just mentioned. The impression that one gets is
therefore of a material culture in which habitual readingwas associated with
other forms of cultural distinction, such as the possibility of making music, a
certain interest in nature and technology, and an openness to uncommon and
ostentatious goods. The presence of all these categories of objects together
creates a complete profile that demands attention and is distinguished from
the profile of those who instead did not possess any of these furnishings. The
image that emerges is one of "cultivated" and fashionable individuals who
were capable of differentiating themselves from others, thanks to a lifestyle
that appears to be more refined, elegant, and richer in "immaterial things,"
less oppressed by physical needs, less dominated by the ethic of utility, and
hence more disposed toward making aesthetic choices. Neruzzi, Raspantini,
Cangiani, and Margherita Betti stand out from the somewhat opaque totality
of the group to embody an elite of taste, founded on the possession of
cultural goods whose value, for those who could see it, was based on the
beauty, ingenuity, or innovation more than the richness of materials. In the
complete absence of any other type of documentation or testimony, direct
or indirect, it is their material culture speaks for them, restoring a rich and
multifaceted image of their complete physiognomy that is, in every instance,
neither flat nor one dimensional.'"
2.14 :: CHAPTER EIGHT
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
CONCLUSION
A Material Culture
The decision to adopt the lens of material culture has a precise aim: to understand,
through the patrimonies of objects documented in inventories, the type
of rapport that existed between human beings and things, the ways in which
individuals and social groups objectified themselves in the culture of their
material world, and how objects in turn affected culture. All of this must be
understood on its own terms, however, resisting the temptation to look for
forerunners of a consumer society that was still somewhat distant in time, or
to label a culture backward through facile comparisons with the present.
Inventories have been the means toward the realization of this goal.Therefore,
as a starting point for such a project, we have had to test the reliability
of these documents to be reasonably certain they were neither too incomplete
nor overly conditioned by the logic of those who requested or executed the
inventories. Examining their internal coherence and elements of their incoherence,
and comparing them with other kinds of documents, has revealed
them to be up to the task. Inventories are limited, however, because they
only document property and not the availability of objects and are at times
incomplete, yet such limits are fairly evident; if nothing else, they do not
induce errors. In compensation, inventories supply ample information that
when supplemented with details from account books, contracts, and legal
testimonies effectively succeeds in giving us an idea of what the patrimony
of objects looked like to its owners. Thus they permit us to reconstruct their
material culture.
In many ways this culture was very distant from our own. Many early
modern Romans did not cook—nor did they eat—at home, and nearly
everyone had only a single pair of shoes. Others did not own some of the
furnishings they used and thus had to borrow everything from equipment for
work to beds and linens. For this reason these same people were in general
very attentive to underscoring their relations with property, for example,
by making an inventory of everything they loaned or rented out, and also
what they subdivided between their various dwellings or shared among the
diverse members of their family. Thus we confront a culture that was, on
the one hand, based on the possession of a fairly limited number of things,
forcing people to come up with substitutions for what they lacked, while
on the other hand being defined by a strong sense of having one's own
possessions.
In regardingthe first point—the limited number of objects people owned—
we find the inventories and other sources reveal the numerous and varied
products in circulation in seventeenth-century Rome. Nevertheless, people
either did not own or owned only very small quantities of these objects. It
is difficult to find traces of tools for sewing, for treating textile fibers and
making thread, as well as implements for cooking, consuming food and
drink, and even for generating light. In many other sectors it is evident that
supply—of plates and glasses, for example, or shoes and decorative objects—
was substantially richer and more varied than demand. At times, however,
demand could not be satisfied. Not all of the channels for supplying Roman
clients with garments and textiles necessarily passed through local shops.
Suppliers' inventories never indicated the presence of particularly precious
or sought-after goods. Their assortment of wares was decent but not outstanding.
Goods beyond a certain quality or price could not easily be found
in the marketplace but needed to be ordered specially on commission from
a merchant, as the domestic manuals advised, or by requesting the services
of some friends abroad who could get the item, as private correspondence
reveals. If local supply was in excess in one thing and deficient in another,
this was not an incomprehensible Roman incongruence but rather a fairly
predictable consequence of a demand that was still uncertain and limited.
Yet even in the Roman piazzas things were changing. Novelties, luxuries,
and purely decorative objects were still few and far between, and a single
inventory did not mention more than one or two at most, but the variety of
objects found in Roman households had increased enormously relative to
what had been the norm in the early Renaissance.
The discrepancy between what was available in Rome and what was
recorded in the inventories is perhaps the result of the many different ways
of possessing property. If someone lacked the necessary equipment they
216 :: CONCLUSION
could borrow or rent it, as likely happened with tools for work. Additionally,
tasks that could not happen inside the home due to a lack of materials
could simply be done outside of the home, as people did with their eating of
meals. Contemporaries regularly ate at the osteria or had food brought in
to be eaten at home. The diffusion of eating establishments throughout the
city not only responded to the demands of foreign visitors, who were always
numerous, but also met the needs of all those regular urban inhabitants
who did not have any means of cooking at home. To eat one needed to have
access to not just a hearth and kitchenware but also to food provisions. In
their totality these things required an investment that people who lived on
what they earned day to day could not make.' A meal taken at an osteria and
eventually consumed at home ended up being a more economical solution.
This practice was also documented in contemporary literature: in one scene
from a dialogue by Pietro Aretino a woman dines in her own house on a meal
offered by an admirer and purchased from an osteria.2
A person's relationship with his possessions, not to mention the singularly
complex relationship between ownership and use of things, also distinguished
the material culture of this period. The familial division of goods, sanctioned
by the dowry system, reaffirmed the way in which inventories recorded and
organized objects: only that which was property, in the strict sense of the
term, came to be included in these documents. A spouse's goods were not
included in this tally. Obviously in everyday practice this distinction was not
necessarily applied; indeed, often the two patrimonies became confused with
each other and each of the spouses had access to the other's possessions. This
reality creates problems of definition because, most of the time, a person's
constant and exclusive use of an object constituted proof of his or her ownership.'
Yet law forbade donations between spouses. Even exclusive and
repetitive use of clothing and jewelry was not enough to give a wife ownership
of goods bought with her husband's money. Gifts between spouses were
always temporary and did not infringe upon the rights of their respective
heirs. The experience of objects therefore contradicted their legal definition,
and, as some wills demonstrate, individuals were conscious of this problem.
Property rights were always at risk and were continually being reaffirmed:
the inventories themselves offer tangible proof of this fact.
Criteria for Social Stratification
Over the course of the preceding chapters we have encountered some people
and their inventories more frequently and at greater length than others. Their
CONCLUSION :: 217
things more often have become objects of analysis. Their patrimonies and
their consumption practices have therefore assumed a more precise appearance,
defined against the rather undifferentiated background that makes up
the rest of the inventories. They delineated their choices in a particularly
clear way, and the resulting image is therefore well defined. They owned all
or nearly all of the products we could define as being "cultural," including
paintings, books, pens and inkwells, musical instruments, clocks, scientific
instruments, and/or natural curiosities. These items were supplemented by
other objects that I would call "ostentatious," such as crystal glasses or
carafes, porcelain or fine ceramic plates, perfumes, fans, snuffboxes, and
finally jewelry and silverware. They loved paintings for their aesthetic value;
they read books that taught them how to compose letters or a speech with
distinction and elegance. They owned anthologies of citations that made their
own conversations authoritative and encyclopedic works that expanded the
horizons of their knowledge, and they brought into their houses news from
faraway lands. They aspired to a conscious religious devotion and they read
the Bible in Italian. Finally, they were fashionable: they read novels and collected
landscapes or paintings of flowers.
The image of these people their goods created was that of refined, wellto-do
gentlemen and gentlewomen. The arrangement of rooms inside their
houses and of objects inside their rooms expressed the same type of culture:
landscape paintings and still lifes as well as images of the Madonna or of the
saints hung on their walls. They owned desks and little tables in addition to
the traditional chests. Among the women whose documents we have studied,
only Margherita Betti belonged to thisgroup. There are more male examples:
Neruzzi, Raspantini, Cangiani, Pari, Contelori, Rotoli, all of whom we have
encountered many times, were full-fledged participants in this new culture of
things. To this list we must also add Silvestro Bellini, whose profession we
do not know, and the embroiderer Bronconi. In total there were more than
a few of these elites; others such as Cartari, Azzavedi, Bernini, and Dorotea
Antolini, who are not included in this survey but who have been discussed
in other ways, shared their material culture. Men of law—as well as their
women—played an important role, while scholars and artists held an even
greater position of prominence. Rich merchants and artisans associated with
this latter group.4 Together they give the impression of creating a separate
social class, unified by a common culture—material and immaterial—more
than by income or even profession.'
To reiterate this point: the ownership of paintings of secular subjects,
books, musical instruments, decorative items, and even scientific instruments
2I8 CONCLUSION
indicates the existence of a social class among the intermediate strata of
the population that wanted to be recognized as "cultivated," "attentive to
novelty," and "refined," entrusting its own respectability to these traits.
The current supply of goods, the quality of products circulating in Rome,
local style, and the criteria of legitimation that people of different social
standing applied to their own choices all had an undoubted effect on the
final outcome, determining the spaces of objectification that each individual
enjoyed. Individual and movable patrimonies are the result of this process.
However, as I have argued throughout this study, the relationship between
culture and material culture is not a one way street. The former does not
simply determine the latter. On the contrary, as we have witnessed with our
own eyes, things define the appearance of their owners. Even at the level of
individual experience we can confirm an analogous process: people define
themselves in terms of their possessions.
The salient characteristic of this culture—which included artists, merchants,
and successful artisans—was its distance from the more immediate
and material category of utility and its valorization of the more abstract
categories of the beautiful, the new, and the ingenious. This feature separated
and distinguished these people from others, from people who had few paintings,
no other cultural products, and rather bare household interiors. These
other people also constituted a "social class" that when seen through the lens
of material culture appears impoverished and deprived. Or we might say,
culturally withdrawn. Unfortunately we cannot estimate with precision to
what extent this rapport with goods was linked to income, but one suspects
that such a relationship was not perfectly unambiguous and linear. There
were artisans who made up this culturally deprived social class, but also
some merchants. And they were above all women whose patrimonies were
restricted essentially to furniture, clothing, and some devotional images. Yet
their relative poverty does not imply a lack of interest in things. Theirs was
a different culture—both material and immaterial—in which the category
of utility was central.
Accordingly, it is therefore possible to hypothesize the existence of a type
of social stratification based on lifestyle rather than on other categories. This
way of understandingsocial stratification was rooted in the culture of the period
and not, asstatistics for the nineteenth century have uncovered, founded
on estates or professions. As many richly focused studies of phenomena such
as apprenticeship, spousal choice, or participation in devotional organizations
have revealed, early modern urban societywas crisscrossed by networks
of relationships that closely connected individuals employed in various trades
CONCLUSION :: 219
with people of diverse levels of wealth. The attention to appearances,so typical
of the baroque period, forms a final piece of the evidence: social status
was connected with lifestyle. To this end people paid attention to the clothes
and jewelry they wore and, more generally, to displays of wealth. This also
explains concerns about sumptuary abuses, as a subversion of social order,
and the corresponding efforts to use laws to guarantee a perfect correspondence
between the appearance and the quality of an individual.°
Gender difference constitutes the final element of social stratification. The
fact of being male or female signified a level of noteworthy discrimination
generally ignored by traditional principles of classification. Such criteria
tend to assume, somewhat casually, that women enjoyed the same social
prestige as the men who had jurisdiction over them, that is, their fathers,
husbands, and in some cases brothers. However, investigating material culture
illustrates profound differences between women and men of the same
social class. Women appear to have been more utilitarian in their material
culture and much less inclined to cultivate a taste for the superfluous.
The boundaries of legitimation within which they moved were much more
restricted: only contact with the sacred or considerations regarding the stability
and perpetuation of the lineage—and their own position within this
familial structure—allowed women to abandon an essentially instrumental
rapport with things. Taken as a whole, such considerations imply a cultural
formation more tied to practice and less open to abstract ideas, but they also
suggest a different conception of one's own patrimony and possibilities for
economic survival. In other words, women had other ways of feeling poor or
rich than men. Finding honorable employment in the exercise of a trade or
a profession was especially difficult for women. Instead, their things, which
served as a treasury, assumed a fundamental and permanent guarantee of
whatever security life might offer. For this reason their patrimonies tended
to be made up primarily of goods that were easy to convert into money:
clothing, fine wall hangings, and jewelry that easily could be pawned as a
guarantee for credit and enjoyed a steady demand on the market for used
and rentable goods.
The Paradigm of Emulation
We generally take for granted the notion that new products diffuse from the
top to the bottom of the social pyramid, and similarly assume—and consider
so true that there is no need for demonstration—that the middling classes
tried to emulate the elites, and that they used consumable objects and lifestyle
2.2.0 :: CONCLUSION
to reach their goal. Conventions like these, which common sense dictates,
are often refuted by research, yet this problem cannot be discarded with too
much confidence. The Roman case demonstrates that members of the lower
classes, in some circumstances, did indeed take up models of comportment
of the higher social groups. The structure of dwellings, for example, seems
to support this point, to such an extent that I have used the term "an almost
noble lifestyle" to underscore the differences between the homes of the richest
merchant-bankers and those of others. Certain consumable goods, such as
cold drinks, chocolate, powders, and perfumes, also seem to fit this pattern
of emulation. Unfortunately, inventoriesgive us very little information on the
use of these items, and what little we have available comes almost exclusively
from noble account books.
In many other cases, however, the role of material culture in mediating
relationships among the varioussocial classes is far more complex than what
common sense alone would dictate. This relationship was founded upon
proximity but also distance, on emulation but also indifference. At times,
even the spread of novelties began with the lower classes before reaching
the higher ones. The artists, lawyers, merchants, and successful artisans we
have discussed throughout this book occupied a position that facilitated or
even encouraged mediation, and accordingly the transmission of tastes and
lifestyles from high to low within the social hierarchy, and vice versa. We
should not besurprised that they adopted other aspects of the genteel lifestyle,
beginning with its forms of sociability.
To take one example of the reciprocal influence that likely transpired between
the heights of the social pyramid and the intermediate social classes,
it is worth underscoring the existence of a "local" style that both groups
shared. In Rome this local style manifested itself primarily in the passion for
paintings. Every house in the Eternal City, evidently, no matter how modest,
contained at least one painting. This occurred not just at the level of the
great collectors but also for more ordinary sorts of people, and therefore the
interest in paintings thus outstripped the desire for exotic products or natural
curiosities by a wide margin.' This is an essential fact about this world we
still do not fully understand.
In the great noble houses, collections of objects—artistic, precious, curious,
or simply pleasing—were strictly tied to the need for them to be displayed
and thus facilitated the development of sociability. This explains the many
testimonials from the period describing visits to collections, conversations of
virtuosi, and so on. The structure of noble palaces, with their successions of
antechambers and their public rooms furnished with particular "splendor,"
CONCLUSION :: 2.2.1
seems to confirm the openness of such dwellings to social life.' Instead, with
the middling classes, we are groping in the dark: we do not know if their
paintings of secular subjects, their mixed marble balls, or their silk flowers
were made to be displayed to strangers. More generally, we do not know if
they received guests,and there are fewsources that can tell us anything.Thus
conclusions must be based on circumstantial evidence. On the one hand,
what we know so far is that many seats and stools filled a great number of
houses and in particular the larger ones, more likely to be furnished with antechambers
and living rooms. On the other hand, we have literary evidence:
for example, the cautionary advice the knight Pietro Belmonte dedicated to
his daughter Laudomia on the occasion of her marriage. Belmonte instructs
her on how to behave after her marriage, when other ladies of her rank will
certainly come to visit her:
When the gentlewomen, who due to their courtesy and gentility come
to visit you, they will rightfully bow down. Have them rise and ask
them to come with you elsewhere: and thus lead them either to the fire,
the window or the garden, according to the season and the temperature.
Show them the house and something of yours that is either new
or beautiful. . . . And then let them refresh themselves, restoring their
strength with sugared almonds, fruits, or something else that you will
have had prepared for them.'
This document is precious because it tells us two important things:women
received and offered refreshments (one notes, however, that when speaking
of refreshments drinks were not mentioned), and they showed their house
to their guests along with the new and beautiful things it contained. The
domestic environment and valuable objects held an important role in everyday
life: they acted as "ritual accessories" in the ceremony of visits, making
such an occasion more refined, more elegant. Among women of "middling
condition" even a single object, provided that it was new or beautiful, could
be just as much the pivot for sociability as a collection of statues would be
in the garden of a Roman noble. The gusto for things could not be better
illustrated.
Gusto for Things
In the absence of a will, the traces of individuals from the middling classes
are not many, and those that do remain aid little in understanding what
222 :: CONCLUSION
their relationship with objects might have been. As a key for reading this
phenomenon, I have therefore exploited the example of the great collectors,
their attitudes toward their own collections, and their explicit declarations
on this subject. From the evidence with which they provide us, a rapport
with things emerges that celebrated their intrinsic value, but that also exalted
the relationship between subject and object, between owner and property. A
large part of the value of objects derived from their belonging to a respected
person. At the same time a great part of a person's reputation derived from
having collected or possessed these things: the sacrifice of utility that was
required for this undertaking demonstrated the owner's capacity for using
his own wealth not for base or utilitarian ends but to pursue higher—even
transcendent—purposes. In this way one constructed an "immortal fame."
However, the collection had to be protected from dissipation to be able to
fully materialize the prestige of the owner and his lineage. In other words,
it had to become inalienable. Between subject and object there existed a
bilateral rapport: inalienable goods conferred on their owner huge amounts
of prestige—and the power that was connected to this prestige.
How can these concepts be extended to people who owned more than a
few objects, but certainly did not have a collection? Howshould we consider
the material culture of people who did not have power and were certainly
not in a position to compete for a spot at the top of the social hierarchy?
What should we make of people who left us lists of their goods, but hardly
commented on them, or said nothing at all?
We have seen how the gusto for things could manifest itself through the
objects themselves, especially if they were accumulated and preserved by
people with few resources. The discrepancy between the circumstances of
poor people—and we know they were poor because they lived in small houses
and possessed goods of mediocre quality—and the abundance of furnishings
that filled individual rooms is a good indicator. Even a poor woman could
aspire to create a modest "splendor" for herself. Keeping old things and refusing
to get rid of them in order to acquire new things could be seen as another
index of affection, especially when we are talking about nonessential items
such as paintings, books, or decorative things that could be exchanged for
something more useful. Moreover, even individuals of middlingstatus made
wills, and they at times explained at length the destiny they had in mind for
some of their things. Some declared them inalienable, as Azzavedi did with
his books. Others reconstructed their histories to give them greater importance,
as Filippo della Molara did when he explained that the "clock with
the enameled gold case" that he intended to leave to the princess of Nerola,
CONCLUSION :: 2.2.3
was left to him by his "patron," the prince. For this reason it seemed to him
proper to leave it to the princess as a display of gratitude. Others illustrated
the closeness of an object to their heart, or they described objects with care,
emphasizing their exceptionality, as Gregorio Giulianelli did regarding a
"showclock with an alarm and all its parts."'° Finally, there were those who
left valuable paintings and family portraits to their heirs. More than any
other object, images of "ancestors" had the power to construct and transmit
genealogies, and women pursued this objective as much if not more than
men: patrilineage was not a deterrent here.
Even those who had a few valuable possessions, but certainly not a true
collection, demonstrated an attachment to their goods. They demonstrated
this through their actions, preserving their own paintings or their clocks
instead of offering them in exchange for something else, but also in their
words. They envisioned a destiny for their unique objects that would save
them from loss of individuality and prevent them from being transformed
back into merchandise. In recompense these objects offered their owners a
fundamental service. In reality the house and its furnishings made visible
the identity of individuals who could not realize that identity through the
ownership of prestigious tracts of land or particularly impressive urban real
estate. This is not to say these people were poor; rather,wealth unto itself was
an abstract entity that had to be translated into things to become manifest;
those things needed to be beautiful and ingenious because through them one
inferred "ingenuity, politeness, civility, and courtliness.""
Inalienable Treasuries
One of the principal functions of goods was to construct a "treasury" in a
double sense: a collection of things that tended to be inalienable and a reserve
of wealth that could be mobilized in extraordinary situations. At least in
principle this function could be assigned to any category of object, provided
that it had a minimum value of exchange. Nonetheless, some objects were
used more regularly for this purpose, whether because of their high intrinsic
value or because there was a long tradition that sanctified their use as credit.
Naturally jewelry and silverware were among the things first to be pawned.
But more precious textiles—whether clothing, wall hangings, or bed covers—often
enjoyed thesame fate, as numerous examples demonstrate. Books,
paintings, and decorative objects were pawned less often. Thus the goods
that were most easily turned into treasuries were typically feminine. Family
practices confirmed this tendency: jewelry and wives' clothing most often
2.2.4 :: CONCLUSION
ended up at the pawn shop. Furthermore, the evidence of wills indicates that
jewelry and female clothing were always transformed by choice into more
permanent institutions: sacred images, church altars, and noble dwellings.
For women, even more than for men, objects were therefore a guarantee
of permanence in life. In their daily lives these items provided them with
an income because they could be pawned or rented out. After death, these
goods allowed them to obtain a kind of permanence that transcended the
limits of time, because, having absorbed something of the person to whom
they had belonged, these things were able to preserve and transmit aspects
of this individual to future generations.
If a treasury was by definition naturally inalienable, in seventeenth-century
Rome there was nothing that truly and absolutely fit this definition. Even
family dwellings or adored collections could at a certain point be put up for
sale by heirs who were far less conscientious, or simply interested in other
matters. Inalienability was therefore not an intrinsic quality of some specific
classes of items, but rather the result of a relationship that owners created
with their possessions. The criteria of inclusion or exclusion were therefore
changeable and varied according to circumstance. Not all things achieved
with equal efficacy the task of incarnating a permanence that money in itself
could not create. Similarly, all items could not speak in the same manner to
human beings' diverse needs. While reputation and temporal permanence
can be said to constitute unwavering objectives for rather different types of
individuals, the means for realizing these aims are not necessarily the same.
On the contrary, it varied according to the quality of the individual. Respectability
for an artisan required different rules from those for a noble, just as
a widow's respectability was founded on principles that were not valid for
a merchant. People sought to neutralize change by objectifying themselves
in something enduring and stable. Some realized this goal by fashioning an
aesthetic image of themselves that was informed, cultivated, and open to
novelty. For these people the distance from immediate utility, along with the
ability to materialize beauty, novelty, or ingenuity, permitted an object to
enter the realm of the potentially inalienable. Beauty, novelty, or ingenuity,
much more than the intrinsic value of the materials from which a thing was
made, made it an object worth preserving. The piece of silver worked in a
particular manner was listed separately in a will, but not "all the silverware,"
which by contrast was often converted back into merchandise and therefore
sold. The same held true for clothing and jewelry. Entrusted to others as a
gift or an inheritance, these unique products that were able to materialize
something of those who had chosen them thus became an essential step on the
CONCLUSION :: 22.5
path toward contesting change and achieving permanence. The transmission
of objects raised the power of preservation.
Along with these people there were other individuals who entertained a
much more instrumental rapport with things that set the category of utility
above the more ephemeral categories of beauty and novelty. They used things
for their normal purposes and as a monetary equivalent, trading them for
different items that were of greater utility at that moment. Yet even these
people preserved certain objects. Their care for objects, dictated primarily by
their exchange value, can in fact be translated into attention to the intrinsic
qualities of these goods. But even these people aspired to pass on not just a
generic patrimony but also a few things that were dear to them, thus hoping
like the others to give life to their own modest genealogy.'2
Preservinggoods instead of trading them—that is,sacrificing utility on the
altar of something higher—naming items individually in a will, and leaving
them as an inheritance to a specific person or institution did not necessarily
make these items effectively inalienable, but it clearly reflected this aspiration.
The attempts by members of the middling class to construct the continuity of
their own lineage through the introduction of fedecommessi, the adoption of
son-in-laws or nephews if one lacked other direct male descendants, and so
on were by now commonly accepted practices. We have seen how women
fully interiorized the logic of the language men employed to the extent that
they willingly identified with their husband's lineage in these undertakings."
The transmission of things besides money allowed people to make visible that
familial continuity, giving it concrete, material support. The preservation of
some objects to leave to one's heirs was indeed equivalent to constructing a
genealogy, and in this sense one can speak of the aspiration to inalienability.
It emerged not from the desire to compete with great nobles but, far more
simply, from the desire to continue to exist.
22.6 :: CONCLUSION
11111111111111111111111111111111111IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII11111111IIIIIIIIIfill111111111111111111
ABBREVIATIONS
AC, Archivio Capitolino
AG u, Archivio Generale Urbano, Rome
ASR, Archivio di Stato, Rome
Notai AC, Notai dell'Auditor Camerae
Notai RCA, Notai della Reverenda Camera Apostolica
TN, Trenta notai capitolini
11111111111 III1IIII 1111 111 11111
NOTES
Foreword
Thanks to Renata Ago, Brad Bouley, and Corey Tazzara for their comments, and to RoseMarie
San Juan and Laurie Nussdorfer for providing me with crucial illustrations.
1. On Roman printingin this era,see Massimo Ceresa, Unastamperia nella Roma del
primo Seicento: Annali tipografici di Guglielmo Facciotti ed eredi (1592-1640) (Rome:
Bulzoni, woo). The history of early Roman guidebooks is further discussed in Ludwig
Schudt, Le guide di Roma: Materielen zu einer Geschichte der romische topographie
(Vienna: Filser, 193o); Eunice Howe, ed. and trans., Andrea Palladio: The Churches
of Rome (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991); and
Rebecca Zorach et al., The Virtual Tourist in Renaissance Rome: Printingand Collecting
the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae (Chicago: University of Chicago Library Publications,
zoo8).
2. Giovanni Mercati, Note per la storia di alcune biblioteche romane neisecoli XVI—
XIX (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1952.), 147-60.
3. Pietro della Valle, Viaggi, 3 vols. (Rome, 1650-63). Diversino (or Diversin in
French) funded the publication, which was printed by Vitale Mascardi and included
Bellori's Vita.
4. Giovan Pietro Bellori, Levite de'pittoriscultoriearchitettimoderni (Rome,1672);
also available in a modern critical edition and translation: Alice Sedgwick Wohl, Helmut
Wohl, and Tommaso Montanari, eds., and trans., The Lives of the Modern Painters,
Sculptors, and Architects (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, zoos). For more on
Bellori, see Evelina Borea and Carlo Gasparri, eds., L'idea del hello: Viaggio per Roma
nelseicento con Giovan Pietro Bellori, 2 vols. (Rome: Edizioni de Luca, z000);and Janis
Bell and Thomas Willett, eds., Art History in the Age ofBellori:Scholarshipand Cultural
Politics in Seventeenth-Century Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, zooz).
5. Margaret Daly Davis, "Giovan Pietro Bellori and the Nota delli musei, librerie,galerie,
et ornamenti distatue e pitture ne'palazzo, nelle case, e ne'giardini di Roma (1664):
Modern Librariesand Ancient Painting in Seicento Rome," Zeitschriftfur Kunstgeschichte
68 (2005): 191-233.
