Collecting Art in the Italian Renaissance Court: Objects and Exchanges
Cambridge University Press, 6/28/2018
EAN 9781108427722, ISBN10: 1108427723
Hardcover, 338 pages, 25.4 x 17.8 x 2.1 cm
Language: English
In this book, Leah R. Clark examines collecting practices across the Italian Renaissance court, exploring the circulation, exchange, collection, and display of objects. Rather than focusing on patronage strategies or the political power of individual collectors, she uses the objects themselves to elucidate the dynamic relationships formed through their exchange. Her study brings forward the mechanisms that structured relations within the court, and most importantly, also with individuals, representations, and spaces outside the court. The volume examines the courts of Italy through the wide variety of objects - statues, paintings, jewellery, furniture, and heraldry - that were valued for their subject matter, material forms, histories, and social functions. As Clark shows, the late fifteenth-century Italian court an be located not only in the body of the prince, but also in the objects that constituted symbolic practices, initiated political dialogues, caused rifts, created memories, and formed associations.
1. Carafa's testa di cavallo
the life of a bronze gifthorse
2. Practices of exchange
merchant bankers and the circulation of objects
3. Intertextuality and collection at the court of Ferrara
Roberti's Diptych
4. The Order of the Ermine
collars, cloaks, and the circulation of the sign.