Renaissance Interior

A Casa: People, Spaces and Objects in the
Renaissance Interior Two-Part Symposium

Part I
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
7-8 May 2004

Part II
Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies
at Villa I Tatti, Florence
10-11 June, 2004

'A Casa: People, Spaces and Objects in the Renaissance Interior' is a two-
part symposium consisting of four full days of papers. The event will be
divided between the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and the Harvard
University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti,
Florence, and we hope that as many people as possible will be able to
attend both parts. This is the final symposium of a series related to
'The Domestic Interior in Italy, 1400-1600', a research project launched
in 2003 culminating in a book and major exhibition at the Victoria &
Albert Museum in 2006. An international group of scholars (largely funded
by a Collaborative Research Grant from the Getty Grant Program) has been
working together over the past year, starting to definine the character
and look of the Italian casa, and exploring the relationships between its
rooms, contents and inhabitants.

The two-part symposium 'A Casa' will broaden the scope of this research,
including many contributions from other scholars from a wide variety of
disciplines. It will explore the non-princely urban house in Renaissance
Italy as a setting for the development of art and culture, and for the
unfolding of everyday life and rituals. Furnishings, objects and
decoration associated with domestic life survive, and one aim of the
symposium is to integrate evaluation of their considerable aesthetic
impact with greater understanding of their audiences and consumers. Other
issues of central concern for the symposium include topics such as
entertainment and sociability, devotion and education, work and the
marking of life events as expressed through the use of objects and
spaces.

A Casa: People, Spaces and Objects in the Renaissance Interior
Two-Part Symposium

Part I
7-8 May 2004
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Lecture Theatre

Provisional Programme

Friday, 7 May 2004
Morning
Patricia Fortini Brown (Princeton University)
‘Living Domestically in the Renaissance: The North Italian Experience'

Brenda Preyer (University of Austin, Texas)
‘The Domestic Interior in Tuscany’

Stephanie Hanke (Fondazione Longhi, Firenze)
‘Bathing all'antica. Private Bathrooms in Genoese Palaces and Villas of
the Sixteenth Century’

Luke Syson (National Gallery, London)
‘Representing the Domestic Interior in the Fifteenth Century: Record or
Convention, Myth and Model’

Afternoon
Stanley Chojnacki (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) ‘Cosse
per uxo de la dicta dona: Wives in the Venetian Palazzo’

Katherine McIver (University of Alabama at Birmingham)
‘Two Cousins: A Look into Two Private Homes and the Women Who Owned Them’

Barbara Bettoni (Università degli Studi di Brescia)
‘Urban Aristocracy without Court: Domestic Interiors in Brescia during
the Sixteenth Century (Casa Gambara al Fontanone, Cittadella Vecchia)’

Anna Bellavitis (Université de Paris 10-Nanterre)
Isabelle Chabot (Università degli Studi di Trieste) ‘Case e oggetti,
famiglie e lignaggi a Venezia e Firenze tra XIVo e XVIo secolo’

Jacqueline Musacchio (Vassar College)
‘Baptismal Ritual in Renaissance Florence’

Discussion

Saturday 8 May 2004
Morning
Allen Grieco (Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I
Tatti) ‘Dining Rituals, the Credenza and the Birth of the Dining Room’

Beth Holman (Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the
Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture) ‘The Credenza in Early Modern
Italy: Vas quasi corpus’

Guido Vannini (Università degli Studi di Firenze), Angelica Degasperi
(Università degli Studi di Firenze), Marta Caroscio (Università degli
Studi di Firenze)
‘From Renaissance Maiolica to Slipware. Hypothesis on the Reconstruction
of the Laid Table and Sideboard during the Renaissance in Florence.
Preliminary Notes on Cafaggiolo’

Dale Kent (University of California at Riverside)
‘An Accountant's Description of His House and Life-Style in Fifteenth
Century Florence’