6. [Fioravante Martinelli and Giovan Pietro Bellori], Nota delli Musei, Librerie, Galerieet
OrnamentidiStatue e Pitture ne'Palazzi, nelle Case, e ne' Giardinidi Roma (Rome,
1664-65).I have consulted the facsimile edited by Emma Zucca (Rome: Istituto Nazionale
di Archeologia e Storia dell'Arte, 1976), though all my references to the Nota refer to
the original pagination. While the title page dates the work, printed at the Stamperia del
Falco, as 1664, the colophon bearing Falco's imprimatur is dated 1665. In light of Daly
Davis's excellent research, I have attributed the Nota delli Musei to both Martinelli and
Bellori to reflect their probable respective roles in the two different parts of the text while
also leaving open to further research whether we should consider this simply a pairing of
two different publications on Rome in a single book by the publishers or a more active
collaboration between the two authors.
On Rome during this era, see Richard Krautheimer, The Rome of Alexander VII,
1655-57 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985); Torgil Magnuson, Rome
in the Age of Bernini, 2. vols. (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1982); and
Thomas James Dandelet, Spanish Rome, 1500-1700 (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, zooi).
7. Daly Davis'sarticle (see n. 5) may resolvesome of the disparities between theaccount
of Roman art galleries in Nota delli Musei and Bellori's clearly articulated aesthetic preferences
in his theoretical writings on painting and sculpture. See Hans Ruben, "Bellori's
Art: The Taste and Distaste of a Seventeenth-Century Art Critic in Rome," Simiolus 32,
no. 2/3 (2006): 126-46.
8. Fioravante Martinelli, Roma ricercata nel suo sito (Rome, 1644); and Pompilo
Totti, Ritratto di Roma modern (Rome, 1638). The expanded title quoted above belongs
to the 1645 edition and surely was one of the direct sources of information and
inspiration for Martinelli and Bellori's Nota delli Musei. The culture of guidebooks in
seventeenth-century Rome is further discussed in Cesare D'Onofrio, Roma nel Seicento:
"Roma ornate dall'Architettura, Pittura e Scoltura" di Fioravante Martinelli (Florence:
Vallecchi, 1969).
9. Biagio Diversino and Felice Cesaretti, "A' Lettori," in Martinelli and Bellori, Nota
delli Musei, 4.
1o. On the legislation restricting exportation of Rome's patrimony, especially its antiquities,
see Ronald T. Ridley, "To Protect the Monuments: The Papal Antiquarian
(1534-1870)," Xenia Antiquq 1 (1992): 117-54; and Frances Haskell, "La dispersione e
la conservazione del patrimonio artistico," in Storia dell'arte italiana, part 3, vol. 3 (Turin:
Einaudi, 1981), 5-35.
230 :: NOTES TO PAGES Xi—Xiii
II. Ulisse Aldrovandi, Delle statue antiche che in Roma da ogni parte si vedono
(Venice, 1556), later retitled Delle statue antiche, che per tutta Roma, in diversi luoghi, e
casa si veggono in the 1562 edition. In all instances, Aldrovandi's work appeared as part
of Lucio Mauro's Le antichita della citta di Roma. For more on this work, see Kathleen
Wren Christian, Empire without End: Antiquities Collections in Renaissance Rome,
c. 1350-1527 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010);and Paula Findlen, A Fragmentary
Past: The Making of Museums in Late Renaissance Italy (forthcoming). The
culture that inspired these earlyantiquitiescollections is well described in Leonard Barkan,
Unearthing the Past: Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999).
2. Kathleen Weil-Garris, ed., John F. D'Amico, trans., The Renaissance Cardinal's
Ideal Palace: A Chapter from Cortesi's "De Cardinalatu" (Rome: Edizioni dell'Elefante
and the American Academy in Rome, 1980); Patricia Falguieres, "La cite fictive: Les
collections de cardinaux, a Rome, au XVIeme siecle," in Les Carrache et les decors profanes
(Paris and Rome: Ecole francaise de Rome, 1988), 215-333; and Gigliola Fragnito,
"Cardinal's Courts in Sixteenth-Century Rome," Journal ofModern History 65 (1993):
26-56.
13. Martinelli and Bellori, Nota delli Musei, 17: "Nel suo palazzo in Borgo le celebri
antichita del Cardinale Pier Donato Cesi." See Sabine Eiche, "On the Layout of the Cesi
Palace and Gardens in the Vatican Borgo," Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes
in Florenz 39 (1995): 258-81.
14. Martinelli and Bellori, Nota delli Musei, 54-55.
is. Ibid., 24,27. On gardens,see especially David R. Coffin, Gardensand Gardening
in Papal Rome (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991);and Lisa Jane Neal Tice,
"Recreation and Retreat: Garden Casini in Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Century
Rome" (PhD diss., Rutgers University, 2009). The passion for tulips has been especially
well described in Ann Goldgar, Tulipmania:Money, Honor,and Knowledge in the Dutch
Golden Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).
i6. Dora Thornton, The Scholar in His Study: Ownership and Experience in Renaissance
Italy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997).
17. Interestingly, Martinelli did not include any reference to Cassiano dal Pozzo's
contemporary, the Barberini intimate and papal servant Francesco Gualdo (1576-1657)
whose home on via della Salita del Grillo was filled with natural curiosities and Egyptian
and Roman antiquities and was visited by such noteworthy figures as John Evelyn. This
absence reinforces the idea that Martinelli was creating a guidebook of contemporary
Rome, which could not include even recently defunctcollections, in contrast to Dal Pozzo's
collection that was maintained after his death in 1657 by his brother Carl'Antonio. On this
museum, see Claudia Franzoni, "Ancora sul museo di Francesco Gualdo (1576-1657),"
Annalidell'Istitutostorico italo-germanico in Trento17 (1991): 561-72;and Franzoni and
NOTES TO PAGES Xiii-X1V 231
Alessandra Tempesta, "Il museo di Francesco Gualdi nella Roma del Seicento tra raccolta
private ed esibizione pubblica," Bollettino d'arte ser. 6, 77 (1992): 1-42..
18. Determining the exact number of listings in Martinelli's guidebook has its complications
since a number of entries describe multiple collections in the same or adjoining
locations, but there are no less than 150 sites to see in Rome, quite separate from the
numerous Roman ruins which were the subject of most guidebooks.
19. On the evolution of Roman mapmaking in this period, see Rose Marie San Juan,
Rome: A City Out of Print (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, zoo').
zo. Martinelli and Bellori, Nota delli Musei, 5.
2.1. Ibid., 46, 38. On the Dal Pozzo collection, see Donatella Sparti, Le collezioni dal
Pozzo: Storia di una famiglia e del suo museo nella Roma seicentesca (Modena: Franco
Cosimo Panini, 1992); Mirka Beneg et al., The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo
(Ivrea: Olivetti, 1993); and Francesco Solinas, ed., I Segreti di un collezionista: Le
straordinarie raccolte di Cassiano dal Pozzo 588-1657 (Rome: Edizioni de Luca,
z000).
2.2.. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XXXVI.xxiv. oi. On Roman libraries, see
Giuseppe Lombardi, "Libri e istituzioni a Roma: Diffusion e organizzazione," in Storia di
Roma nel Rinascimento, ed. Antonio Pinelli (Rome: Laterza, zoo'), 267-90; Valentino
Romani, Biblioteche romane del Sei e Settecento (Rome: Vecchiarelli Editore, 1996); and
Daly Davis, "Giovan Pietro Bellori."
23. Martinelli and Bellori, Nota delli Musei, 31, 6.
24. Ibid., 11, 17, 19, 21, 37. On the Chigi and Kircher collections, see Giovanni Incisa
della Rochetta, "Il museo di curiosity di Card. Flavio I Chigi," Archivio della Societa
Romana di Storia Patria ser. 3, zo (1966): I4I-2.92.; Eugenio Lo Sardo, ed., Athanasius
Kircher: II Museo del Mondo (Rome: Edizioni de Luca, 2001);and Paula Findlen, "Scientific
Spectacle in Baroque Rome: Athanasius Kircher and the Roman College Museum,"
in Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters, ed. Mordechai Feingold (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 2003), 225-84. Corvino Corvini was a naturalist of Flemish origin and the
brother-in-law of the well-known Roman physician and botanist Pietro Castelli, who had
been custodian of the Farnese gardens.
25. Paula Findlen, "The Museum: Its Classical Etymology and Renaissance Genealogy,"
Journal of the History of Collections i (1989): 59-78.
26. Cristina De Benedictis, ed., Per la storia del collezionismo italiano: Fonti e documenti,
znd ed. (Florence: Ponte alle Grazie, 2002), 165, originally published in V. Golzio,
"II testament di Martino Longhi junior," Archivi 5 (1938): 140-41, 207-8. On the emergence
of the collection as a special kind of patrimony, see Paula Findlen, "Ereditare un
museo: Collezionismo,strategie familiari e pratiche culturali nel Cinquecento," Quaderni
storici 115 (2004): 45-81. This essay appeared in a special issue edited by Renata Ago on
Consumi culturali nell'Italia moderna.
2.32. :: NOTES TO PAGES X1V-XViii
27. Martinelli and Bellori, Nota delli Musei, 47-48. Ricci was an intimate of Cardinal
Leopoldo de' Medici and a talented mathematician who became a cardinal in 1661.
28. Martinelli and Bellori, Nota delli Musei, zz. On Divini's reputation asan instrument
maker, see Maria Luisa Righini Bonelli and Albert Van Heiden, "Divini and Campani: A
Forgotten Chapter in the History of the Accademia del Cimento," Annali dell'Istituto e
Museo di storia della scienza di Firenze 6 (1981): 3-176.
29. Martinelli and Bellori, Nota delli Musei, 24, 28, 3o, 42. The most recent study of
this important collection is Silvia Danese Squarzina, ed., La collezione Giustiniani (Turin:
Einaudi, 2.003).
3o. Janis Bell, Introduction, in Bell and Willett, Art History in the Age ofBellori, 6-7,12.
31. Martinelli and Bellori, Nota delliMusei, 3o. On the idea of the gallery, see Wolfram
Prinz, Die Entstehung der Galerie in Frankreich and Italien (Berlin: Mann, 1970); Italian
trans., Claudia Cieri Via, ed., Galleria: Storia e tipologia di uno spazio architettonico
(Modena: Edizioni Panini, 1988).
32. Giulio Mancini, Considerazionisulla pittura, ed. Adriana Marucchi, 2 vols. (Rome:
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1956). This modern edition includes his Viaggio di
Roma per vedere le pitture. On Mancini, see Frances Gage, "Exercise for Mind and Body:
Giulio Mancini, Collecting, and the Beholding of Landscape Painting in the Seventeenth
Century," Renaissance Quarterly 61 (2008): 1167-207; and Silvia de' Renzi, "A Career
in Manuscripts: Genres and Purposes of a Physician's Writing in Rome, 1600-1630,"
Italian Studies 66 (zoi I): 234- 48.
33. For an overview of the Roman art scene during this period, the best starting point
is Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relations between Italian Art
and Society in the Age of the Baroque, rev. ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1980);and Patrizia Cavazzini, Paintingasa Business in EarlySeventeenth-Century Rome
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008); and most recently Richard
Spears, Philipp Sohm, et al., Painting for Profit: The Economic Lives of SeventeenthCentury
Italian Painters (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, zoio), especially the
sections dealing with Rome by contributors such as Spears and Ago.
34. Martinelli and Bellori, Nota delli Musei, 48.
35. Ibid., 7-8.
36. Ibid., 48.
37. On Christina as a collector, see Enzo Borsellino, "Cristina di Svezia collezionista,"
Ricerche di Storia dell'Arte 54 (1994): 4-16; and Tomaso Montanari, "La dispersion
delle collezioni di Cristina di Svezia: Gli Azzolino, gli Ottoboni e gli Odescalchi," Storia
dell'arte 90 (1997) : 250-99.
38. Martinelli and Bellori, Nota delli Musei, it (quote), 66.
39. Ritratto di tutti quelli the vanno vendendo per Roma (ca. 1600), as described in
Peter Partner, Renaissance Rome, 1500-1559:A Portrait ofa Society (Berkeley: University
NOTES TO PAGES XViii-XX1 233
of California Press, 1976), 89. See also Ambrogio Brambilla's engraving, Ritratto di
quelli che vano et lavorando per Roma con la nova agionta de tutti quelli che nele altre
mancavano sin al presente (Rome, 1582), reproduced in D'Onofrio, Roma nel Seicento,
290-91, which also includes Martinelli's description of all the locations in which goods
were sold each week.
4o. EugenioSonnino, "The Population in Baroque Rome," in Rome- Amsterdam:Two
Growing Cities in Seventeenth-Century Europe, ed. Peter van Kessel and Elisja Schultz
(Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1997), 50-70, esp. 53. For slight variations in
these numbers, see Laurie Nussdorfer, Civic Politics in the Rome of Urban VIII (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 2.7.
41 Krautheimer, The Rome of Alexander VII, .r655-57, 13.
42. Paolo Malanima, "Measuring the Italian Economy, 130o-1861," Rivista distoria
economica 19 (2003): 265-95.
43. Renata Ago, Carriere e clientele nella Roma barocca (Rome: Laterza, 1990). See
also Maria Antonietta Visceglia, La nobilta romana in eta moderna: Profili istituzionali
e pratiche sociali (Rome: Carrocci, 2001); and Caroline Castiglione, Patrons and Adversaries:
Nobles and Villagers in Italian Politics, 164o-176o (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, zoos).
44• Andrea Spetiale, Historia nuova, et piacevole dove si racconta tutte le core, che
si vanno vendendo ogni giorno da gli artigiani per Roma (Rome, 1629), zv. This text is
cited by Partner, Renaissance Rome, 88, and quoted in San Juan, Rome, 152, 185n47. It
can also be translated as "disposes" or "gets rid of stuff," but given the function of Piazza
Giudea as a secondhand market, I have preferred the more specific meaning.
45. San Juan, Rome, 146-49, 153-54.
46. Thomas V. Cohen and Elizabeth S. Cohen, eds. and trans., Words and Deeds in
Renaissance Rome: Trials before the Papal Magistrates (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1993), 39, 4o, 170, 176.
47. Renata Ago, Economia barocca: Mercato e istituzioni nella Roma del Seicento
(Rome: Donzelli, 1998), 6.
48. Partner, Renaissance Rome, 89;see also Nussdorfer, Civic Politics in the Rome of
Urban VIII, z8. On the fascinating story of Sixtus V's vision of repurposing the Colosseum
in order to create a late Renaissance industrial manufacturing complex that would
employ Rome's poor, see Luca moia, "States and Crafts: Relocating Technical Skills in
Renaissance Italy," in The Material Renaissance, ed. Michelle 0' Malley and Evelyn Welch
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 142.
49. Giacomo Lauro, Antiquae urbissplendor (Rome, 1612-18). See Nussdorfer, Civic
Politics in the Rome of Urban VIII, 8, 12.0-2.1, 12.4.
5o. Patricia Waddy, Seventeenth-Century Roman Palaces: Useand the Art ofthe Plan
(New York and Cambridge, MA: The Architectural History Foundation and MIT Press,
2.34 :: NOTES TO PAGES Xxi-Xxvi
1990), 8. The details in this section are taken entirely from this excellent study, which
focuses especially on Palazzo Barberini with several other points of comparison.
51. Ibid., 308. I have extrapolated from Waddy's description of Cardinal Flavio Chigi's
bedroom and study.
5z. Ibid., Ii; Raffaella Sarti, Europe at Home: Family and Material Culture, 1500-
180o, trans. Allan Cameron (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, zooz), .110.
53. Waddy, Seventeenth-Century Roman Palaces, 36-4o (quote on 39-4o).
54. Ibid., 29-30.
55. A prie-dieu is a prayer desk that might be simply a padded chair in which to kneel
or a full-fledged wooden desk that could contain a few books, devotional images, and
small religious objects such as Agnus Dei.
56. Waddy, Seventeenth-Century Roman Palaces, 43. The contrast with the wellappointed
lifestyle of his employer is apparent in Volker Reinhardt, Kardinal Scipione
Borghese (1605-1633): Vermogen, Finanzen and sozialer Aufstieg eines Papstnepoten
(Tubingen: Martin Niemeyer, 1984).
57. Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism r5th-I8th Century, 3 vols., trans.
Sian Reynolds (New York: Harper and Row, 1981-84).
58. A good starting point into this considerable literature includes: Richard Goldthwaite,
"The Empire of Things: Consumer Demand in Renaissance Italy," in Patronage,
Art, and Society in Renaissance Italy, ed. F. W. Kent and Patricia Simons (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1987), 155-75; Chandra Mukerji, From Graven Images: Patterns in
Modern Materialism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983); Lisa Jardine, Worldly
Goods: A New History of the Renaissance (London: Macmillan, 1996); Simon Schama,
The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age
(New York: Alfred Knopf, 1987); Neil McKendrick, John Brewer, and J. H. Plumb, The
Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982); and John Brewer and Roy Porter, eds.,
Consumption and the World of Goods (London: Routledge, 1993).
59. The fundamental starting point for understanding this approach to material culture
is Arjun Appadurai, ed., The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Among recent historical studies that have
taken this approach to aspects of the early modern economy, see Richard A. Goldthwaite,
Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy, 13oo-i600 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1993); Keith Wrightson, Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern
Britain (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000); and especially Jan de Vries, The
Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 165o to the
Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, zoo8).
6o. A fundamental point of departure for this subject is John Brewer and Roy Porter,
eds., Consumption and the World of Goods (London: Routledge, 1993);and Lisa Jardine,
NOTES TO PAGES XXvi—xXX 235
TifWorldly Goods:A NewHistoryofthe Renaissance (New York: Doubleday,1996). More
recent work includes Maxine Bergand Helen Clifford,eds., Consumersand Luxury: Consumer
Culture in Europe, 1650-185o (Manchester: Manchester University Press,i999);
Woodruff D. Smith, Consumption and the Making of Respectability, 1600--x800 (New
York: Routledge, zooz); Linda Levy Peck, Consuming Splendor: Society and Culture
in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, zoos); and
Marcello Carmagnani, Le isole del lusso: Prodotti esotici, nuovi consumi e cultura economica
europea, r65o—I8oo (Turin: UTET libreria, zoio).
61. Daniel Roche, A History ofEveryday Things:TheBirth ofConsumption in France,
1600-1800, trans. Brian Pearce (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, z000); and
idem, The Culture ofClothing:Dressand Fashion in theAncien Regime, trans.Jean Birrell
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
6z. Daniel Roche, The People ofParis:An Essay in Popular Culture in the Eighteenth
Century, trans. Marie Evans with Gwynne Lewis (Leamington Spa, UK: Berg, 1987);and
Lorna Weatherill, Consumer Behavior and Material Culture in England, 1660-1760,
znd ed. (London: Routledge, 1996), esp. 201-7. See also such works as Lena Cowen
Orlin, ed., Material London, ca. 16oo (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
z000).
63. Richard Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance Florence: An Economic and
Social History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982); idem, Wealth and
the Demand for Art; Patricia Fortini Brown, Private Lives in Renaissance Venice: Art,
Architecture, and Family (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004); O'Malley
and Welch, The Material Renaissance; and Evelyn Welch, Shopping in the Renaissance:
Consumer Cultures in Italy, 1.400-1600 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009).
For a relevant critique of recent work on Italian Renaissance material culture, see Samuel
Cohn, "Renaissance Attachment to Things: Material Culture in Last Wills and Testaments,"
Economic History Review (zoix): 1-22.
64. The classic starting point for thissubject is Philippe Aries and Georges Duby, eds.,
A History of Private Life, vol. 3, Passions of the Renaissance, trans. Arthur Goldhammer
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1989). For recent case
studies,see Marta Ajmar-Wollheim and Flora Dennis, eds.,At Home in Renaissance Italy
(London:Victoria and Albert Museum, zoo6);Annick Pardailhe-Galabrun, La naissance
de l'intime: 3000 foyers parisiens, XVlle—XVIIIe siecles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1988); Sarti, Europe at Home; and Amanda Vickery's Behind Closed Doors: At
Home in Georgian England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2.009).
65. Krzysztof Pomian, Collectorsand Curiosities:Parisand Venice,15oo-1800, trans.
Elizabeth Wiles-Portier (London: Polity Press, 1990). See also Paula Findlen, "Possessing
the Past: The Material World of the Italian Renaissance," American Historical Review
103 (1998): 83-114.
236 :: NOTES TO PAGE XXX
66. Tara Hamling and Catherine Richardson, eds., Everyday Things: Medieval and
Early Modern Material Culture and Its Meanings (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Press, 2010).
For an interesting experiment in looking at those rare everyday objects that end up in
museums, see Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the
Creation of American Myth (New York: Knopf, zoo'). See also Roberta J. M. Olson,
Patricia L. Reilly, and Rupert Shepherds, eds., The Biography of the Object in Medieval
and Renaissance Italy (Oxford: Blackwell, zoo6).
67. For a fascinating discussion of the outer limits of thisworld,see Duccio Balestracci,
The Renaissance in the Fields: Family Memoirs of a Fifteenth-Century Tuscan Peasant,
trans. Paolo Squatriti and Betsy Merideth (University Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1999).
68. Victoria de Grazia,ed., with Ellen Furlough, TheSex ofThings: Genderand Consumption
in Historical Perspective (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
69. Roche, People of Paris, 126.
70. Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Tastes ofParadise:A SocialHistory ofSpices, Stimulants,
andIntoxicants, trans. DavidJacobson (NewYork:Pantheon,1992);and Piero Camporesi,
Exotic Brew: The Art of Living in the Age ofEnlightenment, trans. Christopher Woodall
(Cambridge: Polity Press,1994). More recent studies include Brian Cowan, TheSocialLife
of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2.005); and Marcy Norton, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco
and Chocolate in the Atlantic World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008).
71. Anne E. C. McCants, "Exotic Goods, Popular Consumption, and the Standard
of Living: Thinking about Globalization in the Early Modern World," Journal of World
History 18 (2007): 433-62; idem, "Poor Consumers as Global Consumers: The Diffusion
of Tea and Coffee Drinking in the Eighteenth Century," Economic History Review
61, SI (2008): 172—zoo; Roche, Culture of Clothing; and Giorgio Riello and Prasannan
Parthasarathi,eds., TheSpinning World:A GlobalHistory ofCotton Textiles,1200-1850
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, zoio).
Introduction
1. Jean Baudrillard, La societe de consommation: Ses mythes, ses structures (Paris: Gallimard,
1974); Mary Douglas and Baron C. S. Isherwood, The World of Goods (New
York: Basic Books, 1979); Alan Aldridge, Consumption (Cambridge: Polity, 2003);
Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1984);James Clifford, "On Collecting Art and Culture,"
in The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); Angus Deaton, Understanding
Consumption (New York: Clarendon, 1992.);Colin Campbell, "Capitalism, Consumption
NOTES TO PAGES XXX-I : : 237
and the Problem of Motives," in Consumption and Identity, ed.Jonathan Friedman (New
York: Routledge, 1994); Daniel Miller, Acknowledging Consumption:A Review ofNew
Studies (New York: Routledge, 1995); Daniel Miller, Consumption: Critical Concepts in
the Social Sciences (New York: Routledge, zoos).
2. Daniel Roche, The People of Paris: An Essay in Popular Culture in the Eighteenth
Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); and especially Daniel Roche,
The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the "Ancien Regime," trans. Jean Birrell
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
3. Neil McKendrick,John Brewer, andJ. H. Plumb, The Birth ofa ConsumerSociety:
The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England (London: Europa Publications,
1982); John Brewer and Roy Porter, eds., Consumption and the World of Goods (New
York: Routledge, 1993); Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation
ofDutch Culture in the Golden Age (NewYork:Vintage Books,1997);Sara Pennell,
"Consumption and Consumerism in Early Modern England," Historical Journal 42,
no. z (1999): 549-64; Peter N. Stearns, Consumerism in World History: The Global
Transformation of Desire (London and New York: Routledge, zooi).
4. Amanda Vickery, "Women and the World of Goods: A Lancashire Consumer
and Her Possessions," in Brewer and Porter, Consumption and the World of Goods,
74-104.
5. Annik Pardailhe-Galabrun, La naissance de l'intime: 3000 foyers parisiens aux
XVIIe-XVIIIesiecles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1988).
6. Neil McKendrick, "Home Demand and Economic Growth: A New View of the
Role of Women and Children in the Industrial Revolution," in Historical Perspectives:
Studies in English Thought and Society in Honor ofJ. H. Plumb, ed. Neil McKendrick
(London: Europa Publications, 1974), 152-210; McKendrick, Brewer, and Plumb, The
Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England;
Lorna Weatherill, Consumer BehaviourandMaterial Culture in Britain, r6oo-r76o (London:
Routledge, 1988); Lorna Weatherill, "The Meaning of Consumer Behaviour in Late
Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth-Century England," in Brewer and Porter, Consumption
and the World of Goods, 206-27.
7. On this subject see also Dominique Poulot, "Une nouvelle histoire de la culture
materielle?" Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 44, no. z (1997): 344- 57,who
discusses the conceptual difficulties apparent in a series of French and Anglo-American
studies on consumers.
8. Douglas and Isherwood, The World of Goods.
9. Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms; Selected Writings (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press,197i); Daniel Miller, Material Culture and Mass Consumption
(New York: Blackwell, 1987); Daniel Miller, A Theory of Shopping (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, x998).
238 :: NOTES TO PAGES 2-3
io. See the contracts archived in ASR, TN, uff. 5, vol. 107, cc. T3t, 133, 135, all from
January II, 162.6.
11. Krzysztof Pomian, "The Collection: Between the Visible and the Invisible," in Interpreting
Objects and Collections, ed. Susan M. Pearce (New York: Routledge, 1994).
2. Krzysztof Pomian, "Collezione," in Enciclopedia (Turin: Einaudi, 1978),
1:33o-64.
13. Igor Kopytoff, "The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization asProcess,"
in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 64-94.
14. Jane Schneider, "Trousseau asTreasure:Some Contradictionsof Late NineteenthCentury
Change in Sicily," in Beyond the Myths of Culture: Essays in Cultural Materialism,
ed. Eric B. Ross (New York: Academic Press, 198o); Christiane Klapisch-Zuber,
Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
x985);Annette B.Weiner andJane Schneider, Cloth andHuman Experience,Smithsonian
Series in Ethnographic Inquiry (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989).
I5. Annette B. Weiner, InalienablePossessions: The ParadoxofKeeping-While-Giving
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 199z), z6.
i6. Martha C.Howell, "FixingMovables:Gifts byTestament in Late Medieval Douai,"
Past and Present 150 (1996): 3-45.
17. On the concept of the "sentimentalsociety" see Campbell, "Capitalism, Consumption
and the Problem of Motives."
18. Weiner, Inalienable Possessions, 33.
19. Ibid., 7.
20. Ibid., io.
21. Giulio Mancini, Considerazioni sulla pittura (Rome: Accademia nazionale dei
Lincei, 1956).
22. On the paradigm of emulation, the obligatory reference is naturally to Thorstein
Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Penguin Books, 1994).
23. Apart from Kopytoff, "The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as
Process," see the similarities considered by Pamela H. Smith and Paula Findlen, eds.,
Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe (New
York: Routledge, 2002).
2.4. As was happening, for example, for goods acquired on ceremonial occasions and
then quickly given back;see Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance
Italy.
25. Renata Ago, Economia barocca: Mercato e istituzioni nella Roma del Seicento,
Saggi (Rome: Donzelli, 1998).
z6. Given the lack of more precise data, wealth was measured in terms of household
size.
NOTES TO PAGES 4-8 :: 239
'17
17. Regarding all uses readily available for any type of good, including those of poor
quality,see Melanie Tebbutt, Making Ends Meet: Pawnbrokingand Working-Class Credit
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983); Renata Ago, "Di cosa si puo fare commercio:
Mercato e norme sociali nella Roma barocca," Quadernistorici 91 (1996):113-34; Renata
Ago, "Gerarchia delle merci e meccanismi dello scambio a Roma nel primo Seicento,"
Quadernistorici 96 (1997): 663-83; Luciano Allegra, "Come it capitalismo maturo riscopri
la protoindustria e la impose (agli altri)," in IIgenere dell'Europa: Le radici comuni della
cultura europea e l'identita di genere, ed. A. DeClementi (Rome: Biblink, 2.003).
2.8. For the idea that the economic value of a thingshould be measured via the resources,
which could have been used differently but were sacrificed to acquire this object,see Georg
Simmel, The Philosophy of Money (New York: Routledge, 1990).
2.9. For an example among many of such accusations see Pietro Belmonte, Institutione
della sposa del cavalier Pietro Belmonte Ariminese fatta principalmente per Madonna
Laudomia sua figliuola nellesue nuoue nozze (Rome: Per gl'heredi di Giouanni Osmarino
Gigliotto, 1587).
3o. In fact, Rome did not have a magistrature, like that of the pupils ( pupilli) of Florence
or that of the orphans of Amsterdam, that kept specific documents related to inheritance.
From this point of view, the index or repertory of the notarial acts is generally useless,
and relying on chance is still the most efficient solution.
31. While the former are unedited, the latter have in most cases been edited.
32.. I use here the term splendor, following Pontano's usage, to indicate a noble and
honorable domestic wealth aimed at increasing the reputation of the person who possesses
it.
Chapter One
I. For recent reviews on consumption and material culture, see Alan Aldridge, Consumption
(Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2.003), Daniel Miller, Consumption: Critical Concepts in
the Social Sciences, 4 vols. (London: Routledge, 2.001.), Fred R. Myers, ed., The Empire
of Things: Regimes of Value and Material Culture (Santa Fe, NM: School of American
Research Press, zooi).
z. Krzysztof Pomian, "Collezione," in Enciclopedia (Turin: Einaudi, 1978), I:
33o-64.
3. See Jonathan Friedman, Consumption and Identity (Chur, Switzerland: Harwood
Academic Publishers, 1994); and above all Igor Kopytoff, "The Cultural Biography of
Things: Commoditization as Process," in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural
Perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986),
64- 94.
4. What Simmel maintained for human beings also applies to goods: the diffusion of
2.40 :: NOTES TO PAGES 9-16
money "liberates" from physical ties. Cf. Georg Simmel, The Philosophy of Money (New
York: Routledge, 1990).
5. Ruggiero Romano and Ugo Tucci, eds., Economia naturale, economia monetaria,
vol. 6, Storia d'Italia, Annali (Turin: Einaudi, 1983), xxvi.
6. Ibid., xxvii.
7. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 4o, July 8, 1684.
8. Romano and Tucci, Economia naturale, economia monetaria; and Renata Ago,
Economia barocca: Mercato e istituzioni nella Roma delSeicento (Rome: Donzelli, 1998),
59; Craig Muldrew, The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations
in Early Modern England (New York: Palgrave, zooi).
9. Ago, Economia barocca.
o. Federico Chabod, "Stipendi nominali e busta paga effettiva dei funzionari
dell'amministrazione milanese alla fine del Cinquecento," in Carlo V e it suo impero
(Turin: Einaudi, 1985), 2.81-450.
I I. Jane Schneider, "Trousseau as Treasure:Some Contradictions of Late NineteenthCentury
Change in Sicily," in Beyond the Myths of Culture: Essays in Cultural Materialism,
ed. Eric B. Ross (New York: Academic Press, 198o); Helen Ward, "Worth Its Weight
in Gold: Women and Value in North West India" (PhD diss., University of Cambridge,
1997); Muldrew, The Economy of Obligation, 8o; Giulia Calvi and Isabelle Chabot, eds.,
Le ricchezze delle donne: Diritti patrimoniali e poteri familiari in Italia (XIII—XIX sect.)
(Turin: Rosenberg and Sellier, 1998). On the role of women in the circulation of goods,see
also Marilyn Strathern, The Gender ofthe Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with
Society in Melanesia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); Marilyn Strathern,
Property, Substance, and Effect:Anthropological Essays on Personsand Things (London:
Athlone Press, 1999).
12.. Renata Ago, "Oltre la dote: I beni femminili," in II lavoro delle donne, ed. Angela
Groppi (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1996), 164-8z; Sandra Cavallo, "Propriety o possesso?
Composizione e controllo dei beni delle donne a Torino (1650-1710)," in Le ricchezze
delle donne, 187-2.08.
13. See the case of Dorotea Antolini, pp. 35-36 herein; ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1474,
cc. zzlf., will of Bernardino Gioj; ibid., b. 1474, cc. 2.75f, will of Marta de Rossi (1639).
14. Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, I libri delle virtu sociali, ed. Francesco Tateo (Rome:
Bulzoni, 1999). On the uses of money, also see Tateo's introduction, p. 16.
is. Ibid., 18.
16. Ibid., 2.31.
17. ASR, TN, uff. 2.8, Wills, vol. z, cc. 63f.
18. Some examples of bequests that called for the liquidation of furniture, silver, and
other goods are found in ASR, TN, uff. 2.8, Testamenti, vol. 2., cc. 63, 79o, 916; ASR,
Notai RCA, b. 1474, cc. 6, 7, 2.3, 2.21, 2.66; ibid., b. 854, C. 849.
NOTES TO PAGES 16-19 :: 2.41
19. ASR, Giustiniani, b. 132, CC. 29-31.
zo. On the role of time in creating a symbolic link between an object and itsowner,see
Daniel Miller, A Theory ofShopping (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), 171-72.
2.1. ASR, Giustiniani, b.13z, cc. 3o-3I. Giustiniani was not the only one to withhold
part of his goods from sale. The lawyer Camillo Moretti ordered everything to be sold
except his "books of the humanities," which his nephew might use (see ASR, Notai RCA,
b. 1474, C. 6, 1597).
22. ASR, Santacroce, b. 969 and b. 747, f. 3.
2.3. Ibid.
24. Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome, ms. 5054, Letteredi Girolama NaroSantacroceal
figlio Scipione. In reality he was in exile because of a duel, but this did not prevent his full
participation in court life or cause the disgrace of his family in Rome.
25. Despite their power and riches, even the Colonna family did not disdain pawning
their jewelry, tapestries, silver, and other goods to obtain hard currency. See Natalia
Gozzano, La quadreria di Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna: Prestigio nobiliare e collezionismo
nella Roma barocca (Rome: Bulzoni, 2004), especially 152-55.
z6. Pontano, I libri delle virtu sociali, 239.
27. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 22., November x, 1633.
28. Ibid., January 17, 1634.
29. Daniel Roche, The CultureofClothing:Dressand Fashion in the "Ancien Regime,"
trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Patricia Allerston,
"Clothing and Early ModernVenetian Society," Continuityand Change15, no. 3 (z000):
367-90;Patricia Allerston, "The Market in Second Hand Cloths and Furnishings in Venice,
c. 1500-1650" (PhD diss., European University Institute, 1996); Ago, "Gerarchia
delle merci e meccanismi dello scambio a Roma nel primo Seicento," Quadernistorici96
(1997): 663-83;Beverly Lemire, "Second-Hand Beauxand "Red-Armed Belles": Conflict
and the Creation of Fashions in England, c. 1600-1800," Continuity and Change 15,
no. 3 (z000): 391-417; Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, Guardaroba medievale: Vesti e
societa dal XIII al XVI secolo (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1999).
3o. See, for instance, Ludovico Santolino's inventory of goods, drawn up by the
secondhand clothes dealer Simone dell'Arpa, who afterward acquired them en masse
(cf. chapter four, note 49 herein).
31. ASR, Giustiniani, b. 2.1, fasc. 2., October 13, 1659.
32. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 775, conto n. i6, 1681.
33. Luciano Allegra, "Come it capitalismo maturo riscopri la protoindustria e la impose
(agli altri)," in IIgenere dell'Europa: Le radici communi della cultura europea e ridentita
di genere, ed. Andreina De Clementi (Rome: Biblink, 2003).
34• ASR, Santacroce, mandati nn. 174, 193, 2.07, 208 in 17o2 and 35 in 1703.
35. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 22, December 6, x633.
242. :: NOTES TO PAGES 19-2.2.
36. Ibid., December 13, 1633.
37. Ibid., December 20, 1633.
38. Ibid., February 1634.
39. The mother had written: "I have already made the fur coat for Father Gregorio and
I spent two scudi on it, and now it is necessary to send money as payment to our agent
Facchini, otherwise he won't do anything for us" (ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 22, December
6, 1633).
4o. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 22, December zo, 1633.
41. Cesare Evitascandali, Dialogo del maestro di casa (Roma: Vullietti, 1603), 81,
cited also by Gozzano, La quadreria di Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, 158.
42. ASR, Sforza Cesarini, b. 249, Register of Payments, 1689.
43. ASR, Santacroce, b. 747, n. 164 of 17oz.
44• ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 2.2, 20 and 27 of June 1634.
45. Ibid., October 29, 1633.
46. Ibid., December 24, 1633.
47. Ibid., November 12, 1633.
48. Theoriginal reads x9 hore(19 hours).Since Italian hours began the dayata half hour
after sunset, on May 6, 1593, the sun set at 7:13 p.m., making this just before 4 p.m. (PF).
49. ASR, S. Giacomo, b. 172, fasc. 10 (Fabiani).
5o. ASR, S. Giacomo, b. 172, fasc. 8 (Gavotti). In 1657 Maria Veralli gave Venetian
wax and finesugar to the lawyers who were dealingwith one of her cases (see ASR, Spada
Veralli, b. 1002).
51. Cited by Donatella Livia Sparti, Le collezioniDalPozzo:Storia diunafamiglia edel
suo museo nella Roma seicentesca (Florence: Panini, 1998), 169, December 13, 1642.
52. Ibid., February 1702, March 1702,July 1702, March 1704,and May 1703. Even
melonswere a sought-after food: in an account book theyappear asan exceptional expense
for the Feast of the Assumption (see ASR, Santacroce, b. 713, August i552).
53• Ibid., March 1702 and March 1704.
54. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 4o.
55. Ibid., b. 22, February 14, 1634.
56. Ibid., b. 22, August 8, 1634.
57. Pomian, "Collezione."
58. Maura Piccialuti Caprioli, L'immortalita dei beni:Fedecommessieprimogeniture
a Roma neisecoli XVII e XVIII (Rome: Viella, 1999).
59. Fynes Moryson, An itinerary written by Fynes Moryson Gent. 1. . .1containing his
ten yeeres trauell through the tvvelue dominions of Germany, Bohmerland, Sweitzerland,
Netherland, Denmarke, Poland,Jtaly, Turky, France, England, Scotland, andIreland(London:John
Beale,1617), 1:93. Quoted by Richard A. Goldthwaite, Wealthand theDemand
for Art in Italy, 1300—x600 (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 242.
NOTES TO PAGES 22-30 :: 243
6o. Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy.
61. In ibid., 217.
6z. From the Palazzo Venezia to the Palazzo Farnese, the bibliography on the great
Roman palazzos of the Renaissance is very rich. For a recent synthesis see Maria Letizia
Gualandi, "Fervore edilizio, trasformazioni urbanistiche e realizzazioni monumentali da
Martino V Colonna a Paolo V Borghese," in Roma del Rinascimento, ed. Antonio Pinelli
(Rome: Laterza, zoos), 123-6o.
63. Maria Luisa Madonna and Mario Bevilacqua, "The Roman Families in Urban
Development," in Rome and Amsterdam: Two Growing Cities in Seventeenth-Century
Europe, ed. Peter van Kessel and Elisja Schulte van Kessel (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University
Press, 1997), 104-2.3.
64. Ibid., 1x8-19.
65. Ibid., 12o.
66. Mario Bevilacqua, IIMontedei Cenci: Una famiglia roman e itsuo insediamento
urbano tra Medioevo ed eta barocca (Rome: Gangemi, 1988), 78.
67. Benedetta Borello, "Du patriciat urbain a la Chaire de Saint Pierre: Les Pamphilj
du XVe au XVIIIe siecle" (PhD thesis, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
[Paris], woo).
68. Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy, 168-69; Bevilacqua, II
Monte dei Cenci, 76-78. On the "obsession" of Filippo Strozzi, who in his testament devoted
page after page to a minute assessment of all the genealogical possibilitiesthat could
have led toa similar catastrophe-namely, the loss of the family palazzo,see Goldthwaite,
Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy, 233.
69. ASR, Notai RCA, c. 2.74, 1638.
7o. Ibid., c. 2o6, 16o6.
71. Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature:Museums, Collecting, andScientific Culture in
EarlyModern Italy(Berkeley:Universityof California Press,1994), 293.Identicalconcepts
are found in the wills of Ulisse Aldrovandi (1603) and Alfonso Donnino (1651).
72.. Rodolfo Amedeo Lanciani,Storia degliscavi di Roma e notizie intorno le collezioni
romane di antichita (Bologna: A. Forni, 1975), 83.
73. Christoph Luitpold Frommel, "Caravaggios Friiwerk and der Kardinal Francesco
Maria del Monte," Storia dell'arte 9-10 (1971): 5-52.; Zygmunt Wazbinski, II cardinale
Francesco Maria del Monte, 1549-1626, 2 vols. (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1994).
74. ASR, Giustiniani, b. 132., C. 3o.
75. ASR, Cartari, b. 22, November i, 1633.
76. Ibid., March 21, 1634.
77. Ibid., March 25, 1634.
78. Ibid., March 27, 1634.
79. Ibid., April 4, 1634.
144 :: NOTES TO PAGES 3 o-3 4
80. Ibid., April 18, 1634.
81. Ibid., May 25, 1634.
82. Ibid., December 18, 1633.
83. Ibid., February 14, 1634.
84. ASR, Misc. famiglie, b. 61, fasc. 6.
85. Leon Battista Alberti and others often used the adjective "massaio" and the noun
"masserizia" to indicate "concern and care for things." See Leon Battista Alberti, I libri
della famiglia, ed. Ruggiero Romano, Alberto Tenenti, and Francesco Furlan (Turin:
Einaudi, 1994).
86. Martha C.Howell,"FixingMovables:Gifts byTestament in LateMedievalDouai,"
Past and Present 15o (1996): 3-45.
87. ASR, S.ma Annunziata, b. 44, cc. 277-78 (italics mine).
88. ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1474, cc. 2.62f., will of Francesco Raimondo, 1634; ibid.
cc. 275f., will of Marta de Rossi, 1639. For other examples of bequeathed objects see
ibid., cc. 6f., cc. 8of., cc. 2oxf., and cc. 329f. See also Howell, "Fixing Movables."
89. "Movables must be acquired by a splendid man for honest uses, so that he can
avail himself of them when necessary and also, when reason so counsels, give them away,
sometimes in great quantities." Pontano, I libri delle virtu sociali, 2.31.
9o. ASR, Santacroce, b. 286, October and November 1702;ASR, Santacroce, b. 747,
gifts, 1703.
91. ASR, Notai AC, vol. 4772., cc. 321, 1667.
92. Letter of October 2, 1627, cited in Sparti, Le collezioni Dal Pozzo, 173.
93. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 827, cc. 7, 9, 10, 13, x7, 33.
94. Ibid., cc. 7 and 9.
95. ASR, Cartari, b. 33, August 31, 1672.
96. Ibid., August 6, 1672.
97. ASR, Misc. famiglie, b. 61, fasc. 6.
98. ASR, S. Girolamo della Cart* b. 4.
99. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, "The Griselda Complex: Dowry and Marriage Gifts
in the Quattrocento," in Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1985), 213-46.
100. That the commercial value of objectscreated a favorable climate for the development
of a different attitude toward them is argued by Smith and Findlen, Merchantsand
Marvels.
Chapter Two
1. ASR, S. Giacomo, b. 183. On family record books in Italy, see Angelo Cicchetti and
Raul Mordenti, I libri di famiglia in Italia (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1985).
NOTES TO PAGES 34- 41 :: 245
z. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 4o, f. 1.
3. ASR, Santacroce, b. 514.
4. ASR, S.ma Annunziata, b. 15o, 1616.
5. Monsignor Giovan Battista Gavotti always had his household steward keep the account
books, although he reviewed them himself (ASR, S. Giacomo, b. 172, 1628-31).
6. ASR, Santacroce, b. 5z4, 1647-53.
7. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. rooz, years 651-63. An old inventory defines them as ledgers,
but in reality they were journals of income and expenditure. They contained all the
receipts and expenses in which the marquise was involved on a daily basis, with income
written on the left side of the page and expenditures on the right side.
8. The first is in ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 756, 166z.
9. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 40, July 3o, 1647.
10. ASR, Notai AC, b. 945, cc. 37f., 1700.
I I. ASR, Santacroce, b. 713, 1551.
12.. For some examples see ASR, TN, uff. z8, vol. 142., cc. 51f., February 7, 16z8;
ibid., uff. 2.5, vol. 'or, cc. 499f., August zr, 162.5; ASR, Notai AC, vol. 22.04, cc. 565f.,
1645
13. See the expense book of Monsignor Gavotti in ASR, S. Giacomo, b. 172.
14. Virgilio Spada divided his notebook into six distinct, highly ordered parts, such
as the expenses for the Spada family of Rome, his "relatives, the Fantuzzi," his "own
upkeep," the Spada of Faenza, etc. He concluded with a few pages of general summary
(see ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 82.7).
15. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 82.7, c. 3o.
16. On economic treatises and the duties of the paterfamilias, see Daniela Frigo, II
padre di famiglia: Governo della casa egovern° civile nella tradizione dell'Economica tra
Cinque e Seicento (Rome: Bulzoni, 1985).
17. Ibid.
18. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. rooz, 1657.
19. Ibid., 1658.
2.0. Ibid.
2.1. Ibid., 1659.
22. The documents record a taffeta hood from England in 1659, a feather beret in
166o, and a robe of silver leaf in 1661 for one girl. For the other, a shawl embroidered
with gold and a matching outer girdle in 1657 and a collar of white lace and a dress of
quilted fabric in 1660. See ASR, Spada Veralli, b. Tool.
2.3. Young chickens, pigs, pigeons, eggs, and sausage on various occasions. See ASR,
Spada Veralli, b. 1ooz.
2.4. See ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 1002.
2.5. ASR, Spada, b. 756, n. 15, 1663; ibid., n. 46, 1663.
2.46 :: NOTES TO PAGES 42 - 48
26. Ibid., n. 3o, 1663; ibid., n. zo, 1663; ibid., nn. zo and 5o, 1663.
27. ASR, Spada, b. 794, c. 3.
18. ASR, Spada, b. 801.
2.9. ASR, Spada, b. 794,January, April, May, and July 1667;August, February, April,
June, July, and August 1668.
3o. Ibid., December 1667.
31. Ibid., January, May, and December 1668; January and February 1669.
32. Ibid., July 1669.
33. ASR, Spada, b. 8or, September 167o:1.5oscudi for "stuff bought from the milliner
who came to the Castle to give [the purchased merchandise] to those women."
34• Ibid., November 1668; February, June, July, October 1669; October 1670;January,
July, August, December 1671; May 1672, etc.
35. That is, like a tapestry. See Luigi Grassi, Marco Pepe, and Giancarlo Sestieri,
Dizionario diantiquariato: Dizionariostorico-critico di Arte e Antiquariato dall'antichita
all'inizio del Novecento (Turin: UTET, 1989).
36. ASR, Santacroce, b. 969, March, September, and December 17oo; May 1701.
37. Ibid., November and December 170o, October 1701, January and May 1702;
March 1703.
38. Ibid., February, October, and November 1700.
39. We do not know their titles because the first two inventories mention only "twentyfour
different books" and "one devotional to the Virgin Mary," and the final one only
speaks generically of "thirty books" and "three devotionals."
4o. The sources offer at least one more case in which the monetary part of a dowry
was restituted in kind: the will of the merchant Bernardino Gioj (1632), which ordered
the restitution of 300 scudi in the form of jewelry, silverware, and "stuff from the shop."
See ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1474, cc. 221f.
41. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, "Un salario o l'onore: Come valutare le donne fiorentine
del XIV-XV secolo," Quaderni storici 79 (1992): 41-49.
42. The sample consisted of seventy-six inventories-not only postmortem but also
dowry and others-chosen at random, provided that the testators were members of the
middling classes (they did not come from the titled nobility).
43. Paolo Malanima, I Riccardi di Firenze: Una famiglia e un patrimonio nella Toscana
dei Medici (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1977); Carole Shammas, The Pre-Industrial
Consumer in England and America (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990); Maria Antonietta
Visceglia, "I consumi in Italia in eta moderna," in Storia dell'economia italiana,
vol. z, L'eta moderna: Verso la crisi, ed. Ruggiero Romano (Turin: Einaudi, 1991),
esp. 2,2-15.
44. See Malanima, I Riccardi di Firenze, 159, table XVIII. On the Odescalchi family,
see Giuseppe Mira, Vicende economiche di una famiglia italiana dal XIVal XVII secolo
NOTES TO PAGES 48- 57 247
(Milan:Societa editrice "Vitae pensiero," 194o). On the expenditures of noble households
in general, see Valeria Pinchera, Lusso e decoro: Vita quotidiana e spese dei Salviati di
Firenze nel Sei e Settecento (Pisa: Scuola normale superiore, 1999).
45. ASR, TN, uff. 5, Testamenti 1645, cc. 15f.
46. ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1474, cc. 6f e cc. 2oif.
47. See, for instance, the will of Serafina Mancini, who left "her best garment to her
cousin." ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1474, cc. 329f.
48. ASR, Notai AC, Testamenti e donazioni, b. 4, 1641. For. Dorotea Antolini, see
pp. 35-36 herein.
49• Lanciani, Storia degli scavi di Roma.
5o. ASR, Notai RCA, b. 854, cc. 849, will of Gian Girolamo Spinola, 1622; ASR, TN,
uff. 28, Testamenti, vol. 2, cc. 63f, will of Attilio Casini, 1623; ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1474,
cc. 7f, will of Vincenzo Panziroli, 1598.
5i. Ibid., cc. 79of., will of Alessandro Cataneo, i6o2; ibid., cc. 916f., will of Giovanni
Maria Benaglia, 1629; ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1474, cc. 6f., will of Camillo Moretti; ibid.,
cc. z3f., will of Virginia Bardi, 1604; ibid., cc. 266f., will of Sofonisba Ciaroni, 1635;
ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1029, cc. 3011., will of Alessandra Pelliccia, 1648. On "becoming
Roman," see ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1474, cc. zzif., will of Bernardino Gioj, 1632.
5/. Fideicommisary agreements emerged with increasing frequency in the late sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries in Italy, inspired by Roman law. They offered a version of entail,
creating an inalienable trust, often in perpetuity, out of the most precious aspects of a
family patrimony (PF).
53. Leon Battista Alberti, I libri della famiglia, ed. Ruggiero Romano, Alberto Tenenti,
and Francesco Furlan (Turin: Einaudi, 1994). Book 2, De re uxoria, 86f. Elsewhere,
when he spoke about "unnecessary" but still honorable expenses, he cited only
"beautiful books and noble horses" (ibid., 224). Even Giovanni Pontano spoke only
about vases, drapes, flatware, and "similar things." Pontano, I libri delle virtu sociali,
229.
54• Sabba da Castiglione, Ricordi overoammaestramenti di monsig:Sabba Castiglione,
caualier gerosolimitano; ne i quali con prudenti, e christiani discorsi si ragiona di tutte
le materie honorate, the si ricercano a un vero gentil'huomo (Venice: Griffio, 1575),
160-67.
55. Alberti, I libri della famiglia.
56. Ibid., 263.
57• Ibid., 218.
58. Ago defines this distinction more vividly as beni del corpo (corporeal things) and
Beni dello spirito (goods for the soul), but since "spiritual" in English has a more specific
meaning than the idea of "goods for the soul" in Italian, we have preferred a less literal
translation.
248 :: NOTES TO PAGES 57-61
Chapter Three
T. Keep in mind that half of the female inventories were for dowries and unsurprisingly
did not mention rooms. Another ten lists were only partial and explicitly did not catalog all
the property of the testator, but only some goods. If one excludes these two "anomalous"
categories, a majority of inventories (71.4 percent) were detailed by room.
2. Thisarrangement was still widely prevalent in Paris (see Annik Pardailhe-Galabrun,
La naissance de l'intime: 3000 foyers parisiens aux XVIIe—XVIIIe siecles (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1988); more generally, on the use of space and specialization of
room functions, see Giorgio Simoncini, L'uso dellospazio privato nell'eta dell'Illuminismo
(Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1995) and Raffaella Sarti, Vita di casa:Abitare, mangiare, vestire
nell'Europa moderna (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1990).
3. Peter Thornton, The Italian Renaissance Interior, 1400-1600 (New York: Harry
N. Abrams, 1991), 300.
4. Sebastiano Serlio, I sette libri dell'architettura (Forni: Sala Bolognese, 1987), published
in Venice between 1537and 1575;and VincenzoScamozzi, Dell'idea dell'architettura
universale (Forni: Sala Bolognese, 1982), published in Venice in 1615.
5. See the Marquis Giustiniani's private apartment, pp. 83-88, or that of the Marquise
Maria Isabella Vecchiarelli Santacroce, pp. 90-91 herein.
6. At the theoretical level, Francesco di Giorgio Martini was the first to have discussed
the "distribution of rooms" in his Trattato di architettura, which was composed around
1480. But apparently he did not resolve all the problems, since much later texts such as
Scamozzi's L'idea dell'architettura continued to discuss the issue. See Thornton, Italian
Renaissance Interior, 284.
7. See the study on Amsterdam by John Loughman and John Michael Montias, Public
and Private Spaces: Works of Art in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Houses (Zwolle:
Waanders, z000).
8. See, for instance, the engravings of Abraham Bosse.
9. On the other hand, inhabitants of Paris and Amsterdam did not begin to draw this
distinction until the second half of the century. See Pardailhe-Galabrun, La naissance
de l'intime, and Loughman and Montias, Public and Private Spaces: Works of Art in
Seventeenth-centuryDutch Houses. Cf.Ursula Priestlyand P.J.Corfield,"Roomsand Room
Use in Norwich Housing, 1530-1730," Post-Medieval Archeology 16 (1982.): 92-123.
ro. This was not the case in Paris, where chairs were found largely in bedrooms. This
is a sign that entertaining took place in the bedroom. See Daniel Roche, The People of
Paris: An Essay in Popular Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1987).
11. Pardailhe-Galabrun, La naissance de l'intime;Daniel Roche, A History ofEveryday
Things: The Birth ofConsumption in France, 1600-1800 (New York: Cambridge University
NOTES TO PAGES 65-68 :: 249
Press, z000);AnneMontenach,"Uneeconomie de l'infime:Espaceset pratique du commerce
alimentaire a Lyons au XVIIe siecle" (PhD thesis, European University Institute, 2.003).
12. Raspantini, Francesco, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 4772, cc. 32f., January 18, 1667,
inheritance.
13. On furniture in general, see Goffredo Lizzani, Il mobile romano (Milan: Gorlich,
1970); Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios, Fasto romano: Dipinti, sculture, arredi dai palazzi di
Roma (Rome: Leonardo-DeLuca, 1991); Thornton, Italian Renaissance Interior; Alvar
Gonzalez-Palacios, Imobili italiani (Milan: Electa,1997);Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios, Arredi
e ornamenti alla corte di Roma:1560-1795 (Milan: Electa, 2004).