Discussion

Afternoon
Fabrizio Nevola (University of Warwick)
‘Home Shopping: The Social and Architectural Place of Business in
Renaissance Palaces’

Franco Franceschi (Università degli Studi di Siena)
‘Lavorare in casa nella Firenze del rinascimento’

Francesca Cavazzana Romanelli (Direzione generale archivi – Ministero per
i beni e le attività culturali) ‘Le scritture d’archivio nella casa
rinascimentale veneziana’

Jerome Hayez (Institut d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, Paris)
‘Uno iscritoio che basterebe a la Ghabella de’ chontrati: Espaces de
l’écriture dans le palais et les agences de Francesco di Marco Datini
(vers 1370-1410)’

Discussion

ROUNDTABLE

A Casa: People, Spaces and Objects
in the Renaissance Interior
Two-Part Symposium

Part II
Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti
Florence
10-11 June 2004

Provisional Programme

Thursday 10 June 2004
Morning
Cecilia Cristellon (Istituto Universitario Europeo di Firenze) ‘Spazi,
oggetti, riti: il matrimonio di area veneziana (1420-1545)’

Marta Ajmar (Victoria & Albert Museum, London)
‘Grata accoglienza: Domestic Sociability in Sixteenth-Century Italy’

Jerzy Miziolek (University of Warsaw)
'Cassoni nuziali nella Toscana e altrove: Funzione celebrativa e
collocazione domestica'

Sandra Cavallo (Royal Holloway (University of London)
‘The House of the Artisan’

Discussion

Afternoon
Philip Mattox (Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA)
‘Domestic Sacral Space in the Florentine Renaissance Palace’

Margaret Morse (University of Maryland, College Park)
‘Creating Sacred Space: The Religious Visual Culture of the Casa in
Renaissance Venice’

Flora Dennis (AHRB Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior, London)
‘Music at Home: Domestic Music-Making in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century
Italy’

Iain Fenlon (King’s College, University of Cambridge) ‘Music within (and
without) the Venetian House’

Discussion

Friday 11 June 2004
Morning
Elizabeth Cleland (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
‘Panni and pannetti d’arazzo: Tapestries in the Italian Domestic
Interior. Fashion, Function and Display’

Piero Boccardo (Palazzo Rosso, Genova)
‘La diffusione, la destinazione domestica e la funzione celebrativa
dei paramenti di arazzi a Genova nel corso del Cinquecento’

Hugo Blake (Royal Holloway (University of London))
‘Everyday Objects Associated with the House: An Archaeological
Perspective’

Jeremy Warren (The Wallace Collection, London)
‘Function and Form in the Renaissance Bronze’

Discussion

Afternoon
Katja Kwastek (Universität München)
‘Paintings as Sources for the Study of Italian Renaissance Life’

Anne Dunlop (Yale University)
‘'Datini's Decor: Frescoes in Private Homes around 1400'

Monika Schmitter (University of Massachusetts at Amherst)
‘La fronte e l’abitazione: Composite Identity in the Casa Odoni’

Jonathan Nelson (Syracuse University in Florence)
‘New Perspectives on "Old Masters": The Placement of Art in Florentine
Homes’

Discussion

ROUNDTABLE

Registration is required for Part I of the event only (Victoria & Albert
Museum, London, 7-8 May 2004). Registration costs £60 full delegates, £30
students and concessions. Further details, including programme and
booking information, can be found on the website of the AHRB Centre for
the Study of the Domestic Interior: www.rca.ac.uk/csdi/ under 'events'.
The deadline for registration is 23 April 2004.

This event is supported by the Victoria & Albert Museum, Harvard
University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti, AHRB
Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior, The Samuel H. Kress
Foundation, and the Amici del Bargello.

AHRB Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior
Royal College of Art
Kensington Gore
London SW7 2EU
Tel. +44 (0)20 7590 4183
www.rca.ac.uk/csdi/

Royal College of Art, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Bedford Centre,
Royal Holloway, University of London