14. Pardailhe-Galabrun, La naissance de l'intime.
15. On the material culture of childhood, see Karin Lee Fishbeck Calvert, Children in
the House: The Material Culture of Early Childhood, 1600-1900 (Boston: Northeastern
University Press, 1992).
16. Raspantini, Francesco, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 4772, cc. 3zf., January 18, 1667,
inheritance.
17. Marozzi, Teresa, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 945, cc. 44if., February 22, 1700, dowry.
18. Rotoli, Giovanni, ASR, TN, uff. 28, vol. 142, cc. 5'of., February 7, 1628,
inheritance.
19. On the importance of portraits, see chapter six.
zo. ASR, Santacroce, b. 747, fasc. 1, conto n. 12, 1702.
21. Ibid., conto n. 83, 1702..
22. Ibid., fasc. 2, conto n. 157, 1703.
23. Ibid., fasc. 3, conto n. 76,1704.
24. Giunti, Ippolito, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 2095, cc. I39f., 1645.
25. Lirighetti, Nicola, Francesco e Antonio, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 766, cc. 484f.,
1648, judicial; and Rosati, Santa, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 945, cc. 365f., January 28, 1700,
sale.
26. Venturola, Ippolita, AC, AGU, sez. VII, vol. 2, cc. 225f., June 9, 1626, inheritance.
27. On silverware as gifts, see pp. 172-73 herein.
28. Taglina, Portia, AC, AGU, sez. XLVI, vol. 17, April 21, 1666, inheritance.
29. Giunti, Ippolito, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 2095, cc. 139f., 1645, inheritance; Piantarella,
Barolomeo, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 2204, cc. 554f., 1645, inheritance.
3o. De Litteris, Maria, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 4772, cc. 694f., March 9, 1667,
inheritance.
3I. Vittori, Pietro Antonio, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 4772, cc. 3z4f., February 22, 1667,
rent. For a comparisonwith other rented homessome decades later, see Paolo Coen, "Vendere
e affittare quadri: Giuseppe Sardi, capomastro muratore e mercante d'arte (Roma
XVIII secolo)," Quaderni storici 1161‘ 2004): 421-48•
32. Tinelli, Alessandro, ASR, TN, uff. 5, vol. 172, cc. r73f., 1645, inheritance. This
250 :: NOTES TO PAGES 6 8—78
I
S
seems to have been the most widespread organization for apartments in seventeenthcentury
Paris. See Pardailhe-Galabrun, La naissance de rintime.
33. Betti, Marghertia, ASR, S. Girolamo della Carita, b. 4, cc. 25f.,1669, inheritance;
Raspantini, Francesco, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 4772, cc. 32.f., January 18, 1667, inheritance.
34. Negrelli, Francesco, ASR, TN, uff. 18, vol. 142, cc. 71f.,January 5, 1638, inheritance;
Pan, Nicola, ASR, TN, uff. 5, vol. 258, cc. 1if., April 2, 1667, inheritance.
35• Lirighetti, Nicola, Francesco, and Antonio, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 766, cc. 484f.,
1648, judicial.
36. Cangiani, Paolo, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 4772, cc. 413f., March 20, 1667,
inheritance.
37. See pp. 139-40 herein.
38. Rotoli, Giovanni, ASR, TN, uff. 28, vol. 142, cc. 51of., February 7, 1628,
inheritance.
39. Ugolini, Fabio, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 945, cc. 520f., March 5, 1700, guardianship.
4o. On the dwellings of Roman nobles, see Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, SeventeenthCentury
Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art (New York: New York University
Press,1975);Patricia Waddy,Seventeenth-Century Roman Palaces: Useand theArt ofthe
Plan (NewYork:Architectural History Foundation,1990);Stefanie Walker and Frederick
Hammond, Life and the Arts in the Baroque Palaces of Rome: Ambiente Barocco (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999). On their furnishings see Gonzalez-Palacios,
Fasto romano. On the Giustiniani, their collections, and their inventories see Silvia Danesi
Squarzina, ed., La collezione Giustiniani (Turin: Einaudi, 2003).
41. Although the table asa whole is veryclear, in the case of women there issome risk
of ambiguity. As I have said, a third of female inventories are dowry inventories. It is thus
normal that they dealt primarily with bedsand weddingchests while excludingchairsand
stools. Nonetheless, the percentages of tables, cupboards, and stuodioli were very near
those for men, and this seems to reduce the chance of a possible distortion owing to the
nature of the documents.
42. On travel literature see Cesare De Seta, L'Italia del Grand Tour: Da Montaigne
a Goethe (Naples: Electa Napoli, 1992); Cesare De Seta, Grand Tour: Viaggi narrati e
dipinti (Naples: Electa Napoli, zooi); Antoni Mgczak, Travel in Early Modern Europe,
trans. Ursula Phillips (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995);Attilio Brilli, Quando viaggiare era
un'arte: Il romanzo delgrand tour (Bologna: II Mulino, 1995). On epistolary writing see
Amedeo Quondam, Le "Carte messaggiere":Retorica emodellidi comunicazione epistolare
per un indice dei libri di lettere del Cinquecento (Rome: Bulzoni, 1981); Renata Ago,
"Donne, doni e public relations tra le famiglie dell'aristocrazia romana del XVII secolo,"
in La donna nell'economia XIII—XVIII secolo, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (Florence: Le
Monnier, 1990), 175-83; Irene Fosi, All'ombra dei Barberini: Fedelta e servizio nella
Roma barocca (Rome: Bulzoni, 1997).
NOTES TO PAGES 78-89 :: 251
43. ASR, Santacroce, b. 86, cc. 45v-46v.
44. ASR, Santacroce, b. 86, cc. 45v-46v.
45. ASR, Santacroce, b. 1122., unnumbered folio (f.n.n).
46. Here too Santacroce was influenced by his travels, in the course of which he visited
the curiosity cabinets of illustrious collectors whom he apparently wanted to imitate, at
least in appearance (ASR, Santacroce, b. 86, cc. '2.v-13r). On the sociability tied to collections
see pp. 136-38 and following, herein.
Chapter Four
. I have excluded from this figure all those cauldrons that were specifically designated
"for washing," but probably even those that did not receive any particular designation
were usually used for this purpose.
z. On culinary practices and the manner of eating food, see Jean Louis Flandrin and
Massimo Montanari, Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present, trans.
Albert Sonnenfeld (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).
3. One "baking tin" was said to be explicitly for "tarts."
4. On the kinds of kitchen utensils used in other contexts,see Daniel Roche, The People
of Paris: An Essay in Popular Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1987); Flandrin and Montanari, Food; Raffaella Sarti, Vita di casa:
Abitare, mangiare, vestire nell'Europa moderna (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1990); Madeleine
Ferrieres, Le bien des pauvres: La consommation populaire en Avignon, I600-I800 (Seyssel,
France: Champ Vallon, 2.004).
5. In addition, another five women possessed at least a "small tray" which could also
be used as a plate.
6. The small value of these objectscould have led to their exclusion from the inventories,
which are otherwise so detailed as to list even rags and broken flasks. In any case, this
proviso would only have been true for wooden spoons, not for knives or even plates.
7. See Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners, trans. Edmund
Jephcott (New York: Pantheon Books, 198z).
8. This relative poverty of female trousseaus certainly owed to the smaller dimensions
of their homes as well. In fact, constructing a table by room rather than by head changes
the results in favor of women, as we saw in the case of furniture as well:
252 :: NOTES TO PAGES 90-102
Categories of household linen by room (eighty male rooms and fifteen female rooms)
CATEGORY OF LINEN MEN WOMEN
Sheets 4.1 8
Pillowcases 1.4 3
Tablecloths 5.4 5.1
Towels 10.3 17.1
Napkins 6.5 5.7
Blankets 1.3 1.7
9. Cartari, b. 4o, unnumbered sheet, "Inventario dell'acconcio, the Maria Verginia
mia figlia porta seco a casa del S. Giulio Febei suo sposo." On Renaissance trousseaus
see Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, "The Griselda Complex: Dowry and Marriage Gifts in
the Quattrocento," in her Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1985), 113-46.
Jo. Cf. the testator who claimed to have made money through managing some of her
linen in ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1474, c. 25, 1604; also see Renata Ago, "Di cosa si puO fare
commercio: Mercato e norme sociali nella Roma barocca," Quaderni storici 91 (1996):
113-34.
11. ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1474, cc. 337f, 1649. Another testator left his wife a pearl
necklace that was bought when they were married (ASR, TN, ufficio 5, Testamenti,
cc. 97f., 1645).
Iz. Cf. Klapisch-Zuber, "The Griselda Complex."
13. Pietro Belmonte, Institutione della sposa del cavalier Pietro Belmonte Ariminese
fatta principalmente per Madonna Laudomia sua figliuola nelle sue nuoue nozze (Rome:
Per gl'heredi di Giouanni Osmarino Gigliotto, 1587), 19.
14. See the will of Bernardina Bertazzoli, wife of Giovanni Parola (ASR, Notai RCA,
b. 1474, C. 2.72., 1635).
15. Keep in mind that not all the inventories pertained to inheritance.
16. On the appearance and use of these various garments, see Rosita Levi Pisetzky,
Storia del costume in Italia, vol. 3, Il Cinquecento e it Seicento (Milan: lEI, 1966); Rosita
Levi Pisetzky, Moda e costume, Storia d'Italia (Turin: Einaudi, 1973); Rosita Levi Pisetzky,
Il costume e la moda nella societa italiana (Turin: Einaudi, 1978); Anna Giulia Cavagna
and Grazietta Butazzi, Le trame della moda (Rome: Bulzoni, 1995); Ranieri Varese and
NOTES TO PAGES 102-107 :: 253
Grazietta Butazzi, Storia della moda (Bologna: Calderini, 1995); Nathalie Bailleux and
Bruno Remaury, Moda: Usi e costumi del vestire (Trieste: Electa Gallimard, 1996); Carlo
Marco Belfanti, "Maglie e calze," in Storia d'Italia, Annali, vol. 19, La moda, ed. Carlo
Marco Belfanti and Fabio Giusberti (Turin: Einaudi, 2003), 583-6x7.
17. Paola Venturelli, Vestireeapparire:Ilsistema vestimentariofemminilenella Milano
spagnola, 1539-1679 (Rome: Bulzoni, 1999), 24.
18. Diana, Dorotea, ASR, TN, uff. 5, vol. 259, cc. 347f., August 19, 1667, inheritance.
19. On French fashions, see pp. 11 114 herein.
zo. Levi Pisetzky, Storia del costume, 361, figure 161.
21. Neruzzi, Polidoro, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 318o, cc. 857f., 1641, inheritance.
21. Fourteen men had collars and cuffs, and fifteen possessed hats or berets.
23. Only two women owned a hat, while another two had some bonnets.
24. Onstockings,see Belfanti,"Maglie ecalze";on the appearance and qualityofshoes,
as well as their diffusion, see Andrea Vianello, "Storia sociale della calzatura," in Storia
d'Italia, Annali, vol. 19, La moda, ed. Belfanti and Giusberti, 627-66.
25. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 4o, f.n.n.
26 Vittoria Santacroce's account book from the mid-sixteenth century mentions various
payments to cobblers for shoesand slippers, both for members of her family and their
apprentices (ASR, Santacroce, b. 713). For an example of the cost of slippers, see Vittoria
Patrizi Spada's account books (ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 801, April1669 and January 1671).
In Cangiani's inventory, two pairs of boots and two umbrellas were valued at 4 scudi.
27. ASR, TN, uff. 23, vol. 23, c. 431, October 6, 1626.
28. For the argument that shoes were only a conquest of the Age of Enlightenment,see
Roche, People ofParis, i66;see also Carlo Poni, "Norms and Disputes:The Shoemakers'
Guild in Eighteenth-Century Bologna," Past and Present 123 (1989): 80-108.
2.9. Bronconi, Filippo, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 4773, cc. 515f., August zo, 1667,
inheritance.
3o. Di Profilo di Francesco, Caterina, AC, AGU, sez. XLVI, vol. 17, December 1,
1666, dowry.
31. On Florence, see Giulia Calvi, "Abito, genere, cittadinanze nella Toscana moderna
(secoli XVI—XVII)," Quadernistorici110 (2002): 477-504. On France,see Daniel
Roche, The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the "Ancien Regime," trans.
Jean Birrell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). On sumptuary legislation
elsewhere in Italy and Europe, see Alberto Liva, "Note sulla legislazione suntuaria
nell'Italia centro-settentrionale," in Le trame della moda, ed. Anna Giulia Cavagna
and Grazietta Butazzi (Rome: Bulzoni, 1995), 31-52; Alan Hunt, Governance of the
Consuming Passions: A History of Sumptuary Law (New York: St. Martin's Press,
1996); Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, Gli inganni delle apparenze: Disciplina di vesti e
ornamenti alla fine del Medioevo (Turin: Scriptorium, 1996); Maria Giuseppina Muz-
254 :: NOTES TO PAGES 107-109
zarelli, "Le leggi suntuarie," in Storia d'Italia, Annali, vol. 19, La moda, ed. Belfanti
and Giusberti, 185-22o; Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli and Antonella Campanini, eds.,
Disciplinare it lusso: La legislazionesuntuaria in Italia e in Europa tra Medioevo ed Eta
Moderna (Rome: Carocci, 2003).
32. Bullarum, Privilegiorum ac Diplomatum Romanorum Pontificum Amplissima
Collectio, vol. 4 (Rome: Tipografia della Camera Apostolica, 1747).
33. Marinoni Ricciardini, Anna Agnese, AC, AGU, sex. XLVI, vol. 16, October 4,
1664, dowry; Trombetta, Margherita Teresa, AC, AGU, sex. XLVI, vol. 17, February
15, 1667, dowry.
34. Marozzi, Teresa, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 945, cc. 441f., February 22, 1700, dowry.
The manteau came intostyle around 168o and was a kind of gown with short sleeves open
in front of the "little petticoat" and with the tails collected in back. The zamberlucco was
a loose, oriental-style garment that could be used as a nightgown.
35. Before this time, purchases clustered around the time of matrimony. See Renata
Ago, "Il linguaggio del corpo," in Storia d'Italia, Annali, vol. 19, La moda, ed. Belfanti
and Giusberti, 117-48.
36. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 80I, January, April, and August 668; January and September
1669; January 1670; January 1672. The hongreline (from Hungary) is a closefitting
garment, long to the knee, which became very fashionable in the late seventeenth
century.
37. Ago, "Il linguaggio del corpo."
38. ASR, Santacroce, b. 969, April, May, August, and September 17024 May 1703;
January 1705; August 1706; October 1707.
39. ASR, Santacroce, b. 544, February, March, and May 1706; January r707.
4o. ASR, Santacroce, b. 544, passim.
41. ASR, Santacroce, b. 1122, fasc. 1, account n. 181, 1732.
42.. Renata Ago, "Gerarchia delle merci e meccanismi delloscambio a Roma nel primo
Seicento," Quadernistorici 96 (1997): 663-83.
43. ASR, Santacroce, b. 969, May 1703.
44. Cesare Vecellio, Degli habiti antichi, et moderni di diuerse parti del mondo libri
due (Venice: Zenaro,1590);Alessandra Camerano, "La restaurazionecinquecentesca della
romanitas: Identity e giochi di potere tra Curia e Campidoglio," in Gruppi ed identity
sociali nell'Italia dell'eta moderna, ed. Biagio Salvemini (Bari: Edipuglia, 1998), 29-79;
Alessandra Camerano, "Donne oneste o meretrici? Incertezza dell'identita fra testamenti
e diritto di propriety a Roma," Quadernistorici 99 (1998): 637-66.
45. Muzzarelli and Campanini, Disciplinare it lusso; Ago, "Il linguaggio del corpo."
46. Santolino, Ludovico, ASR, TN, uff. 25, vol. 101, cc. 499f., August 21, 1625, inheritance.
The title "illustrious" did not designate a noble, but simply a gentleman.
47. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 4o, f.n.n.
NOTES TO PAGES 109-114 255
48. Their inventories were in fact ones for guardianship.
49. ASR, TN, uff. 25,vol. Ioi,cc. 379f., August 12, 1625; CC. 499f., August 21 1625;
AC, AGU, sez. VII, vol. II, cc. 1771., May 27, 1626.
so. Cangiani's patrimony confirms this: the value of his clothing totaled 46.6 percent
of that of his sumptuous furnishings.
51. ASR, S. Girolamo della Carita, b. 4, c. 188.
52. Ibid., c. 199.
53. ASR, TN, uff. 28, cc. 74r—v, January 4, I63o.
54. ASR, TNC, uff. t, vol. 117, 16zo; ASR, S. Girolamo della Carita, b. 4, inventari
del 41 -44) 1653, 1656, 1669. For other examples,see AGU, sez. XLVI, vol.17,1647;TN,
uff. 5, vol. 258, 1667.
55. ASR, Misc. famiglie, b. 61, fasc. 6, Contelori.
56. Renata Ago, Economia barocca: Mercato e istituzioni nella Roma del Seicento
(Rome: Donzelli, 1998).
57. Ago, "Gerarchia delle merci."
58. See, for example, the case of a woman who, in the course of a trial, declared that
she used to work under a "female master," in ASR, Tribunale civile del Senatore, b. 2083,
cc. 933 and 934, August 23, 1628. On the work of women in general, see Angela Groppi,
II lavoro delle donne (Rome: Laterza, 1996); Merry E. Wiesner, Women and Gender in
Early Modern Europe, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, z000).
59. Jean Boutier, "La fattoria, le palais, la boutique: Les consommations textiles d'une
famille aristocratique florentine, fin xviie—début xviiie siècle," in Echanges et cultures
textiles dans l'Europe pre-industrielle, ed. Jacques Bottin and Nicole Pallegrin, Revue du
Nord ([Villeneuve d'Ascq]: University Charles-de-Gaulle, Lille III, 1996), 39.
6o. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 8o1.
61. Ibid., January and April 1673; ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 794, January 1667.
62. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. Iooi, i66o and 1661. A frame for making ribbons and one
for embroideringwere also present in a Santacroce inventory from 1707 (ASR, Santacroce,
b. 112.2, f.n.n.).
63. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 4o, f.n.n. The bobbinsserved precisely for making collar lace.
64. ASR,Santacroce, b.969,October i700and May1705.But in1707amongthe family
expenditures appear one for "spindles and pins" (ASR, Santacroce, b. z86, fasc. 1).
65. Alessandra Mottola Molfino, "Nobili, sagge, e virtuose donne: Libri di modelli di
merletti e organizzazione del lavoro femminile tra Cinquecento e Seicento," in La famiglia
e la vita quotidiana in Europa dal '400 al '600:Fonti e problemi,atti del convegno distudi
(Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1986), 277-93.
66. Evelyn Lincoln, The Invention ofthe Italian Renaissance Printmaker (NewHaven,
CT: Yale University Press, z000);Evelyn Lincoln, "Models for Science and Craft: Isabella
Parasole's Botanical and Lace Illustrations," Visual Resources 17, no. I (zoo'): 1-35.
256 :: NOTES TO PAGES 114-118
67. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 801.
68. Ibid., July 1669, and elsewhere. As a point of comparison, keep in mind that the
amount of thread contained in the dowry inventories varied between twenty and fifty
pounds.
69. Ibid., but see also the "payment accounts" of her father-in-law Orazio (ASR, Spada
Veralli, b. 756).
7o. ASR, Sforza Cesarini,serie 1, etichetta ovale, b. 36, Giustificazioni di pagamento
1687-99, fasc. 31.
71. Ibid, July 1689.
72. Jan de Vries, "Between Purchasing Power and theWorld of Goods:Understanding
the Household Economy in Early Modern Europe," in Consumption and the World of
Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London: Routledge, 1993), 85-132.
73. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 8o1, October 1668.
74. Maria Veralli, for instance, recorded an expense of only 1.10 scudi for four canne
of camlets the color of musk, "the remainder for which was taken from the five canne
of black wavy taffeta which were sold for 3.22 scudi per canna." ASR, Spada Veralli,
b. 1002, 1661.
75. ASR, Tribunale civile del Senatore, b. 2083, c. 295v, April 24, 1625.
76. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 22, 20 and 27 of June 1625.
77. Ago, Economia barocca.
78. ASR,Tribunale civile del Senatore, b. 2083,C. 295v, April 24, '625;c. 933, August
23, 1628.
79. On the textile industry see the essays and bibliography in Belfanti and Giusberti,
eds.,Storia d'Italia, Annali, vol. 19, La moda;on the capillary circulation of garmentsand
fabrics, see Margaret Spufford, The Great Reclothing of Rural England: Petty Chapmen
and Their Wares in the Seventeenth Century (London: Hambledon Press, 1984); Daniel
Roche, The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the "Ancien Regime," trans. Jean
Birrell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Beverly Lemire, "The Theft of
Clothes and Popular Consumerism in Early Modern England," Journal of Social History
24 (199o): 225-76; Beverly Lemire, Fashion's Favourite: The Cotton Trade and
the Consumer in Britain, 166o-1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); Beverly
Lemire, Dress, Culture, and Commerce: The English Clothing Trade before the Factory,
1600--1800 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997).
80. See chapter seven, pp. 182-84 herein.
81. ASR, TN, uff. 28, vol. 142, c. 41, December 31, 1627.
82. ASR, TN, vol. 138, c. toot, March 28, 1627.
83. On the trade in secondhand furniture and clothing, see Patricia Allerston, "The
Market in Second Hand Cloths and Furnishings in Venice, c. 15oo-165o" (PhD diss.,
European University Institute, 1996), 367-9o; Patricia Allerston, "Clothing and Early
NOTES TO PAGES 118-12.0 257
Modern Venetian Society," Continuity and Change 15, no. 3 (z000): 367-90; Patricia
Allerston, "L'abito usato," in Storia d'Italia, Annali, vol. 19, La moda, 561-82..
84. Natalia Gozzano, La quadreria di Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna: Prestigio nobiliare
e collezionismo nella Roma barocca (Rome: Bulzoni, 2004), 147-48.
85. Ago, "Gerarchia delle merci."
86. See chapter one.
Chapter Five
1. Roberto S. Lopez, "Hard Times and Investment in Culture," in The Renaissance: Six
Essays, ed. William K. Ferguson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 29-54; Roberto
S. Lopez, The Three Ages of the Italian Renaissance (Charlottesville: University Press
of Virginia, 1970); Judith C. Brown, "Prosperity or Hard Times in Renaissance Italy?"
Renaissance Quarterly 42, no. 4 (1989): 761-80.
2. Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century (New York:
Harper and Row,1982);Fernand Braudel, The WheelsofCommerce (NewYork: Harper
and Row, 1982); Richard A. Goldthwaite, Wealth and the DemandforArt in Italy, 1300—
.r6oo (Baltimore:JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress,1993);Paolo Malanima, "Measuring the
Italian Economy, 1300-1681," Rivista di Storia Economica 19, no. 3 (2003): 265-95.
3. Malanima, "Measuring the Italian Economy."
4. See for example Sabba da Castiglione, Ricordi, overo Ammaestramenti di monsig.
Sabba Castiglione, cavalier gerosolimitano: Ne i quali con prudenti, e christiani discorsi
si ragiona di tutte le materie honorate, the si ricercano a un vero gentil'huomo (Venice:
Appresso Giouanni Griffio,1575);Matteo Palmieri, Vita civile,ed. GinoBelloni (Florence:
Sansoni,1982);Giovanni Gioviano Pontano,Ilibridelle virtusociali,ed. FrancescoTateo
(Rome: Bulzoni, 1999); For recent secondary sources on this issue see Tateo's intro to
Pontano, I libri delle virtu sociali, 9-41, and Amedeo Quondam, "Pontano e le moderne
virtu del dispendio onorato," Quaderni storici, no. 115 (2004): 11-44
5. Krzysztof Pomian, "Collezione," Enciclopedia (Turin: Einaudi, 1978), 1:330-64.
But Schlosser traced thisgenealogy at thestartof the twentieth century (seeJuliusSchlosser,
Raccolte d'arte e dimeraviglie del tardo Rinascimento,ed. Cristina De Benedictis (Milan:
Sansoni, z000). On collecting during the Renaissance see also Oliver Impey and Arthur
MacGregor, The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth and
Seventeenth-Century Europe (New York: Clarendon Press, 1985), 1-16; Patricia Falguieres,
"Invention et memoire: Aux origines de ]'institution museographique: Les collectionsencyclopediqueset
lescabinetsde merveillesdans l'Italiedu XVIesiecle" (PhD thesis,
University of Paris1, 1988); Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature:Museums, Collecting, and
Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).
6. Pomian, "Collezione," 332.
258 :: NOTES TO PAGES 12.0-127
7. Pomian, Collectorsand Curiosities:Parisand Venice,1500-1800, trans. Elizabeth
Wiles-Portier (Cambridge: Polity, 1990), 4-5.
8. Ibid., 42. It seems to me that despite the criticism offered of him by Antoine
Schnapper, among others—see Antoine Schnapper, Legiant, la licorne et la tulipe: Collections
et collectionneurs dans la France du XVIIe siecle (Paris: Flammarion, 1988)—
Pomian's thesis on the centrality of the sacrifice of utility holds a fundamental heuristic
value.
9. Pomian, Collectors and Curiosities, 39.
io. The literature on collecting and collections in Renaissance Italy is too vast to be
able to give an exhaustive account of it here. Indeed, for some time research has been
specialized according to the nature of thecollection. On these topics, I will refer the reader
to works I have already cited:see on the one hand Findlen, Possessing Nature; Pamela H.
Smith and Paula Findlen, eds., Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in
Early Modern Europe (New York: Routledge, zooz); and on the other Olivier Bonfait
et al., eds., Geografia del collezionismo: Italia e Francia tra XVI e it XVIII secolo: Atti
dellegiornatedistudio dedicatea Giuliano Briganti:Roma,19-21settembre1996 (Rome:
Ecole francaise de Rome, 2001); Silvia Danesi Squarzina, ed., La collezione Giustiniani
(Turin: Einaudi, 2003).
Paula Findlen, "Possessing the Past: The Material World of the Italian Renaissance,"
American Historical Review 103, no. 1 (1998): 83-114.
12. Annette B.Weiner, Inalienable Possessions:TheParadox ofKeeping-While-Giving
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); Daniel Miller, Material Cultures: Why
Some Things Matter (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998); Fred R. Myers, ed.,
The Empire of Things: Regimes of Value and Material Culture (Santa Fe, NM: School of
American Research Press, zooi).
13. See Andrea Battistini, It barocco: Cultura, miti, immagini (Rome: Salerno, 2000),
68-70, which refers first of all to the Galeria of Giovan Battista Marino, published in
Venice in i620. On thiswork see also Marc Fumaroli, Lascuola delsilenzio: Ilsenso delle
immagini nel XVIIsecolo (Milan: Adelphi, 1995), 61-80.
14. On the collections of princes see the now classic Hugh R. Trevor-Roper, Princes
and Artists: Patronage and Ideology at Four Habsburg Courts, 1517-1633 (New York:
Harper and Row, 1976), and Jonathan Brown, Kings and Connoisseurs: Collecting Art
in Seventeenth-Century Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). On
private collections with particular attention to the case of Rome, aside from the works
already mentioned above (n. 5), see Luigi Salerno, "Arte e scienza nellle collezioni del
manierismo," in Scritti di storia dell'arte in onore di Mario Salmi (Rome: Edizioni de
Luca, 1963),193-213;Paola Barocchi, "Storiografia e collezionismo dal Vasari al Lanzi,"
in Storia dell'arte italiana, part 1, Materiali e problemi, vol. 2, L'artista e it pubblico,
ed. Giovanni Previtali (Turin: Einaudi, 1979), 5-81; Claudio Franzoni, "Le collezioni
NOTES TO PAGES 1 2 7-12.9 :: 2.59
rinacimentali diantichita," in L'uso dei classici, ed.Salvatore Settis (Turin:Einaudi, 1984),
299-36o; Claudio Franzoni, "`Urbe Roma in pristina forma renascente': Le antichita di
Roma durante it Rinascimento," in Roma del Rinascimento, ed. Antonio Pinelli (Rome:
Laterza, zoo ), 291-336; Gigliola Fragnito, In museo e in villa: Saggi sul Rinascimento
perduto (Venice: Arsenate,1988);Claudio Franzoni and Antonio Tempesta, "Il museo di
Francesco Gualdi nella Roma del Seicento: Tra raccolta privata ed esibizione pubblica,"
Bollettino d'arte 73 (1992): 1-42; Donatella L. Sparti, Le collezioni dal Pozzo: Storia di
una famiglia edelsuo museo nella Roma seicentesca (Modena: F. C. Panini,1992);Sergio
Benedetti, ed., Caravaggio e la collezione Mattei (Milan: Electa, 1995), 29-54; Bonfait
et al., Geografla del collezionismo; Elizabeth Cropper and Charles Dempsey, Nicolas
Poussin: Friendship and the Love of Painting (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1996); Luigi Spezzaferro, "Le collezioni di 'alcuni gentilhuomini particolari' e it mercato:
Appuntisu Lelio Guidiccioni e FrancescoAngeloni," in Poussin et Rome:Actesdu colloque
a l'Academie de Francea Rome eta la Bibliotheca Hertziana, 8 novembre1994, ed.
Olivier Bonfait (Paris: Reunion des musees nationaux, 1996), 241-55; Danesi Squarzina,
ed., La collezione Giustiniani;Massimiliano Rossi, "Arte della memoria, antiquaria e collezioni
fra '500 e '600," in Memoria e memorie: Convegno internazionale distudi: Roma,
18-19 maggio 1995, Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, ed. Lina Bolzoni, Vittorio Erlindo,
and Marcello Morelli (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1998), 107-32; Findlen, "Possessing the
Past"; Dora Thornton, The Scholar in His Study: Ownership and Experience in Renaissance
Italy(New Haven,CT:Yale University Press, 1998); Giuseppe Finocchiaro,Ilmuseo
di curiosity di Virgilio Spada: Una raccolta romana delSeicento (Rome: Fratelli Palombi,
1999); Francesco Solinas, ed., I segreti di un collezionista: Le straordinarie raccolte di
Cassiano dalPozzo,1588—x657 (Rome:Edizioni de Luca, 2000);Silvia Danesi Squarzina,
Caravaggio e i Giustiniani: Toccar con mano una collezione del Seicento (Milan: Electa,
2001); Natalia Gozzano, La quadreria di Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna: Prestigio nobiliare
e collezionismo nella Roma barocca (Rome: Bulzoni, 2004).
15. Castiglione, Ricordi, 159.
16. Ibid., 16o-67.
17. On this see also Giuseppe Olmi, "Science—Honour—Metaphor: Italian Cabinets
of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," in The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet
of Curiosities in Sixteenth andSeventeenth-Century Europe, ed. 0. R. Impey and Arthur
MacGregor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 5-16.
18. Paolo Cerchi, "La Piazza Universale: Somma di altre somme," in Repertori di
parole e immagini: Esperienze cinquecentesche e moderni data bases, ed. Paola Barocchi
and Lina Bolzoni (Pisa: Scuola normale superiore, 1997), 119-57.
19. Lina Bolzoni, "Memoria letteraria e iconografica nei repertori cinquecenteschi,"
in Repertori di parole e immagini: Esperienze cinquecentesche e moderni data bases, ed.
Barocchi and Bolzoni, 13-47. See also pp. 135-36.
260 :: NOTES TO PAGES 129-130
2o. Jean-Marc Chatelain, Livresd'emblemeset de devises: Uneanthologie,1531-1735
(Paris: Klincksieck, 1993);Claude Balavoine, "Des Hieroglyphica de Pierio Valeriano a1'
Iconologia' de Cesare Ripa, ou le changement du statut du signe iconique," in Repertori
di parole e immagini:Esperienze cinquecentesche e moderni data bases, ed. Barocchi and
Bolzoni, 99-117; Peter Burke, "Images as Evidence in Seventeenth-Century Europe,"
Journal of the History ofIdeas 64, no. 2 (2003): 273-96.
21. On this see also Lina Bolzoni, La stanza della memoria: Modelli letterari e iconografici
nell'eta dellastampa (Turin: Einaudi,1995),esp.chap. 6.Schnapper also insists on
the encyclopedic aspirations of many collectors,citing in support an article on cabinets of
natural history from the Encyclopedie, in which the author says that "a cabinet of natural
history is therefore a shortcut to nature in its entirety" (see Schnapper, Legiant, I0).
22. Fabio Albergati, Delcardinale(Rome: G. Facciotto,1598),186-87,emphasis mine.
The image of the scholar as an animated book is clearly taken from the recommendation
by Agostino Valier to Federico Borromeo where he says verbatim "erudite men are living
books" (libri animati sunt homines eruditi) (see Agostino Valier, "De occupationibus
diacono S.R.E cardinale dignis ad Federicum cardinalem Borromaeum (1587)," in Scriptorum
veterum nova collectio, ed. Angelo Maio (Rome: Typ. Vaticanis, 1832), 303. See
also Patricia Falguieres, La cite fictive: Les collections de cardinaux, a Rome, au XVIe
siecle (Rome: Ecole Frangaise de Rome, 1988), 326-27.
23. Rossi, "Arte della memoria," 127-28.
24. To substitute an image for the inevitable gaps in one's actual collection was a
common practice among collectors (see Schnapper, Le giant, 54). On the concept of the
"printing as translation" (stampa di traduzione) see Barocchi, "Storiografia e collezionismo
dal Vasari al Lanzi." On Cassiano dal Pozzo's paper museum see Francis Haskell, Il
Museo cartaceo di Cassiano DalPozzo: Cassiano naturalista, Quaderni puteani, (Milan:
Olivetti, 1989); Ian Jenkins and Jennifer Montagu, Cassiano dalPozzo's Paper Museum,
Quaderni puteani, 2,3 (Milan: Olivetti, 1992); Mirka Benes, The Paper Museum of Cassiano
dal Pozzo, Quaderni puteani, 4 (Milan: Olivetti, 1993); Sparti, Le collezioni dal
Pozzo; Solinas, Isegreti di un collezionista.
25. Castiglione, Ricordi, 168.
z6. Findlen, Possessing Nature, 294.
27. Cited in ibid., 293. Identical concepts can also be found in the last will and testament
of Ulisse Aldrovandi (1603) and Alfonso Donnino (1651), both of whom appear
in Findlen's work.
28. Contemporariesspoke at length about this undertaking:see the letter of Cassiano
dal Pozzo (cited in Sparti, Le collezionidalPozzo, 169-70, April 12, 1653), which among
the painters cites Lanfranchi. For the contribution of Sandart to the operation see Ferdinando
Bologna, L'incredulita del Caravaggio e l'esperienza delle "cose naturali" (Turin:
Bollati Boringhieri, 1992), 178-79; Sybille Ebert-Schifferer, "Naturalezza e `maniera
NOTES TO PAGES 130-132 :: 261
antica':Joachim von Sandart disegnatore all'Antico," in Caravaggio e i Giustiniani: Toccar
con mano una collezione del Seicento, ed. Silvia Danesi Squarzina (Milan: Electa, zoo'),
57-64; Cecilia Mazzetti di Pietralata, "Sandart e la scultura: La collezione Giustiniani
nel capitolo sulle statue antiche," in Caravaggio e i Giustiniani: Toccar con mano una
collezione del Seicento, ed. Silvia Danesi Squarzina (Milan: Electra, tool), 173-78.
29. The expression humor peccante is used here exactly in the manner Virgilio Spada
used; see ASR, Spada Veralli b. 463 c.n.n., cited in Finocchiaro, Il museo di curiosita.
Also Cassiano dal Pozzo and Michele Mercati underline the immensity of the investment
of time and money. See Giacomo Lumbroso, Notizie sulla vita di Cassiano dal Pozzo
(Turin: Paravia, 1875, 39); Alix Cooper, "The Museum and the Book: The Metallotheca
and the History of an Encyclopaedic Natural History in Early Modern Italy," Journal of
the History of Collections 7, no. 1 (1995): 6.
3o. Michele Giustiniani, Lettere memorabili, vol. 2. (Rome: Tinassi, 1667), 63.
31. Cassiano dal Pozzo, cited in Sparti, Le collezioni dal Pozzo, 17o, April 12,1653.
32. Vespasiano da Bisticci, The Vespasiano Memoirs: Lives of Illustrious Men of the
XVth Century, trans. W. G. Waters and Emily Waters (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1997), 49.
33. Cooper, "The Museum and the Book," 6; Rodolfo Amedeo Lanciani,Storia degli
scavi di Roma e notizie intorno le collezioni romanediantichita, vol. 3 (Bologna: A. Forni,
1975), 95; ASR, Giustiniani, b. 132, cc. 29-31; Lumbroso, Notiziesulla vita di Cassiano
dal Pozzo, 38.
34. Lanciani, Storia degli scavi, 95. "Dico e confesso realmente haver speso piu di
sessantamila scudi come appare per testimonij esaminati ad perpetuam rei memoriam da
Ms Ottavio Capogallo gia notaro Capitolino reposti nel mio Archivio."
35. Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Nota delli musei, librerie, gallerie et ornamenti distatve
e pitture ne' palazzi, nelle case, e ne' giardini di Roma (Rome: Apresso Biagio Deuersin
e Felice Cesaretti, 1664).
36. Gabriel Naude, Advis pour dresser une bibliotheque (Paris: Rolet le Duc, 1644),
10-II.
37. Volker Reinhardt, KardinalScipione Borghese, 1605-1633 (Tubingen: Niemeyer,
1984).
38. Georg Simmel, The Philosophy of Money (New York: Routledge, 1990).
39. Bartolome Clavero, Antidora: Antropologia catolica de la economia moderna
(Milan: Giuffre, 1991), but above all Giacomo Todeschini, II prezzo della salvezza: Lessici
medievali del pensiero economico (Rome: Nuova Italia scientifica, 1994); Giacomo
Todeschini, I mercanti e it tempio: Lasocieta cristiana e it circolo virtuoso della ricchezza
fra Medioevo ed eta moderna (Bologna: it Mulino, 2o02.).
4o. Peter Burke, The Italian Renaissance: Culture andSociety in Italy (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1999).
262 :: NOTES TO PAGES 132-134
41. Falguieres, La cite fictive, 317.
42. Vincenzo Giustiniani, Discorsi sulle arti e sui mestieri (Florence: Sansoni, 1981),
59. Emphasis is mine.
43. On Grimani, see Marilyn Perry, "Cardinal Domenico Grimani's Legacy of Ancient
Art to Venice," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 41 (1978): 215-44; on
Borromeo see Attilio Barera, L'opera scientifico letteraria del card: Federico Borromeo
(Milan:Arti Grafiche Milanesi,1931);Giorgio Nicodemi, "L'accademia di pittura,scultura
earchitettura fondata dal cardinale Federico Borromeo alla Ambrosiana," inStudiin onore
di Carlo Castiglioni (Milan: Giuffre, 1957). See also Falguieres, La citefictive, 328.
44. Lanciani, Storia degli scavi, 165. On the will of Alessandro Farnese see also Pio
Pecchiai, "La buona morte del cardinale Alessandro Farnese," Rivista di studi e di vita
romana 21, no. 3 (1943): 333-44. It is nevertheless necessary to be cautious not toconnect
too strictly the idea of "restitution" to the post-Tridentine ascetic climate, because this
sentiment was much older. Already bythe end of the fifteenth century an epigraph,desired
by Sixtus IV to solemnize the transfer into the Campidoglio of a few bronze statues from
the Lateran, declared that it was an important sign that the past greatness of the Roman
people needed to be restored to them. Additionally, Sixtus IV, in turn, did not neglect to
take up the formula of so many Roman inscriptions from the republican and imperial
periods (see Franzoni, "Urbe Roma," 308).
45. Pontano, I libri delle virtu sociali, 231.
46. Pierre de Nolhac, La bibliotheque de Fulvio Orsini: Contributionsal'histoire des
collections d'Italieeta!'etude de la Renaissance (Paris: E. Bouillon and E. Vieweg, 1887),
2.64; G. Lombardi, "Libri e istituzioni a Roma:Diffusione e organizzazione," in Roma del
Rinascimento, ed. Antonio Pinelli (Rome: Laterza, zoo'), 276-78.
47. Michel de Montaigne, Journal de voyage de Michel de Montaigne, ed. Francois
Rigolot (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1992), 112.; see also Lombardi, "Libri e
istituzioni," 272.
48. JeanJacquesBoissard,Romanae Urbis TopographiaandAntiquitates:Quasuccinte
& breviter describuntur omnia quae tam publice quam privatim videnturanimandversione
digna 3 . . . Pars Antiqvitatvm Sev Inscriptionvm & Epitaphiorum quae in saxi & marmoribus
Romanis videntur cum suis signis & imaginibus (Francoforte: Johann Theodor
de Bry, 1597); Franzoni, "Urbe Roma," 315.
49. Pontano, I libri delle virtu sociali, 232.
5o. Lanciani, Storia degli scavi, 95.
51. See pp. 4-5, 9-ii, 3o-33, and 59-61 herein.
52. Mary Douglas defines "service of identification" as participation of the public in
the rituals of consumption; without this the ritual would be without meaning; indeed, it
would not even be a ritual; see Mary Douglas and Baron C. S. Isherwood, The World of
Goods (New York: Basic Books, 1979), 81-8z.
NOTES TO PAGES T34 -I37 263
53. Ibid., 8z.
54• Fioravante Martinelli, Roma, ricercata nel suo sito e nella scuola di tutti gl' antiquarij
(Rome: Bernardino Tani, 1644); now in Cesare D'Onofrio, Roma nel Seicento
(Florence: Vallecchi, 1968), 231, 236.
55• Pompilio Totti, Ritratto di Roma moderna (Rome: Mascardi, 1638); Pompilio
Totti, Ritratto di Roma moderna (Rome: De Rossi, 1645).
56. Bellori, Nota.
57. David R. Coffin, Gardensand Gardeningin PapalRome(Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1991), 2.2.9.
58. Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco,ed., La festa barocca (Rome: Edizioni de Luca,1997);
Flavia Matiti, "La Festa come `laboratorio'del Barocco," in La festa barocca,ed. Maurizio
Fagiolo dell'Arco (Rome: Edizioni de Luca, 1997), 86-87; Carla Benocci, "Dalle donne
illustri alle belle dame," in Le belle: Ritratti di dame del Seicento e del Settecento nelle
residenze feudali del Lazio, ed. Carla Benocci and Tommaso Di Carpegna Falconieri
(Rome: Pieraldo, 2.004), 19-32.
Chapter Six
1. Vincenzo Giustiniani, Discorsisulleartiesuimestieri (Florence:Sansoni, 1981), 45. In
Rome this phenomenon was a relative novelty. For a good part of the sixteenth century,
wall decoration had consisted of frescoes or painted, worked leather, rather than collections
of paintings. See Luigi Spezzaferro, "Problemi del collezionismo a Roma nel XVII
secolo," in Geografia del collezionismo: Italia e Francia tra XVI e il XVIII secolo: Atti
delle giornate di studio dedicate a Giuliano Briganti: Roma, 19-21 settembre 1996, ed.
Olivier Bonfait et al. (Rome: Ecole francaise de Rome, 2001), 1-24.
2.. Francis Haskell, Patronsand Painters:A Study in the Relations between Italian Art
and Society in the Age of the Baroque (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 198o),
125-28.
3. Ibid., 129.
4. Cited in ibid.,I30. See also Marc Fumaroli, "Rome 1630: Entree en scene du spectateur,"
in Roma 163o: II trionfo del pennello: Villa Medici, 25 ottobre 1994-1gennaio
1995, ed. Olivier Bonfait (Milan: Electra, 1994), 53-82.
5. If Haskell maintained that an "art market" real and proper had developed in Rome
only in the second half of the seventeenth century, and that until then artists depended
strictly on the commissions of the greater merchants, more recentstudies are showing that
commerce in paintings was already very active at the beginningof the century.See Patrizia
Cavazzini, "La diffusione della pittura nella Roma di primoSeicento:Collezionisti ordinari
e mercanti," Quaderni storici 116, no. 2 (2004): 353-74.
6. Francesca Cappelletti, Decorazione e collezionismo a Roma nelSeicento: Vicende di
264 :: NOTES TO PAGES 137-140
artisti, committenti, mercanti (Rome: Gangemi, 2003); Cavazzini, "La diffusione della pittura
nella Roma diprimoSeicento:Collezionisti ordinari e mercanti";and for theeighteenth
century Paolo Coen, "Vendere e affittare quadri: Giuseppe Sardi, capomastro muratore e
mercante d'arte (Roma, XVIII sec.)," Quadernistorici116, no. 2. (2004): 421-48.
7. The four series of estimates for paintings that I have laid out have an average value
respectively of 1.09,1.37, 2.81, and 5.44 scudi for a total of 3o, 26, 36, and 43 paintings.
For other seriesof estimatesthatconfirm the low value of thegreat majorityof these works,
see Cavazzini, "La diffusione della pittura nella Roma di primo Seicento: Collezionisti
ordinari e mercanti."
8. Sforza Cesarini, s. VIII, b. 249: Giuseppe Barberi 6 scudi in January, 1z scudi in
March, 4 in May; Benedetto Guidetti 4 scudi in January, 20 in May; Giovanni di Momper
31dozen loavesof bread in April;Benedetto Guidetti 20scudiin May,Teodoro Helmbrecker
3o scudi in July;Juan Jopste 14 scudi in October and November, monsii Gasparo 7 scudi
in November; Pietro Cappella 15 loads of coal in December. Giuseppe Barberi, Benedetto
Guidetti, monsii Gasparo, and Pietro Cappella are not identified with any other artist
mentioned in Kiinstlerlexikon 1999. The other three are instead cited: Giovanni di Momper
was a painter of landscapes and ocean scenes who died in Rome after 1688. Teodoro
Helmbrecker (Dirk Helmbreker) was a genre painter, born in Haarlem in 1633 and died
in Rome in 1696; for Juan Jopste, Kfinstlerlexikon cites a Johann Jobst who died in Kassel
around 1656 who could be his father. Momper and Helmbreker were two painters whose
names appeared frequently in contemporary collections. In particular, Helmbreker was a
"bambocciante," that is, a sort of genre painter who depicted realistic images taken from
daily life, and his presence in the service of the duchess Sforza Cesarini demonstrates that
he enjoyed favor not only among the middling classes but also with the elite. On this issue
see Luigi Spezzaferro, "Per il collezionismo dei bamboccianti a Roma nelseicento:Qualche
appunto e qualche riflessione," in Da Caravaggioa Ceruti:Lascena digenere e l'immagine
dei pitocchi nella pittura italiana, ed. Francesco Porzio (Milan: Skira, 1998), 83-88.
9. On the success of copies see Gerard Labrot, "Eloge de la copie: Le marche napolitain
(1614-1764)," Annales, histoire, sciences sociales 59, no. x (2004): 7-35; Richard
Spear, "Rome," in Paintingfor Profit:TheEconomic LivesofItalian Seventeenth-Century
Painters, by Richard E. Spear and Philip Sohm (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
zoxo). The copies to which I am referring were not those unique and fragile kinds of copies,
destined to disappear, that were the foundation for Cardinal Del Monte's collection
of copies or of Cassiano dal Pozzo's paper museum, but something far more ordinary. On
Del Monte see Zygmunt Wazbinski, Il cardinale Francesco Maria del Monte:1549-1626
(Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1994); on Cassiano dal Pozzo see above, chapter 5, n. 2.4.
Io. ASR, Notai AC, vol. 2205, c. 332, 1645; ASR, Misc. Families, v.61, fasc. 6, circa
166o. Black diaspro ispietra diparagone. On the fortuneof copies in Naples in more or less
the same period, see Labrot, "Eloge de la copie: Le marche napolitain (1614-1764)."
NOTES TO PAGES 140-141 :: 265
I1. ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1474, cc. 6f., will of Camillo Moretti, 1598.
12. ASR, Notai AC, vol. 2095, C. 674, March 19, 1645.
13. Ibid., vol. 2.2.05, C. 332., 1645.
14. The average is taken from a total of 1,764 paintings (excluding the 1,778 owned
by the painter Raspantini) divided between seventy-five inventories (including also those
who did even have a single painting). The success of painting emerges also from the fact
that in some documents paintings are even listed in a block, without an indication of the
subject or the dimensions. For a consideration of the situation in the Low Countries see
Bruno Blonde, "Art and Economy in XVIIth- and XVIIIth-Century Antwerp: A View
from the Demand Side," in Economia earte, sect. XIII—XVIII, ed.Simonetta Cavaciocchi
(Florence: Le Monnier, 2.0o2), 377-92;David Freedberg and Jan de Vries, Art in History,
History in Art: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Culture (Santa Monica, CA: Getty
Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1991);John Michael Montias, Artists
and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic Study of the Seventeenth Century (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982); John Michael Montias, Le marche de l'art aux
Pays-Bas, XVe—XVIIe siecles (Paris: Flammarion, 1996).
5. Haskell, Patrons and Painters.
16. Other than the already cited works by Pomian,see also Giovanni Pozzi, La parola
dipinta (Milan: Adelphi, 1981); Giovanni Pozzi, Sull'orlo del visibile parlare (Milan:
Adelphi, 1993); Marc Fumaroli, L'ecole du silence: Le sentiment des images au XVIIe
siecle (Paris: Flammarion, 1994).
17. Alphonse Dupront, Du Sacre: Croisades et pelerinages: Images et langages (Paris:
Gallimard, 1987), 119.
18. Camillo Cybo described the decorations of his rooms as "grotesque," saying that
they inspired "a devotion but also a noble horror" (see Renata Ago, Carriere e clientele
nella Roma barocca [Rome: Laterza,1990], 76). On the role of thespectator and responses
to imagessee David Freedberg, The Power ofImages:Studies in the Historyand Theoryof
Response (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989);John K. G.Shearman, Artand the
Spectator in the Italian Renaissance (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992).
19. Those who had not even a single painting account for 33.3 percent of women's
inventories (ten out of thirty) against 26.1 percent for male inventories (twelve out of
forty-six). Limiting the field solely to the inventories that mention at least one painting,
every woman has on average twenty paintings, while, excluding the painter Raspantini
who alone possessed 1,778 images, every man had on average forty-one.
2o. Devotional images constituted 6o percent of the total works they owned.
21. Profane subjects made up 57 percent of the total for men.
22. The images of the Madonna or of female saints possessed by women numbered
at least sixty-three, equivalent to 15.5 percent of the total, against 186 for the men, or
5.9 percent.
266 :: NOTES TO PAGES 1 4 1-1 44
23. Natalie Zemon Davis, "Women on Top," in her Society and Culture in Early
Modern France (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1975), 124-51.
24. On the history of still life and genre painting in Italysee Federico Zeri, ed., Forme
e modelli (Turin: Einaudi, 1982), 35-116; Luigi Spezzaferro, "II Caravaggio, i collezionisti
romani, le nature morte," in La natura morta al tempo di Caravaggio, ed. Alberto
Cottino (Naples: Electa Napoli, 1995), 49-58; Spezzaferro, "Per it collezionismo dei
bamboccianti"; Silvia Danesi Squarzina, "Natura morta e it collezionismo a Roma nella
prima meta del Seicento: II terreno di elaborazione dei generi," Storia dell'Arte, no. 93-94
(1998): 266-91;Mina Gregori,ed., La natura morta italiana:Da CaravaggioalSettecento
(Milan: Electa, 2003).
25. On "pictures of history" see Roberto Guerrini, "Dal testo all'immagine: La `pittura
di storia' nel Rinascimento," in Memoria dell'antico nell'arte italiana, vol. 2, Igeneri e i
temi ritrovati, ed. Salvatore Settis (Turin: Einaudi, 1985), 45-154.
z6. Caterina Francescona, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 2203, cc. 160f., 1644, possession.
27. On the role of ancient portraits in Italian art see Klaus Fittschen, "Sul ruolo
del ritratto antico nell'arte italiana," in Memoria dell'antico nell'arte italiana, ed. Settis,
2:383-412. On the passion of collectors for portraits see also Osvaldo Raggio, Storia di
una passione: Cultura aristocratica e collezionismo alla fine dell'ancien regime (Venice:
Marsilio, z000).
28. Giulio Mancini, Considerazioni sulla pittura (Rome: Accademia nazionale dei
Lincei, 1956), 141-42.
29. On family portraits see the by now classic Diane Owen Hughes, "Representing
the Family: Portraits and Purposes in Early Modern Italy," Journal of Interdisciplinary
History 17, no. 1 (1986): 7-38.
3o. ASR, TN, uff. 6, Testamenti 1591-1721, cc. III, f., 1644.
31. ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1029, C. 265, 161o.
32. Ibid., b. 1474, cc. 275f., will of Marta de Rossi, 1639.
33. Isabella Cecchini, Quadri e commercio a Venezia durante it Seicento: Uno studio
sul mercato dell'arte (Venice: Marsilio, 200o), 66.
34. On the value of diverse pictorialsubjectsand on their different weights in five noble
collections see Richard Spear, "Rome."
35. Luigi Salerno, Pittori di paesaggio del Seicento a Roma, 3 vols. (Rome: Bozzi,
1977-80); Marco Chiarini, "Il Paesaggio," in Forme e modern, ed. Federico Zeri (Turin:
Einaudi, 1982), 5-34; Ann Sutherland Harris, Marcel Roethlisberger, and Kahren Jones
Arbitman, Landscape Painting in Rome, 1595-1675 (New York: R. L. Feigen, 1985);
Margaretha Rossholm Lagerlof, Ideal Landscape: Annibale Carracci, Nicolas Poussin,
and Claude Lorrain (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 199o); Helen Langdon,
"Claude and the Roman Landscape, 1630-1690," Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 73, no. 3
(2004): 130-32.
NOTES TO PAGES 4 4—1 4 8 :: 267
36. Francesco Raspantini, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 4772, cc. 32.f., January x8, 1667,
inheritance. This inventory is not the one that has been singled out by Bortolotti and,
for the part concerning paintings and drawings, published by Richard Spear in his
Domenichino (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982). Rather, this is a separate
document, put together three years later by a different notary and containing other
books and paintings. The major difference concerns the attribution of the work: in this
second inventory the paintings are practically all anonymous and only the drawings
are attributed to a specific artist (Diirer, Carracci, Tempesta). Perhaps on this second
occasion only the objects really belonging to Raspantini were mentioned, without those
that he had inherited from Domenichino, as G. B. Passeri has asserted. See Spear, Domenichino,
22, 290.
37. Donatella L.Sparti, Le collezioni dalPozzo:Storia di una famiglia e delsuo museo
nella Roma seicentesca (Modena: F. C. Panini, 1992), 107.
38. Nicola Pari, ASR, TN, uff. 5, vol. z58, cc. III, f., April 3, 1667, inheritance;
Paolo Cangiani, ASR, notai AC, vol. 4772,cc. 413f., March 20, 1667, inheritance; Pietro
Antonio Vittori, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 4772, cc. 32.4f., February 22, 1667, rent; Onofrio
Lansi, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 4473,cc. '2,6,1667, inheritance; Francesco Bava, ASR, Notai
AC, vol. z2o5, cc. 337f., 1645, inheritance.
39. They were actually quite popular in Naples: Gerard Labrot, "Un marche dynamique:
La peinture de serie a Naples 1606-1775," in Economia earte, secc. XIII—XVIII,
ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (Florence: Le Monnier, 2002), 261-79.
4o. On the history of flower paintingssee Marco Rosci, "La natura morta," in Forme
e modelli, ed. Federico Zen (Turin: Einaudi, 1982), 83-116; Gregori, La natura morta
italiana: Da Caravaggio al Settecento, 45- 49.
41. Alessio Moglia, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 2205, cc. 332f., 1645, sale. This does not
exclude the possibility that Alessio Moglia was one of those barbers who also acted as a
painting merchant (see Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters, 121).
4z. One can identify Davit with the painter David from Flanders or David Han, a
Flemish painter who lived in the palazzo of the Marquis Giustiniani and who died in
1622. On this artist see Antonino Bertolotti, Artisti belgi ed olandesi a Roma nei secola
XVI e XVII: Notizie e documenti raccolti negli archivi romani (Rome: A Forni Editore,
1974), 92, 98-100. The Kastlerlexikon 1999-2000 cites him as David de Haen, painter,
who died in Rome in 1622. For Napoletano as a painter from real life see Chiarini, "II
Paesaggio," 17. On Filippo Napoletano as a painter in the circle of Cardinal Del Monte
see also Wazbinski, II cardinale Francesco Maria del Monte:1549-1626.
43• ASR, Tribunate Criminate del Governatore, Atti di Cancelleria, b. 232, fasc. 12./7,
1628.
44• Giacomo Cagnacci, ASR, notai AC, b. 2204, CC. ,8f., 1645, sale.
45• A large quantity of portraits of family members, but above all of princes and il-
268 :: NOTES TO PAGES 149-151
lustrious men and women, were present in the playwright Giovanni Azzavedi's house (see
Spezzaferro, "Per it collezionismo dei bamboccianti," 85).
46. ASR, Santacroce, b. z86, February and March 17oz.
47. In fact,Santacroce had just received the news from the emperor of the appointment
of his son as a privy councilor.
48. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 775, conto n. 2.
49. Gabriel Naude, Advis pour dresser une bibliotheque (Paris: Rolet le Duc, 1644),
146-47.
5o. Sparti, Le collezionidalPozzo,119.The model to which Cassianodal Pozzoaspired
was clearly the Giovian Museum, in which each portrait of an illustrious figure was accompanied
by an elogium (see T. C. Price Zimmermann, Paolo Giovio: TheHistorianand
the Crisis ofSixteenth-Century Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
51. Sparti, Le collezioni dal Pozzo, 118.
52. Giovan Francesco Cusida, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 5344, cc. 934f., March 8,
162.4, inheritance; Nicola, Francesco, and Antonio Lirighetti, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 766,
cc. 484f., 1648, judicial. An analogous combining of library and portraiture of illustrious
men emerges from the inventory of G. B. Marino. See Spezzaferro, "Problemi del collezionismo
a Roma net XVII secolo," 20.
53. See the inventory of the study of Giovanni Azzavedi in Spezzaferro, "Per it collezionismo
dei bamboccianti."
54. Carla Benocciand TommasoDi Carpegna Falconieri,eds.,Le belle:Ritrattididame
del Seicento e delSettecento nelle residenze feudali del Lazio (Rome: Pieraldo, 2004).
55. Francesco Petrucci, "Ferdinand Voet e le 'belle," in Le belle, ed. Benocci and
Falconieri, 59-67.
56. The images of Genoa and Scio appeared in the salon of the second noble apartment
of the marquis, whereas that of Bassano was on the wardrobe. ASR, Notai AC,
vol. 1377, cc. 793f.
57. ASR, Notai AC, vol. 1377, CC. 793f., wardrobe.
58. The division of his goods assigned to hisson Felicecontained the "Cosmographical
Maps in Rome and in Cesi." See ASR, Misc. famiglie, b. 61.
59. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 4o.
6o. Ibid., August 31, 1672.
61. ASR, Santacroce, b. 969, October 1706.
62. Giovanni Careri, "Le lingue comuni dell'Europa dall'Umanesimo ai Lumi: Le
arti," in Storia d'Europa, ed. Maurice Aymard and Perry Anderson (Turin: Einaudi,
1995), 364.
63. Natalia Gozzano, La quadreria di Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna: Prestigio nobiliare
e collezionismo nella Roma barocca (Rome: Bulzoni, 2004), 19; Isabella Colucci, "II salotto
e le collezioni della Marchesa Boccapaduli," Quadernistorici 116 (2004): 449- 94.
NOTES TO PAGES 1 51-15 3 :: 269
According to Schnapper, "Peiresc's correspondence gives us a good example of the use of
engraved plates to make miscellaneous flowers known to a distant correspondent." See
Antoine Schnapper, Legiant, la licorne et la tulipe: Collections et collectionneurs dans la
France du XVIIe siècle (Paris: Flammarion, 1988), 56. On the use of drawing or printing
for natural illustrations see Giuseppe Olmi, L'inventario del mondo: Catalogazione della
natura e luoghi del sapere nella prima eta moderns (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1992.); David
Freedberg, "Cassiano, Ferrari, and the Drawing of the Citrus Fruit," in Citrus Fruit, ed.
David Freedberg and Enrico Baldini (London: Harvey Miller, 1997), 45-84.
64. The collection of Del Monte's copies, the paper museum of Dal Pozzo, and the
Galleria Giustiniana were born in this manner.
65. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 33, July 9, 1672..
66. Ibid., July 13, 1672..
67. ASR Cartari Febei, vol. 103, c. 24v.
68. Ibid., c. 2.5.
69. Ibid., cc. 26-2.7.
7o. Ibid., c. 41, 45, 46-
71. ASR Cartari Feberi, b. 33, August 6, 1672. In the same years Livia Sforza Cesarini
paid 6.5o scudi to a certain Arnold Vannesteraunt (the engraver van Westerhout?) as the
price for an imprecise number for "printed cards" (see ASR, Sforza Cesarini, s. VIII,
b. 249, October 1689).
72. On the production and diffusion of thistypeof productsee Brendan Dooley, "Printing
and Entrepreneurship in Seventeenth-Century Italy," Journal ofEuropean Economic
History 25, no. 3 (1996): 569-98; Brendan Dooley, "De bonne main: Les pourvoyeurs
de nouvelles a Rome au XVIIe siècle," Annales HSS 54, no. 6 (1999): 1317-44; Brendan
Dooley, "Printing Matters—TheWages of War: Battles, Prints, and Entrepreneurs in Late
Seventeenth-Century Venice," Word and Image 17, no.1 (2.001): 7-2.4.
73. ASR Spada Veralli, b. 794, July 1667, December 1667, June 1668.
74. ASR, Santacroce, b. z86.
75. Ibid., April 17oz.
76. Ibid., January 1703.
Chapter Seven
1. Margherita Betti, ASR, S. Girolamo della Carita, b. 4, cc. 92f., 1644 dowry; idem,
cc. 116f., 1653 dowry restitution; idem, cc. 157f., 1656, dowry; idem cc. 25f., 1669,
inheritance.
2. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, "Le zane della sposa: La donna fiorentina e it suo corredo
nel Rinascimento," in La famiglia e le donne nel Rinascimento (Rome: Laterza,
1988), 193-2.12.
270 :: NOTES TO PAGES 153-161
3. Betti 1644 and 1669; Cornelia Alicorna de Fabiis, ASR, TN, uff. 5, vol. 258,
cc. 34of., May 16, 1667, inheritance.
4. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 4o, f.n.n.
5. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 8o1, March 1684, in total 29.5o scudi.
6. Fynes Moryson, traveling through Italy at the end of thesixteenth century, reported
"Nunnes, more specially at Sienna, Ravena and Mantua, used to work curious flowers in
silke, which our wemen of late have worne in their heads." Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary
Written by FynesMoryson Gent... containinghis Ten Yeeres Travel!Through the Twelve
Dominions ofGermany, Bohmerland, Sweizerland, Netherland, Denmarke, Poland, Italy,
Turkey, France, England, Scotlandand Ireland (London:John Beale, 1617), 422; quoted
in Peter Thornton, The Italian Renaissance Interior, 1400-1600 (New York: Harry N.
Abrams, 1991), 26o.
7. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 22, May 25, 1634.
8. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 8o1, December 1671.
9. See the letter of October 2, 1627, cited in Donatella Livia Sparti, Le collezioni Dal
Pozzo: Storia di una famiglia e delsuo museo nella Roma seicentesca (Florence: Panini,
1998), 173.
io. Aside from Raspantini there were only seven other men who possessed fake flowers,
while not a single woman had any. On the precarious nature of marriage gifts to the
young wife see Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance
Italy, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 310-29.
II. The "egg of belsuarro" or bezoar stone,wasa concretion that formed in thestomach
of some herbivores, to which was attributed the property of working as an antidote
against poisons deriving from plants. The "great beast" was usually an elk.
12. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 4o, f.n.n.
13. Even Isabella Vecchiarelli, far and away the most fashionable of all the women
being treated here, had an Agnus Dei dressed with a silver filigree (see ASR, Santacroce,
b. 969, November 1702). Renata Ago, "Donne, doni e public relations tra le famiglie
dell'aristocrazia romana del XVII secolo," in Economia e arte, secc. XIII—XVIII, ed.
Simonetta Cavaciocchi (Florence: Le Monnier, 199o), 175-83.
14. On Roman gardens in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including the plants
that were cultivated and the arrangements that Romansadopted,see David R. Coffin, Gardens
and Gardening in Papal Rome (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).
15. Bernardo Bizoni, Europa milleseicentosei: Diario di viaggio di Bernardo Bizoni,
ed. Anna Banti (Milan: Rizzoli, 1942).
16. Vincenzo Giustiniani, Discorsisulle arti e sui mestieri (Florence: Sansoni, 1981).
17. Antoine Schnapper, Legiant, la licorne et la tulipe: Collections et collectionneurs
dans la France du XVIIe siècle (Paris: Flammarion, 1988), 42.
18. Coffin, Gardens and Gardening, io8.
NOTES TO PAGES 162-165 :: 271
19. Giacomo Lumbroso, Notizie sulla vita di Cassiano dal Pozzo (Turin: Paravia,
1875), 35; Schnapper, Le geant, 42.; on the rapport between Dal Pozzo and the Barberini
see Lorenza Mochi Onori, "Il cavalier dal Pozzo ministro dei Barberini," in Isegreti di un
collezionista: Lestraordinarie raccolte di Cassiano dal Pozzo, 1588-1657, ed. Francesco
Solinas (Rome: Edizioni de Luca, woo), 17-2.0.
2o. See Giovanni Battista Ferrari, Flora ouero cvltvra di fiori distinta in quattro libri
(Rome: Facciotti, 1638). On this treatise and the thick correspondence between Ferrari
and Dal Pozzo on citrus fruits, see David Freedberg, "Cassiano, Ferrari, and the Drawing
of the Citrus Fruit," in Citrus Fruit, ed. David Freedberg and Enrico Baldini (London:
Harvey Miller, 1997), 45-84.
21. Lumbroso, Notizie, 35-36.
22. Ibid., 63.
23. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 4o, March 3, 1681. "Simples" referred to the herbs that
comprised the basic ingredients of many medicines.
24. Ibid., March 17, 1681. In another letter he added, "Ho sentito gusto che duri
tuttavia it giardino de semplici, dal quale a tempo nuovo desidero una pianta d'Iris
Faraonis, essendomi andata male quella che dal medesimo luogo ebbi un'altra volta E. . .1
intanto la ringrazio del seme delle zucche piene, e delle meraviglie di Spagna [. . .1 Mi
sara carissimo vedere a suo tempo it libro del Trionfetti avendo genio alle piante pellegrine
delle quali mi provvidi in Firenze d'alcuni altri libri che non son cattivi." Ibid.,
December 1684.
25. As has been noted, this phenomenonwas not limited toItaly: for a recent reflection
of this issue see Anne Goldgar, "Nature as Art: The Case of the Tulip," in Merchantsand
Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe, ed. Pamela H. Smith and
Paula Findlen (New York: Routledge, 2002), 324-46.
26. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 756, 1663, accounts nn. 10, 3o, and 5o;ASR, Santacroce,
b. 747, fasc. 1, 1701, account n. 27;ASR, Sforza Cesarini, b. 249, passim (October 1689:
the acquisition of asparagus plants for Genzano's garden). Livia Sforza Cesarini kept an
account as well with the florist from whom she often bought flowers for "dinners" (ASR,
Sforza Cesarini, s. I, oval label, b. 36, 1687-99, account n. 39).
27. Carlo Cartari described the library at the palazzo Altemps as opening onto a loggia
whose ceilingwas frescoed with "air and birds." Outside every window there were vases of
plants "to make it green for thosestudying there" ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 185, c. 78;see also
Joseph Connors,"Delle biblioteche romane intornoall'Alessandrina," in Roma e lostudium
urbis:Spazio urban e cultura dalQuattroalSeicento,ed.PaoloCherubini (Rome:Ministero
per i beni culturali e ambientali, Uffico centrale per i beni archivistici, 1992), 486-97.
28. Girolamo Amatelli de Grotti, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 47_45, cc. 592f., 1665, inheritance;
Polidoro Neruzzi, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 3180, cc. 857f., 1641, inheritance.
29. ASR Spada Veralli, b. 775, account n. 21.
272. :: NOTES TO PAGES 165-166
3o. Lumbroso, Notizie, 14; Sparti, Le collezioni Dal Pozzo, 42.f.
31. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 756, 1663.
32. Ibid., b. 794, October 1667.
33. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 801, May 1672 (to evaluate the entirety of the sum, one
must also include that the young woman received from her husband a monthly allowance
of 26 scudi).
34. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 33, October 1o, 1671.
35. Giovanni Rotoli,ASR,TN,uff. 28, vol.142,cc. 5Iof., February 7,162.8, inheritance;
Francesco Raspantini, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 4772, cc. 32f.,January 18,1667, inheritance;
Alberto Battistoni, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 2205, cc. 368f., 1645, inheritance; Margherita
Betti, ASR, S. Girolamo della Carita, b. 4, cc. 25f., 1669, inheritance. On the passion
for exotic birds see also Osvaldo Raggio, Storia di una passione: Cultura aristocratica e
collezionismo alla fine dell'ancien regime (Venice: Marsilio, woo), 27, 28 and passim.
36. G. B. Masefield, "Crops and Livestock," in The Economy of Expanding Europe
in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, The Cambridge Economic History of Europe,
vol. 4, ed. E. E. Rich and Charles Wilson (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1967), 2.95-99. On the introduction of the novelty of hot drinks see Carole Shammas,
The Pre-Industrial Consumer in Englandand America (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 199o);
G. J. Barker-Benfield, The Culture of Sensibility: Sex and Society in Eighteenth-Century
Britain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992);John Brewer and Roy Porter, eds.,
Consumption and the World of Goods (New York: Routledge, 1993).
37. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 801, July and August 1674.
38. ASR, Sforza Cesarini, S. I, Oval Lael, b. 36: recordsof varioussuppliers, including
the nevarolo, from 1687 to 1699. In 1689 the payment amounted to 31.80 scudi.
39. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 794.
4o. Ibid.
41. Ibid., April 1667
42. Giustiniani in i6o6at Murano had bought "a quantity of glasses," but it is highly
probable that he was discussing refined decorative objects rather than drinking utensils
(see Bizoni, Europa milleseicentosei, 48).
43. Nicola, Francesco and Antonio, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 766, cc. 484,1648, judicial.
The friar's glasswas a type of short-stemmed glass for wine or beer. The "glass forspirits"
was a long-stemmed glass similar to a modern grappa flute.
44. Stefano Del Chenne, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 4765, cc. 3oof., May z8, 1665,
inheritance.
45. Thesame Giustiniani who in i6o6 bought a "quantityofglasses" in Murano, in his
1634 inventory did not even have a single glass (see Bizoni, Europa milleseicentosei, 48).
46. Antonio Adami, Il nouitiato del maestro di casa (Rome: Per Tomaso Coligni,
1657), 165-66.
NOTES TO PAGES 166-169 :: 273
47. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 794, April 1667.
48. Neruzzi, 1641; Betti, 1656.
49• ASR, Spada b. 775, account n. 2.
5o. Ibid., account n. 16.
51. ASR, Spada Veralli,b. 794, April 1667. Livia Sforza Cesarini's account book also
includes an expenditure of 3.6o scudi "for chocolate" (see ASR, Sforza Cesarini, b. 2.49,
April 1689).
52. Del Chenne, 1665; Lirighetti, 1648.
53. ASR, Santacroce, b. 969, October £701.
54• Ibid., September 1701, September 1702, December 17o2.
55. ASR Santacroce, b. 747, fasc. I,June 17oz; idem, fasc. 3, December 1703; idem,
b. z86, fasc. 1, October 17o2, idem, b. 747, fasc. 1, October 17oz, April 17oz.
56. ASR, Santacroce, b. 544, fasc 1., passim, November 1706, August 1706, February
1706.
57. Ibid., December 1706, March 1707, May 1707. The cuccumo was a sort of jug
that is thicker on the bottom than the top.
58. ASR, Santacroce, b. Iizz, fasc. z.
59. ASR, Santacroce, b. z86,fasc.1.The pan dizucchero style wasa glass in theshape
of a squat cone with the bottom ending in a rounded point.
6o. It is however possible that this absence has simply been caused by a documentary
gap, and the missing crystals may have ended up in a separate inventory.
61. ASR, Santacroce, b. 544, April 1707.
6z. ASR, Cartari Febei, B. 4o.
63. On average 2.4.2. silver objects per man and 12.6 per woman.
64. Vittoria Patrizi Spada, who perhaps had these in her trousseau, during the first
months of her married life bought a "flatware set" including a knife (see ASR, Spada
Veralli, b. 801, September 1668).
65. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 817, C. 7.
66. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 4o.
67. ASR, Santacroce, b. 969, February and December 1793, January 1704, December
1706, September 1707. On other similar occasions she gave instead a pearl charm
(December 1701), a silver cup (June 1702), a chest of drawers (March 1703), or a pair
of sleeves (July 1704).
68. On the weapons used by the artisans who had to guarantee the safety of the city
gates see Eleonora Canepari,Stare in "compagnia":Strategie di inurbarnento e formeassociative
nella Roma del Seicento (Rubbettino: Soveria Mannelli, 2007), 107.
69. Natalia Gozzano, La quadreria di Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna: Prestigio nobiliare
e collezionismo nella Roma barocca (Rome: Bulzoni, 2004), 100-101.
7o. ASR, Santacroce, b. 969, March 1702..
I
71. For the other owners we do not know whether they had music books of this type
because they did not leave inventories of their libraries.
72. AC, AGU, sex. I, vol. 93, cc. 408f., February 19, 1626.
73. Similarly, the vermicellaro Tinelli owned various pasta-making instruments; the
embroiderer Bronconi owned fifteen embroidery looms; the merchant Lirighetti had various
implements forspinning;and the blacksmith Giunti had horse and muleshoes, anvils,
hammers, bellows, and other tools of the trade (see the respective inventories).
74. The "manna from Saint Nicola" was a liquid that dripped from the sarcophagus
of the saint into the Cathedral of Bari and came to be collected in precious painted
bottles.
75. Lucrezia Marinella, Le nobilta, eteccellenze delle donne, et idiffetti, emancamenti
de gli huomini: Discorso (Venice: Giouan Battista Giotti senese, 600).
76. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 8o1, May 1668, August 1669, September 167o, July
1672.
77. Ibid., January 1671, April 1672, June 1672, August 1674.
78. ASR, Santacroce, b. 969, March 1704, April 1704, April 1707.
79. ASR, Santacroce, b. 544•
80. Marinella, Le nobilta.
81. Nicola Salvati, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 945, cc. 573f., March 16, 1700, inheritance.
8z. ASR, TN, uff. 28, Testamenti, vol. z, c. 821, 1602.
83. For the jewelry of Vecchiarelli Santacroce see ASR, Santacroce, b. 968, f.n.n.
84. Giuseppe Gatti, Statuti dei mercanti di Roma (Rome: Tipografia della pace di
F. Cuggiani, 1885), 108-10; ASR Congregazione economica 1708, b. 28, fasc. 107.
85. Ibid., fasc. 112.
86. Ibid., fasc. 132; Adami, Ii nouitiato del maestro di casa, 175.
87. ASR, Santacroce, b. 86, c. 74v.
88. Ibid., c. 8ov.
89. Ibid.
9o. Ibid.
91. See above, n. 42; A Griffo, "Il viaggio di formazione di un giovane nobile nel
Settecento: Il caso di Filippo Orsini" (Tesi di Laurea, University "La Sapienza" di Roma,
20.04).
92. Adami,11nouitiato del maestro di casa, 76.
93. Ibid., 77.
94. Thereare nowmany differentstudiesof the channelsof correspondents and friends
that made the formation of many collections possible. Among the classic studies are
Schnapper, Legiant; Giuseppe Olmi, "`Molti amici in vari luoghi': Studio della natura e
rapporti epistolari nel secolo XVI," Nuncius 6, no. I (1991): 3-31; and the most recent
is Pamela H. Smith and Paula Findlen, eds., Merchantsand Marvels: Commerce, Science,
2.74 :: NOTES TO PAGES 170-174
Ifs
NOTES TO PAGES 175-184 :: 2.75
and Art in Early Modern Europe (NewYork: Routledge, 2002.). See in particular Findlen's
article in this last collection, pp. 2.47-323.
95• ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 33, March 3, 1681.
96. Ibid., March 17, 1681. The book in question was by the Jesuit naturalist Filippo
Buonanni, Ricreazione dell'occhio e della mente nell'osservazione delle chiocciole (Rome,
i681).
97. Ibid., December 30, 1684.
98. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 784, cc. 59f., "Spese dal1 febbraio 1649," July 13, 1649,
2.5, 3o scudi to reimburse the expense of Abbot Merozzi; ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 1002,
1659.
99• ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 1002, 1659; idem, 1660, 1661.
100. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 801, September 1671; idem, November 1671; idem, July
and November 1672.
Ioi. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 794, July 1667.
102. Ibid., November 1667.
103. For a detailed analysis of this role of intermediary carried out by friends and
acquaintances, in a manner that at times became nearly professional,see Vittoria Orlandi
Balzari, "Alessandro Verri antiquario in Roma," Quaderni storici 116, no. 2. (2004):
495- 528 •
104. ASR, Santacroce, b. 698, fasc. 1, respectively: December 1702., February 1703,
August 1704, March 1703, August 1704, January 1705, March 1706, January 1706,
March 1706, March1706, September 1705, October 1703, November 1704,June 1705,
April 1706. Tabinet is silk and worsted fabric with a moire finish. Thanks to Lydia Cochrane
for this information (PF).
105. See the letter from 2 October 1627 cited in Sparti, Le collezioni Dal Pozzo, 173;
ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 801, passim. The documents mention Monsii Claudio Mellun,
Francesco Gasparini, Settimio Restagna, Francesco Liberti and Monsa Rubiaglio.
106. ASR, Santacroce, b. 698, fasc. 2, passim. The documents mention Monsii Giacomo,Bonelli
merchant,Ferrari merchant,Monsii Profeta e Bevilard, Gammorra merchant
e Medoro merchant.
Chapter Eight
1. The difficulty in effecting this calculation for Italy has been noted, but at the end of
the sixteenth century in Venice, which was not just any big city but the seat of the most
important printing industry in Europe, the literacy rate was, for example, about 33 percent
for men and 13 percent for women. See Peter Burke, "The Uses of Literacy in Early
Modern Italy," in his The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1987), 110-31; Marino Zorzi, "La circolazione del libro
a Venezia nel Cinquecento: Biblioteche private e pubbliche," Ateneo veneto 28 (1990):
117-89; Paul Grendler, "Form and Function in Italian Renaissance Popular Books,"
Renaissance Quarterly 46 (1993): 451-85.
2. On libraries,collections of books, and reading practicessee Armando Petrucci,ed.,
Libri, editori e pubblico nell'Europa moderna: Guida storica e critica (Rome: Laterza,
1977);Armando Petrucci, ed., Libri,scrittura e pubblico nelRinascimento:Guidastorica
e critica (Rome: Laterza, 1979); Armando Petrucci, ed., Scrittura e popolo nella Roma
barocca:1585-1721(Rome: Quasar,1979);Christian Bec, LeslivresdesFlorentins(1413-
16°8) (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1984);Roger Chartier, The Cultural UsesofPrintin Early
Modern France (Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press,1987);Roger Chartier, Lectures
etlecteurs dansla France d'Ancien Regime (Paris: Editions du Seuil,1987);Roger Chartier,
The Order of Books (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994); Roger Chartier, ed., Histoires de
la lecture: Un bilan de recherches (Paris: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme,
1995); Daniel Roche, The People ofParis:An Essay in Popular Culture in the Eighteenth
Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Daniel Roche, La cultura dei
lumi: Letterati, libri, biblioteche nel XVIIIsecolo (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1992); Zorzi, "La
circolazione del libro a Venezia nel Cinquecento: Biblioteche private e pubbliche"; Simonetta
Cavaciocchi, Produzione e commercio della carta e dellibrosect. XIII—XVIII(Florence:
Le Monnier, 1992); Roger Chartier and Alain Paire, Pratiques de la lecture (Paris:
Payot,1993);Henri-Jean Martin, Print, Power,andPeopleinSeventeenth-CenturyFrance
(Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1993); Marc Baratin and Christian Jacob, Le pouvoir
des bibliotheques: La memoire des livres en Occident (Paris: A. Michel, 1996); Frederic
Barbier, SabineJuratic, and Dominique Varry, L'Europe et le livre: Reseaux et pratiques
du negoce de librairie, XVle—X/Xesiecles (Paris: Klincksieck, 1996); Roger Chartier and
Guglielmo Cavallo, A History of Reading in the West, trans. Lydia Cochrane (Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press, 1999); Michel Marion, Collections et collectionneurs
de livresau XVillesiecle:1598—I7or (Geneva: Droz, 1999); Brian Richardson, Printing,
Writers, and Readers in Renaissance Italy (NewYork:Cambridge University Press, 1999);
Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, The Coming ofthe Book: The Impact ofPrinting,
1450-1800 (New York: Verso, 2000); Giuseppe Lombardi, "Libri e istituzioni a Roma:
Diffusione e organizzazione," in Roma del Rinascimento, ed. Antonio Pinelli (Rome: Laterza,
zooi), 267-90;Xenia von Tippelskirch, "Sottocontrollo:Letture femminili all'inizio
dell'Epoca moderna in Italia" (PhD diss., European University Institute, 2003).
3. ASR, TN uff. 5, vol. 258, c. 34o, 1667; Margherita Betti, ASR, S. Girolamo della
Carita, b. 4,cc.92f.,1644,dowry. Margherita Betti wasalso the onlywoman who owned
an inkwell.
4. On female readers see Federica Ambrosini, "Libri e lettrici in terra veneta nel
sec.XVI: Echi erasmiani e inclinazioni eterodosse," in Erasmo, Venezia e la cultura padana
nel '500, ed. Achille Olivieri (Rovigo: Minelliana, 1995), 75-86; Tippelskirch, "Sotto
2.76 :: NOTES TO PAGES 184-187 NOTES TO PAGES 187-188 :: 277
controllo"; Giuseppe Lombardi, Roma donne libri tra Medioevo e Rinascimento: In
ricordo di Pino Lombardi (Rome: Roma nel Rinascimento, 2004).
5. Dorotea Antolini's library must have been very full if it took twelve bookcases to
contain it. In comparison Azzavedi, who was a scholar by profession, only needed five
bookcases to contain his whole library.
6. ASR, S. Girolamo della Carita, b. 4, cc. 185f.
7. Cited in Luigi Spezzaferro, "Per il collezionismo dei bamboccianti a Roma nel
seicento: Qualche appunto e qualche riflessione," in Da Caravaggio a Ceruti: La scena
di genere e l'immagine dei pitocchi nella pittura italiana, ed. Francesco Porzio (Milan:
Skira, 1998), 85.
44,._8. Gabriel Naude, Advis pour dresser une bibliotheque (Paris: Rolet le Duc, 1
9. Joseph Connors, "Delle biblioteche romane intorno all'Alessandrina," in Roma e
lo studium urbis: Spazio urbano e cultura dal Quattro al Seicento, ed. Paolo Cherubini
(Rome: Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, Uffico centrale per i beni archivistici,
1992), 486-97.
Io. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barberiniani latini, n. 436o, cited in Donatella
Livia Sparti, Le collezioni Dal Pozzo:Storia di una famiglia e del suo mused nella Roma
seicentesca (Florence: Panini, 1998), 80.
it. Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Nota delli musei, librerie, gallerie et ornamenti di statue
e pitture ne' palazzi, nelle case, e ne' giardini di Roma (Rome: Apresso Biagio Deuersin
e Felice Cesaretti, 1664).
12.. ASR, Santacroce b. Iz6o, fasc. 8, G. V. Gravina, "Regolamento di studi," 5-6.
13. Ibid., 21-22..
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., 26f.
16. ASR,Santacroce, b. 969, August 1702;In September she bought "il Torsellino" (a
book of histories from all over the world) and another book, in February 1703 "various
devotional books," in March 1703 "4 breviaries printed in Cologne with a cover of red
worked leather and golden thread."
17. Ibid., September 17o2.
18. ASR, Misc. Families, b. 61, fasc. 6.
19. Ibid., fasc. 1, fasc. 5.
20. Ibid., fasc. 2..
2.1. Bellori, Nota.
22. Polidoro Neruzzi, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 3180, cc. 857f., 1641, hereditary.
23. Renata Ago, Carriere e clientele nella Roma barocca (Rome: Laterza, 199o).
24. The books on legal subjects numbered 138.
25. Felice, Giovanni, and Cristoforo Contelori, ASR, Misc. Famiglie, fasc. 6, c. 2,
1617, division.
2.78 :: NOTES TO PAGES 188-190
26. In reality there were other books that were probably not legal texts. However, for
about fifteen books it is impossible to establish their subject matter.
2.7. Letter collections to be used as a model for one's own correspondence were a
rather popular genre: the Libraria by Anton Francesco Doni,in the middle of the sixteenth
century, included at least eighteen editions in just a few years (see Amedeo Quondam,
"La letteratura in tipografia," in Letteratura italiana [Turin: Einaudi, 1983], 627-28).
See also Amedeo Quondam, Le "Carte messaggiere": Retorica e modelli di comunicazione
epistolare per un indite dei libri di lettere del Cinquecento (Rome: Bulzoni, 1981);
Gigliola Fragnito, "Per lo studio dell'epistolografia volgare del Cinquecento: Le lettere
di Ludovico Beccadelli," Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 43 (1981): 61-87;
Roger Chartier, "Secretaires per il popolo? I modelli epistolari dell'Antico regime tra
letteratura di corte e libro di colportage," in Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica
(1988): 59-1oz.
28. Paolo Cerchi, "La Piazza Universale: Somma di altre somme," in Repertori di
parole e immagini: Esperienze cinquecentesche e moderni data bases, ed. Paola Barocchi
and Lina Bolzoni (Pisa: Scuola normale superiore, 1997), 122.
29. On thesuccess of verse collections and on the role of editors in this type of literary
production (between 1526 and 1600 there were published at least thirty of these collections)
see Quondam, "La letteratura in tipografia," 679.
3o. See Jacqueline Hamesse, "The Scholastic Model of Reading," in A History of
Reading in the West, ed. Roger Chartier and Guglielmo Cavallo (Amherst: University
of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 103-19; see also Charles Schmitt, "Auctoritates, Repertorium,
Dicta, Sententia, Flores, Thesaurus and Axiomata: Latin Aristotelian florilegia
in the Renaissance," in Aristoteles Werk and Wirkung: Kommentierung, Uberlieferung,
Nachleben, ed. Jurgen Wiesner (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1987), 515-37.
31. Cited in Hamesse, "The Scholastic Model of Reading," 109.
32.. Ibid., 118.
33. Ibid.; Anthony Grafton, Commerce with the Classics: Ancient Books and Renaissance
Readers (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997); Anthony Grafton,
"The Humanist as Reader," in A History of Reading in the West, ed. Roger Chartier
and Guglielmo Cavallo (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 179-213.
Grafton insists on the continuity between the humanistic and scholastic styles of
reading.
34. Hamesse, "The Scholastic Model of Reading," 111. See also Ann Blair, "Reading
Strategies for Coping with Information Overload ca. 1550-170o," Journal of the
History of Ideas 64 (2003): ii-28; Ann Blair, "Bibliotheques portables: Les recueils
de lieux communs dans la Renaissance tardive," in Le pouvoir des bibliotheques: La
memoire des livres en Occident, ed. Marc Baratin and Christian Jacob (Paris: A. Michel,
1996), 84-106.
NOTES TO PAGES 191-I92 279
35. Naude, Advis pour dresser une bibliotheque, 62: "Et pour moy je tiens ces collections
pour grandement utiles et necessaries, eu esgard de la briefvete de notre vie et la
multitude des choses qu'il faut aujourd'huy scavoir ne nous permettent pas de pouvoir
tout faire de nous mesme."
36. Ibid., 6o-61: "Il ne faut aussi oublier toutessortes de lieux communs, dictionnaires,
meslanges, diverses lecons, recueils desentences, et telles autressortes de repertoires, parce
que c'est autant de chemin fait et de matiere preparee pour ceux qui ont l'industrie d'en
user avec advantage, estant certain qu'il y en a beaucoup qui font merveille de parler et
d'escrire sans qu'ils ayent guere veu d'autres volumes que ces mentionnes."
37. Ann Moss, Printed Commonplace-Books and the Structuring of Renaissance
Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 178-79; see also the introduction
from Chartier and Cavallo, A History of Reading in the West, 1-36.
38. Gigliola Fragnito, ed., Church, Censorship, and Culture in Early Modern Italy
(New York: Cambridge University Press, zoo').
39. Ann Blair has shown how the Universae naturae theatrum by Jean Bodin (1596)
was built upon a collection of commonplaces (see Blair, "Bibliotheques portables").
4o. The first work dealt with the work byJuan Gonzales de Mendoza, who was Philip
II's ambassador to China, the summary of miracles were by the Milanese Jesuit Paolo
Morigia, and the tract about the Moors was by Damiano de Fonesca.
41. Cerchi, "La Piazza Universale," 126. Lo Specchio della scienza universale (1564)
was another of Fioravanti's popular encyclopedias.
42.. On this characteristic of libraries from the ancien regime see Marion, Collections et
collectionneurs, 164; Amedeo Quondam, "Il barocco e la letteratura:Genealogie del mito
della decadenza italiana," in I capricci di Proteo: Percorsi e linguaggi del Barocco, atti del
convegno internazionale di Lecce, 23-26 ottobre 2000 (Rome: Bulzoni, zooz), 119.
43. Quondam, "Il barocco e la letteratura," 174-75.
44. Lina Bolzoni, "Memoria letteraria e iconografica nei repertori cinquecenteschi,"
in Repertori di parole e immagini: Esperienze cinquecentesche e moderni data bases, ed.
Paola Barocchi and Lina Bolzoni (Pisa: Scuola normale superiore, 1997), 22.
45• Lina Bolzoni, La stanza della memoria: Modelli letterari e iconografici dell'eta della
stampa (Turin: Einaudi, 1995), 61.
46. On the primacy of Venetian publishing during the first twenty-five years of the
seventeenth century, and on the development of Roman publishing, see Quondam, "La
letteratura in tipografia"; Amedeo Quondam, "`Mercanzia d'onore,"mercanzia d'utiles':
Produzione libraria e lavoro intellettuale a Venezia nel Cinquecento," in Libri, editori e
pubblico nell'Europa moderna: Guida storica e critica, ed. Armando Petrucci (Rome: Laterza,
1977); Mario lnfelise, "La librairie italienne (XVIIe-XVIIIe siecles)," in L'Europe
et le livre: Reseaux et pratiques du negoce de librairie, XVIe-XIXe siecles, ed. Frederic
Barbier, Sabine Juratic, and Dominique Varry (Paris: Klincksieck, 1996), 81-97;Richard-
2.80 :: NOTES TO PAGES 191-194
son, Printing; Ugo Rozzo, ed., La lettera e it torchio: Studi sulla produzione libraria tra
XVI e XVIII secolo (Udine: Forum, zoos).
47. Francesco Negrelli, ASR, TN, uff. z8, vol. 142, cc. 71f., January 5, 1628,
hereditary.
48. Nicola Pari, ASR, TN, uff. 5, vol. 258, cc. 'If., April 3, 1667, hereditary; Paolo
Cangiani, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 4772, cc. 413f., March zo, 1667, hereditary; Francesco
Raspantini, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 4472, cc. 3zf., January 78,1667, hereditary.
49. These percentages are completely comparable with the French statistics reconstructed
by Daniel Roche for more or less the same period (see Roche, La cultura dei lumi,
16f.). The same results appear in Marion, Collections et collectionneurs, 135: out of a
field of 586 library catalogs at the beginning of the eighteenth century, theological works
accounted for 15 percent of the total.
5o. For a comparison with the typology of works collected in similar French libraries
see Henri-Jean Martin, Livre, pouvoirs et societe a Paris au XVIIe siecle (1598-1701)
(Geneva: Droz, 1969).
51. It is perhaps worthwhile to remember that Negrelli owned seven volumes of letters
and one of "compliments"; even Bernini had in his house at least four volumes of
letters. See Sarah McPhee, "Bernini's Books," Burlington Magazine 142 (2000): 442-48;
Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco, L'immaginealpotere: Vita di Giovan Lorenzo Bernini (Rome:
Laterza, zoo'), 377-81.
52. Quondam, "La letteratura in tipografia," 677.
53. Bolzoni, La stanza della memoria, 57.
54. Antonio Francesco Doni, La libraria di Anton Francesco Doni: Divisa in tre trattati,
ed. Vanni Bramanti (Milan: Longanesi, 1972), cited in Quondam, "La letteratura
in tipografia," 62.3. The same holds true for Orazio Toscanella (see Bolzoni, La stanza
della memoria, 63).
55. Bolzoni, "Memoria letteraria," 22..
56. On these see Bolzoni, La stanza della memoria and in particular chapter 6.
57. Doni, La libraria, cited in Quondam, "La letteratura in tipografia," 63o.
58. Cerchi, "La Piazza Universale," izi.
59. Diego Perez de Valdivia, Annotazioni intorno alla vita, e morte della serenissima
donna Maria principessa di Parma (Florence: Giunta, 1593), cited in Xenia von
Tippelskirch, "'Con la lettura di questa santa operina attendera ad infiammare se medesima':
Annotazioni alla Vita di maria di Portogallo, principessa di Parma e Piacenza
(1538-1577)," Mélanges de l'Ecole Francaise de Rome-Italie et Mediterranie 113, no.
(zoos): 25o.
6o. Claude Balavoine, "Des Hieroglyphica de Pierio Valeriano a l'Iconologia de Cesare
Ripa ou le changement du statut du signe iconique," in Repertori di parole e immagini:
Esperienze cinquecentesche e moderni data bases, ed. Barocchi and Bolzoni, 99-117;
NOTES TO PAGES 194-198 :: 281
M. P. Paoli, "La donna e it melograno: Biografie di Matilde di Canossa," Mélanges de
l'Ecole Francaise de Rome-Italie et Mediterranee 113, no. i (zooi): 173-215.
61. On reading "for action" see Lisa Jardine and Anthony Grafton, "'Studied for Action':
How Gabriel Harvey Read His Livy," Past and Present 129, no. 1 (1990): 30-78;
Kevin Sharpe, Reading Revolutions: The Politics of Reading in Early Modern England
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, z000).
6z. He also owned the History of the Wars of Ferdinand II.
63. He owned two volumes of the Book of the History of the World by Giovanni
Tarcagnota, another two added by Mambrino Roseo, as well as a Universal History on
the Origins of the Turks by Francesco Sansovino.
64. The commentary was by the humanist and professor of eloquence Marco Antonio
Maioragio.
65. The first work was by the Portuguese Dominican Andre Resende. Deartisgymasticae
was by the illustrious doctor Girolamo Mercuriale, and Lo stabulo dell'agricoltura
e l'Economia del cittadino in villa was by Vincenzo Tanara.
66. The term "Giovian" is used because it was Paolo Giovio who first produced portraits
of illustrious men accompanied by epigrams that exalted their lives and their talents
(virtu) in the mid-sixteenth century.
67. Balavoine, "Des Hieroglyphica," 80.
68. Ibid., 88f.,Jean-Marc Chatelain, Livres d'emblemes et de devises: Uneanthologie,
1531-1735 (Paris: Klincksieck, 1993).
69. Quondam, "La letteratura in tipografia."
7o. On the spread of prose narrative, both ancient and modern, see Martin, Livre,
2.92-93.
71. As for the other books, he had a Plutarch that was translated and abridged by
Giovan Bernardo Gualandi, a Historia sacra della Guerra di Gerusalemme by Guglielmo
di Tiro, and finally the work Nautica mediterranea by Bartolomeo Crescenzio.
72. Albert N. Mancini, II romanzo nel Seicento: Saggio di bibliografia, parte prima
(Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1970).
73. See Giovanni Maria Versari's preface to his Cavaliere d'honore (Velletrri, 1673),
cited in Lucinda Spera, "Un consuntivo tardo-secentescosul romanzo (Gio Maria Versari
e II cavaliere d'honore)," Studi secenteschi 35 (1994): 145-65; see also Quinto Marini,
"La prosa narrativa," in Storia della letteratura italiana, vol. 5, La Fine del cinquecento
e it seicento, ed. Enrico Malato (Rome: Salerno, 1997), 102.3.
74. Mancini, II romanzo nel Seicento.
75. On the Giustiniani libraryseealso Irene Baldriga,"La personality di Vincenzo Giustiniani
nellospecchio della sua biblioteca," in Caravaggio e i Giustiniani:Toccar con mano
una collezione del Seicento, ed. Silvia Danesi Squarzina (Milan: Electa, zooI), 73-80.
76. Cangiani and Raspantini were not the only ones who owned "useful" books: in
282 :: NOTES TO PAGES 198-204
addition to the jurists, Ippolito Giunti had books used for his profession, that is, "books
on the blacksmith's art" (see Ippolito Giunti, ASR, Notai AC, vol. 2095, cc. 139f., 1645,
inheritance).
77. Baldriga, "La personality di Vincenzo Giustiniani."
78. On censorship in Italy see Antonio RotondO, "Editoria e censura," in La Stampa
in Italia nel Cinquecento, ed. Marco Santoro (Rome: Bulzoni, 1992); Antonio Rotondo,
"La censura ecclesiastica e la cultura," in Storia d'Italia, vol. 2., I documenti, ed. Ruggiero
Romano and Corrado Vivanti (Turin: Einaudi, 1973), 1397-492; Mario Infelise, I
libri proibiti: Da Gutenberg all'Encyclopedie (Rome: Laterza, 1999); Fragnito, Church,
Censorship, and Culture in Early Modern Italy.
79. Gigliola Fragnito, "The Central and Peripheral Organization of Censorship," in
Church, Censorship, and Culture, ed. Fragnito, 13-49.
80. McPhee, "Bernini'sBooks." On the importanceof this issuesee Fragnito, La Bibbia
al rogo:La censura ecclesiastica e i volgarizzamenti della Scrittura:1471-1605 (Bologna:
Il Mulino, 1997).
81. The complete title was The Bible/that is the books (written in much smaller
letters)/of the Old (in large letters again)/and the New/Testament.
82. Edoardo Barbieri, Le Bibbie italiane del Quattrocento edel Cinquecento:Storia e
bibliografia ragionata delle edizioni in lingua italiana dal 1471 al 1600 (Milan: Editrice
bibliografica, 1992).
83. Ibid.
84. McPhee, "Bernini's Books."
85. Fragnito, La Bibbia al rogo.
86. Whoever put together this inventory mentioned a "book of various instruments
and sententiae by Marino di Basilio Raspantini di Assisi." A relative of the painter must
have therefore been a notaryor perhaps a jurist. This would explain also the dozen works
on civil procedure present in his library and the seven tomes of "acts and information."
Raspantini himself could have been interested in Paolo Leonio's tract on thefedecommesso
substitutions, or in Andrea Tiraqueau's work on donations, or even in Pietro Rebuffi's
Praxis beneficiorum utilissima acquirendi, conservandique illa, acamittendi modos commitens,
usumque &stylum literarum Curiae Romanae.
87. ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1474, c. 6, 1597. Probably he is referring to the Theatrum
orbis terrarum by Abraham Ortelius.
88. Ibid., c. 201, 1624.
89. ASR, TN, uff. 28, vol. 142, c. 61, 1628.
9o. McPhee, "Bernini's Books," 443•
91. On books given as gifts see Natalie Zemon Davis, "Beyond the Market: Books
as Gifts in Sixteenth-Century France," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 33
(1983): 69-88; on those loaned out and the spread of this phenomenon see Brendan
NOTES TO PAGES 204-206 :: 283
Maurice Dooley,Morandi's Last Prophecyand the EndofRenaissance politics (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002) and in particular chapter five.
92. Naude, Advis pour dresser une bibliotheque, 131-32.
93. I have excluded from thisanalysis legal books, asI consider these to be largely texts
for consultation rather than reading.
94. On the relationship between the work, its format, and reading see the famous letter
by Machiavelli; Niccolo Machiavelli, Lettere, ed. Franco Gaeta (Turin: UTET, 1984),
42.5-26, which is also cited in Grafton, "The Humanist as Reader," 179-80.
95• The only library inventory accompanied by appraisals that have been found was
that of a doctor who died in 1744 and who is therefore outside of the chronological limits
of my research:see ASR, TN, uff. 19, vol. 558,cc. 519f.The doctors' books in this library,
however, had a value that varied between ten and twenty baiocchi. Yet this source says
nothing on the size or the bindings of these works, which obviously indicates much about
the price of a volume.
96. See also Gian Ludovico Masetti Zannini,Stampatori e libraia Roma nella seconda
meta del Cinquecento: Documenti inediti (Rome: Fratelli Palombi, 1980).
97. On the importance of the format of a book and itsaffect on the practice of reading
see Grendler, "Form and Function"; Grafton, "The Humanist as Reader";Tippelskirch,
Sotto controllo.
98. See Jardine and Grafton, "Studied for Action"; Sharpe, Reading Revolutions.
99. Sharpe, Reading Revolutions.
ioo. Ibid.; Moss, Printed Commonplace-Books.
101. ASR, Santacroce, b. 969, December 1707.
102.. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 775, account n. 2, 1681.
103. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 4o, August 31, 1672.
104. ASR, Spada Veralli, b. 775, conto n. 16, 1682.
105. The meticulousness of Orazio Spada is quite peculiar and very pleasing to modern
scholars. However, analogous cases, even if they kept their records in a more chaotic
manner, can be found easily among the records of Federico and Livia Sforza Cesarini and
Antonio Santacroce (see for example ASR, Sforza Cesarini, etichetta ovale,s. I, b. 36, account
n. 41, 1687; ASR Santacroce, b. 747, fasc 3, account n. 55, 1703).
106. On the importance of the archive for family identitysee Maura Piccialuti Caprioli,
L'immortalita dei beni: Fedecommessi e primogeniture a Roma nei secoli XVII e XVIII
(Rome: Viella, 1999).
107. ASR, Misc. Famiglie, b. 61.
108. ASR, S. Giacomo degli incurabili, b. 172, fasc. io.
109. ASR, Cartari Febei, b. 22, November 8, 1633. See pp. 2.2-24.
110. On commercial production of paper see Cavaciocchi, Produzione e commercio
della carta e del libro secc. XIII-XVIII.
2.84 :: NOTES TO PAGES 206-211
See ASR, Santacroce, b. 286, May 1703.
112. Inseventeenth-century Paris, incontrast,private writings began to be widespread.
See Roche, The People of Paris:An Essay in Popular Culture in the Eighteenth Century,
207-9.
113. Itwould be valid tosay that all of this waswillingly left outside of the inventoryas
it pertained to the professional life of the twolawyersand not to their private patrimonies.
Butas wellas beinganachronistic this hypothesis denies the fact that the books were in fact
recorded in their inventories. The more likely explanation is therefore that the inventory
was interrupted because recording all the papers in the study would have been too time
consuming, expensive, and of little use to their heirs.
114. ASR, TN, uff. 23, cc. 818f., August 8, 1627.
115. For Raspantini, for example, not a single known painting remains. See Richard
E. Spear, Domenichino (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982).
Conclusion
i. Melanie Tebbutt, Making Ends Meet: Pawnbrokingand Working-Class Credit (New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1983); Daniel Roche, The People of Paris: An Essay in Popular
Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987);
Renata Ago, Economia barocca: Mercato e istituzioni nella Roma del Seicento (Rome:
Donzelli, 1998).
2. Pietro Aretino, Ragionamento:dialogo (Milan: Garzanti, 1984).
3. Ago, Economia barocca.
4. From a census of 1656, which was limited only to the rione of Campo Marzio, it
emerges that out of nearly one hundred painters surveyed, about half were classified as
"comfortable," that is to say, well off. See Richard Spear, "Rome," in Paintingfor Profit:
The Economic Lives of Italian Seventeenth-Century Painters, by Richard E. Spear and
Philiop Sohm (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010).
5. Their membership in a distinct class is indicated also by the fact that the honorific
titles they adopted in public acts were very similar to one another: "illustrious and most
excellent" for lawyers, "illustrious" for successful merchants, "knight" for established
artists, and so on.
6. The importance of thisconnection had already been recognized by Max Weber, who
constructed the notion of a class based on lifestyle rather than other different and more
"objective" parameters (see Max Weber, EconomyandSociety:An Outline ofInterpretive
Sociology [New York: Bedminster Press, 1968]).
7. Antoine Schnapper, Le giant, la licorne et la tulipe: Collections et collectionneurs
dansla France du XVIlesiecle(Paris: Flammarion,1988);JuliusSchlosser, Raccolted'artee
di meraviglie del tardo Rinascimento, ed. Cristina De Benedictis (Milan: Sansoni, 2o00).
NOTES TO PAGES 21 I-2.21 :: 2.85
Mir
8. The literature on the family, the house, and social virtues discusses "conviti," or
large dinnersoften connected with religious holidays, and gives prodigious advice on how
to organize and manage these events.
9. Pietro Belmonte, Institutione della sposa del cavalier Pietro Belmonte Ariminese
fatty principalmente per Madonna Laudomia sua figliuola nelle sue nuoue nozze (Rome:
Per gl'heredi di Giouanni Osmarino Gigliotto, 1587), 58.
1o. ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1474, c. 2.75, 1639.
1. See above, p. 131.
12. Annette B.Weiner, Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox ofKeeping-While-Giving
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.), 7.
13. ASR, Notai RCA, b. 1474, c. 124,1612;see the case of Costanza Belo, widow of
Pini, who left her goods to the male sons of her two daughters on the condition that they
take the last name of her dead husband; or (in ASR, Notai RCA, b. 102.9, c. 265, 61o)
that of Lavinia Dionisia,the widow of Barisiani,who did not force but invited the daughter
or her sister, her heir, to marry a young man who bore the name Barisiani.
286 :: NOTES TO PAGES 222-226
II IIII III III IIIII1I III I 111 II
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II III IIIIII III IIIII
Accademia dei Lincei, 166
account books, 41-52, 209, 246n7; and
Leon Battista Alberti, 209; and weddings,
46-47
Acquaviva, Cardinal Ottavio, xiv
Agnus Dei, 146, 161-63, 235n55,
27inz3
Ago, Renata, xxi—xxii, xxv—xxvi, xxvii—
xxxiii, 248n58
Albergati, Fabio, 130
Alberti, Leon Battista, 6, 6o, 209, 245n85
Albertini family, 1764 213t
Aldrovandi, Ulisse, xii—xiv
Alexander VII (pope), xi
Alexander VIII (pope), 154
Alicorna, Cornelia, 162, 187, 207, 213t
Altieri family, 31
Anacreon, 189
andirons, 67-68, 77
Angelelli, Marchesa Christiana, xxviii
anthropology, xxx, 3, 17, 122, 129
Antolini, Dorotea, 35-36, 59, 115, 188,
207, 218, 278n5
Archivio di Stato of Rome, 10
Arpa, Simone dell'. See dell'Arpa, Simone
Arpini family, 176t
II1IIIII
INDEX
Ili III111111I1IIIIIIIIII I'll
Avvisi, 49, 138, 153, 155
Azzavedi, Giovanni, 152, 188, 207, 218,
223, 2.78n5
Baldini, Aurelio Antonio, 27-28, zio—I
Barberi, Giuseppe, 2.6t
Barberini, Cardinal Francesco, xvi, 137,
165
Barberini convent, 171
Barberini family, xxiii, xxviii
Barkley, John, 165
Battistoni, Captain Alberto, 167, 176t
Bava, Francesco, 149, I76t, 212
beds, 29, 69; in noble houses, xxvi—xxviii,
89; in paintings, 66; in room descriptions,
xxix, 54, 67-68, 77-80; typical
Roman, 9i; in wills, 36
Bellini, Silvestro, 1754 187, 213t, 218
Bellori, Giovan Pietro, ix—xi, xix, xxxiii,;
collections of, xxi; and Notice on Museums,
xi—xiv, xvi, xxv,, xxxi, 137; on
libraries, 133, 189. See also specific
titles
Bembo, Pietro, 191, 193
Bentivoglio, Marquis Filippo, 19
Bernini, Gian Lorenzo, xi, 201-2, 204-5
II
Bertone family, 175
Betti, Margherita, 52.-55 91,163-64,1764
213-14, 218; books owned by, 187-
88, 207; clothing: owned by, xIo, 117;
dolls owned by, i62.; furniture owned
by, 78; jewelry owned by, 181; kitchen
of, 96-98, 100-I; last will of, 38, 52;
and singing birds, 166-67; snuffboxes
owned by, 172;statues owned by,
159-61; tableware owned by, 170,
172-73; tools owned by, 116, 177
bezoar stone, 162., 177, 2711111
Bianchi, Giovanna, 116
Bible. See books
Biblioteca Ambrosiana, 135
Biblioteca Marciana, 134
Bisticci, Vespasiano da, 133
Bizoni, Bernardo, 165
Black Plague, 12.5
Boccarini, Cilla, 42- 44,46
Boissard, Jean-Jacques, r35
Bologna, xx, 36, 185
Bonghi, Feliciano, 54
books, 187-94; anthologies, 192-93, 197-
99; about the art of memory, 193;
Bible, 195, 204-5, 218; censorship
of, 204-5; classification of, 206; on
correspondence, 197, 279n27; Giovian
works, 199, 2821166; novels, zoI; in
Roman collections, i6ot, 175-764
194-204,213t; about Rome, ix-xiv,
xvi, xix-xxi, xxvi, xxxi, 137; sizes,
207; technical works, 198-99. See also
account books; reading
Borghese, Scipione, xxix, 133
Borromeo, Carlo, 134,142., I43t
Borromeo, Federico, 134
Bosio, Antonio, xx
bottiglieria, xxviii
Brancavalerio, Tommaso, 179
Braudel, Fernand, xxix, 126
brazier, 23, 25, 68
306 :: INDEX
Bronconi family, 109, 1764 187, 213t, 218,
2751173
buildings: apartments, 66; residential types
in Rome, 65-67. See also casa; individual
families
Buogni, Giovanni Francesco, 154
Buonarotti, Michelangelo, 3o, 140-41
cabinets des dames, 152,
Caetani, Francesco, 165
Cagnacci, Giacomo, 150-51
Cameo, Abraham fu Martio, 175
Cangiani, Paolo, 1764 213-14, 218; books
owned by, 187, 194-202, 204, 207,
282n76; children's clothing owned by,
109; clothing owned by, II4-15t, 122;
house of, 79-8o, 814 82-83, 86; jewelry
and, 181; kitchen of, 98, 99t; musical
instruments owned by, 175; paintings
owned by, 149; shoes owned by,
108; tools owned by, 116
Capizucchi, Faustina Madaleni, 42, 44
Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da, xix,
141
Cardano, Girolamo, 133
Caro, Annibal, 197
Carracci, Annibale, xx
Carracci family, xix
Cartari, Anton Stefano, 153
Cartari, Carlo, 38, 108, 206, 218; and
account books 43, 45, 209; correspondence
of, 184; flatware owned by,
172-73; and gardening, 165-66; and
Lavinia Cartari, 26-27, 33-35, 38,
2.11; on libraries, 188, 272n27; and
Maria Virginia Cartari, 118; and news
collecting, 154-56; on refined objects,
37;scientific instruments owned by,177
Cartari, Lavinia 26-27, 30, 33- 34,38, 211;
and clothing, 122; and domestic production,
119;silk flowers owned by,
162
Cartari, Maria Virginia, 38, 108, x14, 162-
63, 167
casa, xii, 8, 22, 3o-32. See also buildings;
individual families
Casa, Giovanni della. See della Casa,
Giovanni
Casini, Carlo, 18
Castiglione, Baldassare, 189
Castiglione, Sabba da, 6o, 129-31
Ceccarelli, Don Francesco, xxix
Cenci family, 3i
Cesalpino, Andrea, 177
Cesaretti, Felice, ix, xii
Cesarini, Giovangiorgio, 137
Cesio, Carlo, xix
Cesi family, xiii
Cesi, Gilulia Veronica Sforza Attendoli
Manzoli, 59
Chabod, Federico, 17
chairs, 3, 19; in account books, 51; and the
middling class, 85; in noble houses,
xxvi-xxvii; in Parisian homes, 249nio;
in room descriptions, xxvi, xxix,
67-68t, 70t, 88; value of, 76
chamber pots, xxviii, 69, 7ot, 72t, 74-75,
87-88t, 171
Charles of Habsburg, Archduke, 141t, 151
Chenne, Stefano del. See del Chenne,
Stefano
Chiesa del Giesa, 36
Chigi, Cardinal Flavio, xvi, 138, 152, 173
Chigi family, xxiii
children: and books, 35; and clothing, 109;
and furniture, 73-75; and toys, 74,172
China, 89-90
chocolate, xxxiii, 167-68, 178, 185, 223;
in ceremonies, 29; as a gift, xxvi, 49;
serving of, 51, 9o, 170-7I
Christina of Sweden (queen), xx; collections
of, xxviii; and Giovan Pietro Bellori xi;
libraries of, xvi
Cicero, 189, 191-92, 195, 197, 199
Clement IX (pope), 155
Clement XI (pope),14it
clocks, 161t, 164t, 175-764 213t, 224
clothing: colors of in Rome, ii2-13; domestic
production of, 116-20; female,
108; gender differences in ownership
of, 103-6, 114-15; male, 107-8; and
the middling class, III; ready-made,
120-21; rented, 120-2I; sumptuary
laws about, 109-10,113; value of,
io5-6, 114-16
Coccurulli, Sebastiano, 141
coffee, xxxiii, 3, 167-68, 170-71
Colosseum, xxv
collecting, xii-xiv, xvi, xviii-xxi, xxx-xxxi,
8; expense of, 133; gender differences
in, 2, 9, I I; history of, 129-3 2; and
Krzysztof Pomian, 127-28; manuals
on, 188; and portraits, 151; and sociability,
136-38; and splendor, 130-31;
value of, 127-29; women and, xx
Colonna, Lorenzo Onofrio, 173-74
Congregation of the Campidoglio, 29
Constantinople, 165, 172
consumer revolution, z
Contarini, Jacomo, 1o, 32, 131-32
Contelori, Felice, 133, 190
Contelori, Giovanni Battista, 153, 210
Contelori, Giovanni Maria, 34-35, 168-
704 175, 177, 189-90, 213t, 218
cooking. See kitchens
Corduba, Francisco, xxiii, xxiv fig. 4, xxv
Cornaro Piscopia, Elena Lucrezia, 155-56,
177
Cortesi, Paolo, xiii
credenza, xviii, xxvi, xxviii-xxix, 35, 37,
207
Crivelli, Carlo, 7
Croll, Oswald, 178
curiosities, xiii, xviii, xix, xxxi-xxxii, 129,
135, 137, 159,174, 220, 223; and
books, 212-13; Roman cabinets of, xiv,
INDEX :: 307
curiosities (cont.)
xvi, xviii; in Roman collections, 16ot,
162-64,2134 and scientific culture,
177-78
Cusida family, 175t
Cybo, Camillo, 2661118
Daly Davis, Margaret, xi
da Castiglione, Sabba. See Castiglione,
Sabba da
Dati, Carlo Roberto, 13o-31
Davis, Natalie Zemon, 144
de Ferrari, Carlo. See Ferrari, Carlo de
de Grazia, Victoria, xxxii
de Grotti, Girolamo Amatelli, 166
de la Rochefoucauld, Francois. See Rouchefoucauld,
Francois de la
del Chenne, Stefano, 168,181
Del Cinque family, 31
de Litteris, Maria, 77,92,113-14,116
della Casa, Giovanni, 189
dell'Arpa, Simone, II5
della Porta, Giambattista, 191
Del Monte, Cardinal, 32, zo6
Diana family, 176t
Diodati, Giovanni, 2.04
dispensa, xxviii
Diversin, Biagio, ix-x, xii
Divini, Eustachio, xiii-xix
Domenichino, ix, xx, 107, 140, 148
Dominic, Saint, 29t
Doni, Anton Francesco, 197-98
Doni, Giovan Battista, 28
dolls, 16o-63
Douglas, Mary, 3,15
dressers, 67-68t
Dupront, Alphonse, 142.
England, xxx, 16,12.6,167,202., 209. See
also London
Evitascandali, Cesare, 22.
Eyck, Jan van, 7
308 :: INDEX
Falconieri, Piero Francesco, xiii-xiv
Farnese, Cardinal Alessandro, 135
Farnese family, xxiii
Farnese, Odoardo, 130
Febei family, 153
Febei, Febeo, 42
Febei, Francesco Maria, 28-29,38,46
fedecommesso, 31-32,59,189,248n52;
and collections, 136; Mattei's, 3z;
among the middling class, 61,226
Ferrari, Carlo de, 141
Ferrari, Giovanni Battista, 165
Ficino, Marsilio, 197
Fioravanti, Leonardo, 191,193
fireplace, xxix, 67-68
Florence, xx, xxx, i26,184-85,24on3o;
clothing in,109,117,and collecting, 161;
construction in, 3o-3i; and the Florentine
Academy, 13o; and weddings, 39
flowers, 165-66; and the Cartari family,
32-34; for decorating food, z8; fake,
27into; in the Falconieri garden, xiiixiv;
from the Netherlands, 34; paintings
of, 22, 264 silk, xxv-xxvi, 29, 34,
37, 16ot, 162.-64; 186; and the Spada
family, 48
Fontana, Carlo, 138
Fortini Brown, Patricia, xxx
Fortini family, ii5t, 175t
France, xxx, 153-55,165,167,183; clothing
in, 109; descriptions of, 89; influence
on Roman fashions, 89-90,I1z;
painting in, 139. See also Paris
Francescona, Caterina, 145, 151, 176t
Francis, Saint, 142, 143t
Frollieri, Francesco Maria, 205-6
fruit: and Contelori family, 35; as gift, 27,
34; in Gigli's garden, xiv; in Notice on
Museums, xiii; rare types, 28; served at
meals, 28; variety of available, 4
furniture, 69-70 for children, 73-75; gender
differences in ownership of 69-714
materials used in, 73t; provided for
servants, 75; in Roman houses, 72-73t;
value of, 75-76; for workshops, 75. See
also specific types offurniture
Galeria, 129
gardens, 165-66,184-85,2.711114
Garzoni, Tommaso, 193
Gavotti, Giovan Battista, 46
gender: and account books, 44- 45, 50, 52;
and archival sources, 25in41; and
clothing ownership, to3-5;and collecting,
2, 9, I I, 55-57t, 92-93, 220; and
furniture ownership, 69-7it, 86; and
household linens, toz-3; and jewelry
ownership, I79-80; and kitchens, 95,
too-I;and ownership of paintings,
142-45,266n19
Genoa, Ito, 12.6,132,152,185,202
Gigli, Pietro, xiv
Gioj, Bernardino, 247n4o
Giolito, Gabriele, 197
Giulianelli, Gregorio, 3z, 224
Giunti, Ippolito, 77, '1st, 187, z13t,
2751173,282-83n76
Giustina, Cleria, 147
Giustiniani, Andrea, 43,45,47
Giustiniani, Cardinal Benedetto, 36,204
Giustiniani family, to, 21, 38,43,47
Giustiniani, Vincenzo, 36, 154; books
owned by, 202-3, 206; and collecting,
132-33,177; and gardening, 165;
guidebook created by, xix; house of,
83-85,86-87,91-92; last will of, 19,
32-33, 59, 134; and paintings, 8o,139-
40,152; tableware owned by, z7z,183,
2731142; toiletries owned by, 178
glassware. See tableware
Goldthwaite, Richard, 126
Gondi family, 117
Gravina, Gian Vincenzo, 189
Grazia, Victoria de. See de Grazia, Victoria
Grimani, Domenico, 134
Grotti, Girolamo Amatelli de. See de Grotti,
Girolamo Amatelli
Gualdo, Francesco, 2311117
guardaroba, xxviii; account books about,
43; in Roman houses, 83
Gubbio, 31
Guercino, xix
Guidetti, Benedetto, 26t
hairdressing, 48, 50
Han, David (Davit), 149,i5ot, 268n42
Haskell, Francis, 142, 264n5
hats, 47-48, to8, 110, 114,254n22
Holland, 89,126,167
house. See casa
household linens, 102-3,253n8,254t
household production, 116-20
Iacovacci family, 41-42,46
Index of Prohibited Books, 204
Innocent X (pope), 32, 140. See also Giovanni
Battista Pamphili
Italy: censorship in, 2o4-5;chocolate in,
167; circulation of currency in, 16;
collecting in, 129-31; fabrics in, Ito;
inventories in, 6; literacy in, 187; prosperity
of, xxii; and the Renaissance,
xxix, 125-27. See also individual cities
Jamblico, Salomone, 191
Jani family, 175t, 213t
Jerome, Saint, 143t
jewelry, 179-81
Jews, XXiii, 20, 22, 23-254 175, 177
Kapsberger, Giovan Girolamo, 175
Kircher, Athanasius, xvi, xvii fig. 3
kitchens, 95, 215-17; account books about,
43,51; in house descriptions, 67-68,
77-78; utensils used in, 96t, 96-100.
See also tableware
INDEX :: 309
Lansi, Onofrio, 176t, 2.134 books owned
by, 187, 201; paintings owned by, 149
Lauro, Giacomo, xxv-xxvi, xxviif
Leone, Francesco, 154
Leopold I (emperor), 141, 151
Lirighetti merchants, 75, 176t, 18i, 213t;
books owned by, 187; house of, 79;
tableware owned by, 168; tools owned
by, 116, 2.75n73
literacy, 187, 276n1. See also reading
Litteris, Maria de, 77, 92, 113-14, 116
Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors and
Architects, ix
Lombard, Peter, 192
London, xxii, xxxiii, 16, 89, 183
Longhi, Marino, xviii
Lorrain, Claude, 148
Lotto, Lorenzo, 167
Louis XIV (King of France), 167
Lucatelli, 172., 187, 2.13t
Maccarani, Paolo, xix
Madonna, 140, 143t, 146t, 2.661122.
Magalotti, Costanza, xxviii
Magdalene, Mary, 140, 142., 1434 146t
Magnati, Abbot, 155-56
Malanima, Paolo, 126
Mancini, Giulio, xix; and the middling
class, xxviii, 7; and painting, 139, 145
Mansueti family, 176t
Manuzio, Paolo, 197, 199
maps, 153-54, 175t
Maratti, Carlo, 107
Maria Teresa, Infanta, 167
Marinella, Lucrezia, 178
Marinoni, Anna Agnese, 110
Marozzi, Teresa, xxo
Martinelli, Fioravante, xi xxxiii; and collecting,
xii-xiv; and Notice on Museums,
x, xvi, xviii-xxii, xxv, xxxi,
2.3on6, z31ni7; and Rome Sought on
Site, xii, 137
310 :: INDEX
masserizia, 35
Massimi, Camillo, 132.
Mattei, Ciriaco, 32, 59, 133, 135, 137
Maurizio, Orsola di, xIo
Mayno family, 175t
Mercati, Michele, 133, 262n29
middling classes, xxii, xxxi, 218-
23, zz6, 285n5; and accounting, 41,
2,2; and books, zoi-z;and bridal
trousseau, 110; and clothing, III;and
collecting, xxxiii, 57, 130; Giulio Mancini's
description of, xxviii; goods
owned by, 60-61; houses of, 79, 83,
85-86; and jewelry, 18o-8i; and painters,
285n4; and paintings, 141-42,
152; in Paris, xxxii; and payments in
kind, 22; and weapon ownership, 174
Miller, Daniel, 3
mirrors, 38, 78-80, 91-93, I6It
Moglia, Alessio, 140-41, 149-50
Molara, Filippo della, 58, 2.13
Montaigne, Michel de, 135
Montalto, Cardinal, 36
Monte di Pieta, 5, 17, 19, 25t, 179
Monti, Gian Girolamo, 141t
Moretti, Carmillo, 58, 2.05, 207, 242.n2.1
Moryson, Fynes, 30, 2.71116
Murano, 183, 2.731142
museums, xvi, xviii, 131, 135, 137, 174
musical instruments, lot, 129, '614 164t,
174-77,212-14,218
Naples, xxii, 114, 184-85
natural curiosities. See curiosities
Naude, Gabriel, 133, 151, 188, 192
Negrelli, Francesco, 175t, 2134 books
owned by, 187, 194, 204, zo6, 281n51;
clothing owned by, '08, 114; house
of, 79; toiletries owned by, 178, and
writing, 212
Neri, Filippo, 142., 143t
Nerola, Princess of, 58, 223
Neruzzi, Polidoro, 174, 1754 177, 2,13-14,
218; books owned by, 187, 190-95,
197, 204-6; clothing owned by, 108,
117; and gardening, 166; house of, 67;
tableware owned by, 170
Netherlands, the, xxii, 34
Nicholas V (pope), 133
Notice on Museums, Libraries, Galleries,
and Ornaments ofStatues and Paintings
in the Palaces, Houses, and Gardens of
Rome, ix-xiiv,, xvi, xix-xxii, 137, 23on6
Odescalchi family, 57
Olimpia, Lady, 140
Orsini familiy, xxiii
Orsini, Filippo, 183
Orvieto, 20-22, 26, 33
osteria, 2.17
Ovid, xx, 199
Padovanino (painter), 152
paintings: commissioned by Maria Santacroce,
5o; devotional, 142-43, I46-47t,
1484 gender difference and ownership
of, 142-45, 266n19; and the middling
classes, 141-42., 152; and portraits,
147, 151-52; ready-made, 139-40;
in Roman houses, 77-78, 80-82, 84t,
I46-47t, 148, 2.13t; series of, 149;
subjects of, 148-51; value of, 140-48
Palazzo Altemps, 188, 2721127
Palazzo Barberini, xxviii, 137, 188
Palazzo Borghese, xxix
Palazzo dei Conservatori, xxvi
Palazzo Farnese, xix, 135
Palazzo Giustiniani, xix
Palazzo Ludovisi, xix
Palazzo Orsini, xxviii
Palazzo Pamphili, xix, 32
Pamphili family, xxiii, 31
Pamphili, Giovanni Battista, 3z. See also
Innocent X (pope)
Pamphili, Maria, 43, 47
paper, 209-12
Pari, Nicola, 1764 213t, 218; books owned
by, 187, 194-97, 199-202, 2.04; clothing
owned by, 108, 111, x14; house of,
79; paintings owned by, 149; weapons
owned by, 174; and writing, 212.
Paris, xxii, xxx, xxxii-xxxiii, 89, 91, 182-
83, 194
Parker, Elizabeth, 2.
Partner, Peter, xxv
Pasquino, 31
Pellegrino, Camilla, 55-57, 58t
perfume, 178, 164t, 178-79
Pesaro, Girolamo, 147
Peter, Saint, 143t
Petrarch, 10
Piantarella, Bartolomeo, 77
Piazza Navona, 31, 154
Piccardi, Gieronimo, xxiii, xxv
Pio, Prince Francesco, 43
Pliny the Elder, xvi
Pomian, Krzysztof, xxx, 4, 9, 127-28, 142.
Pontano, Giovanni: on clothing, 20; on collecting,
6-7, 37, 135-37, 245n89; on
giving gifts, 18; on splendor, 24on32
Ponte Sisto, 31
Porta, Giambattista, della. See della Porta,
Giambattista
Portrait of Everything BeingSold in Rome,
xxi
Poussin, Nicolas, 148
Pozzo, Cassiano del; and the Accademia de'
Lincei, 166; on collecting, 133; collections
of, xvi; on displaying paintings,
149, 152; and exchange of goods, 186;
and Galileo Galilei, 151-52; and gardening,
165; on gifts, 28; and Vincenzo
Giustiniani, 2611128, 2621129; and
Francesco Gualdo, 231n17; paper
museum of, 130-31; and silk flowers,
162; and his sister, 37
INDEX :: 311
Raleigh, Walter, 167
Rambouillet, Madam de, 91
Raphael, xxi, 141
Raspantini, Francesco, 140, 148-49, 16o,
163, 176t, 181, 2.13t, 2.14, 218; books
owned by, 175, 187, 194-95, 196t,
199-2oz, 204-7, 2.821176; children's
furniture owned by, 74; clients of, 162.;
clothing owned by, 108-9, Ill, 114,
122; curiosities owned by, 177; and
domestic production, 118; engravings
owned by, 154; furniture owned by,
69, 75, 78-79; miscellaneous objects
owned by, 161-62; paintings owned
by, 140, 145 148-49;snuffboxes
owned by, 172; toiletries owned by,
178; tools owned by, 116, 177
reading, 2.06-9, 214. See also literacy
Reni, Guido, xx
Riccardi family, 57
Riccia family, 2.6t
Ricci, Cardinal Michelangelo, xviii
Ripa, Cesare, 199-zoo, zo6
Robin (botanist), 165
Roche, Daniel, xxx, xxxii-xxxiii
Romano, Ruggiero, 17
Rome, xii, xxv, xxxiii, 6-7, 122, 216, 219,
221, 2.25; books about, ix-xiv, xvi,
xix-xxi, xxvi, xxxi, 137; characterization
of, xiv, xvi, xviii, xxii-xxiii, xxv,
6; circulation of currency in, 16-17;
comparison with Florence, xx, 30-31,
39, 115, 240n30; comparison with
other cities, xx, 240n3o; Conservatori
of, 171;construction in, 30-31; food
preparation in, 98; French influence in,
89-90; houses in, 65, 67-69, 89, 221;
libraries in, 188-89; maps of, xv fig.
2; number of artisans in, xxv; number
of merchants in, 182; and paintings,
221; population of, xxii; production of
knowledge in, xviii-xix; publishing in,
312 :: INDEX
193-94; supply of merchandise in, 216;
textile market in, 12o
Rondenini, Felice, xx, xxviii
Rosa, Salvatore, xx
Rossi, Carlo, xx
Rossi, Giovanna de, 119
Rossi, Matteo Gregorio, 154
Rotoli, Giovanni, 175t, 213t, 218; books
owned by, 187; and children, 74; 2.18;
clothing owned by, 108, 114, 1i7; flatware
owned by, 172; house of, 82-83,
84t, 85-87; and jewelry, 181; and singing
birds, 166-67; toiletries owned by,
178; tools owned by, 116
Rouchefoucauld, Francois de la, 155, 174
Rudolf II (emperor), 178
Salvati, Nicola, iiz, 179
San Girolamo della Carita, hospital of, 115
San Juan, Rose Marie, xxiii
San Lorenzo in Panisperna, 29
San Pietro in Montorio, 166
Sannesio, Cardinal, 165
San Pietro in Vincoli, 137
Santacroce, Marquis Antonio, 19; account
books of, zi, z8, 211, 284n105; and
gardening, 166; last will of, 74; and
news collecting, 155; paintings owned
by, I40-41t, ii; and Scipione Santacroce,
1; weapons owned by, 174
Santacroce family, JO, 20, 22, 37-38, 89, 202
Santacroce, Maria Isabella Vechhiarelli,
19-21, 75; account books of 50-51,
zo9; and children's furniture, 74; and
clothing, 113; dolls owned
by, 167; and domestic production,
118; and exchange of goods, 185-86;
furniture owned by, 90-91; jewelry
owned by, 181; maps owned by, 153;
and news collecting, 155; tableware
owned by, 171-73; toiletries owned by,
178-79; weapons owned by, 174
Santacroce, Porzia, 46
Santacroce, Scipione, 45, 74, 174; and
beverages, 168; and clothing, III;
tableware owned by, 171-72; toiletries
of, 179; travels of, 89-90, 182-83
Santacroce, Valerio, 43
Santacroce, Vittoria, 44, 46, 254n26
Santa Maria in Aracoeli; 29
Santolino, Lodovico, 114, II5t
Saracinelli, Bernardino, list, 184
Sarda, Madonna Laura, 27-28
Scapucci family, 175t
Schneider,Jane, 17
scientific instruments, 159, 1614 1644 174-
77, 213t
Sebregondi, Francesco, 119
semiophore, xxx, 127-28, 136, 142, 159
Sessa, Duke of, 17
Sforza Cesarini, Duchess Livia, 22, 23, 26t,
118,166-67,284n105
Sforza Cesarini family, 121
shaving, 178-79
shoes, xxix, 108, 2.16, 254n26, 254n28
silk: availability of, 120; domestic production
of, 116, I18-19; foreign exchange
for, 185; Roman clothing and 1044
'05. See also flowers
silverware. See tableware
Simmacus, 197
Simmel, Georg, 3
singing birds, 166-67
Sixtus V (pope), xxv
snuffboxes, 112, 167, 171-72, 183, 220
Spada, Bernardino: accounts books of, 45,
48-49, 51; and beverages, 167-68;
and domestic production,1'8; and
exchange of goods, 185; and news
collecting, '55, and singing birds, 166;
tableware owned by, 17o; toiletries
owned by, 178; weapons owned by, 174
Spada, Orazio, 21, 166; account books of,
45, 48, 52, 209, 211, 28411105; flatware
owned by, 173; paintings owned
by, iii; tableware owned by, 170-71
Spada Veralli family, 38, 43, 89, ziot
Spada Veralli, Maria, 43, 45, 47-48, 185,
4
Spadza.5,7Vni7rilio, 37, 45, 162., 165, 173,
246n14,262n29
Spada, Vittoria Patrizi, 50-51, 162; and
beverages, 167; clothing owned by,
II(); dolls owned by, 167; and domestic
production, 117-19; and exchange
of goods, 185-86; flatware owned by,
2741164; and shoes, 254n26; and singing
birds, 166; toiletries owned by,
178
Spain, 36, 113, 153, 155, 167
Spetiale, Andrea, xxiii
spinning, x16
Spinola, Leonardo, 17
splendor, 5, 7, 82, 88, 92, 221-22; and
collecting, 130-31; and Petrarch, 10;
and Pontano, 18; of the city of Rome,
xiii, xxvi
statues, 82, 159, I6xt
Strozzi gardens, 49
studio, xiv; Bellori's, xxi; Contarini's, 32;
difference from museum xvi; Divini
family's, xix
studiolo, xvi; ownership by gender, 7It;
in Roman collections, 69, 76-78, 8o,
82-83, 84t, 87t, 92
sumptuary laws, 125; and clothing, 109-
10, 113
swords. See weapons
tableware, 98-102, 168-73
Tagliana, Porzia, 77, 113
Teti, Girolamo, xix
time, 243n48
Tinelli, Alessandro, 78, 2751173
tips, 29, 47, 49
Titian, 154
INDEX :: 313
tobacco, xxxii—xxxiii, 112, 1614 167, 171,
185
tools: for spinning, 116
Totti, Pompilo, 137
treasury, 4-5, 18, 220, 224-25
Trombetta, Teresa, 110, 176t
Tucci, Ugo, 17
Ugolini, Fabio, 83, 85t, 87, 89
umbrellas, i6ot, 164t
Valle, Andrea della, xiii
Vatican Library, the, xvi, xviii, /33-34
Venice, xxii, xxx, 37, 126; clothing from,
48, 114; fabrics from, 184-85; glassware
from, 168-69; literacy in, 276n1;
painting in, xx, 139, 147; as publishing
center, 193-94; Scipione Santacroce
and 174
Venturola, Ipplolita, 77, 113
Vickery, Amanda, 2
314 :: INDEX
Vienna, zo, ixo—ii, 168, 171-72
Vignolio, Marcantonio, 3z
Vittori, Pietro Antonio, 78-79, 149, 176t
Voet, Jacob Ferdinand, I52.
Vries, Jan de, 119
Waddy, Patricia, xxviii
Weatherhill, Lorna, xxx
weapons, 173-76, 274n68; in Roman
houses, 78
weddings: account books and, 46- 47;
goods exchanged at, 27-28, 46-47, 53
Weiner, Annette, 6
Welch, Evelyn, xxx
women: collecting practices, 9; leadership in
consumerism, 2; ownership of goods,
xxxii; relative poverty of, 69
writing implements, 211-13
Zarlino, Giuseppe, 177
Zericchi, Angela, 110