A Cultural History of Objects in the Renaissance covers the period 1400 to 1600. The Renaissance was a cultural movement, a time of re-awakening when classical knowledge was rediscovered, leading to an efflorescence in philosophy, art, and literature. The period fostered an emerging sense of individualism across European cultures. This sense was expressed through a fascination with materiality and the natural world, and a growing attachment to things. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Objects examines how objects have been created, used, interpreted and set loose in the world over the last 2500 years. Over this time, the West has developed particular attitudes to the material world, at the centre of which is the idea of the object. The themes covered in each volume are objecthood; technology; economic objects; everyday objects; art; architecture; bodily objects; object worlds. James Symonds is Professor at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Volume 3 in the Cultural History of Objects set. General Editors: Dan Hicks and William Whyte

This book is about the objects people owned and how they used them. Twenty-three specially written essays investigate the type of things that might have been considered 'everyday objects' in the medieval and early modern periods, and how they help us to understand the daily lives of those individuals for whom few other types of evidence survive - for instance people of lower status and women of all status groups. Everyday Objects presents new research by specialists from a range of disciplines to assess what the study of material culture can contribute to our understanding of medieval and early modern societies. Extending and developing key debates in the study of the everyday, the chapters provide analysis of such things as ceramics, illustrated manuscripts, pins, handbells, carved chimneypieces, clothing, drinking vessels, bagpipes, paintings, shoes, religious icons and the built fabric of domestic houses and guild halls. These things are examined in relation to central themes of pre-modern history; for instance gender, identity, space, morality, skill, value, ritual, use, belief, public and private behaviour, continental influence, materiality, emotion, technical innovation, status, competition and social mobility. This book offers both a collection of new research by a diverse range of specialists and a source book of current methodological approaches for the study of pre-modern material culture. The multi-disciplinary analysis of these 'everyday objects' by archaeologists, art historians, literary scholars, historians, conservators and museum practitioners provides a snapshot of current methodological approaches within the humanities. Although analysis of material culture has become an increasingly important aspect of the study of the past, previous research in this area has often remained confined to subject-specific boundaries. This book will therefore be an invaluable resource for researchers and students interested in learning about important new work which demonstrates the potential of material culture study to cut across traditional historiographies and disciplinary boundaries and access the lived experience of individuals in the past.

This collection, by an international team of scholars, presentsexciting research currently being undertaken on early modern Italywhich questions the conventional boundaries of medical history. Brings together historians of medicine and scholars ofdifferent backgrounds who are re-visiting the field from newperspectives and with the support of innovative questions andunexplored sources Explores crucial areas of intersection between the territory ofmedicine and that of law, politics, religion, art and materialculture and highlights the connections between these apparentlyseparate fields Challenges our understanding of what we regard as medicalactivities, medical identities, spaces and objects Addresses the study of medical careers, medical identities andspaces where medical activities were performed e.g. apothecaryshops, courtrooms, convents and museums

These essays on the problems and functions of biography - particularly those of writers, thinkers and artists - investigate a subject of enduring importance for those interested in culture.

Over the past three decades scholars have transformed the study of women and gender in early modern Europe. This Ashgate Research Companion presents an authoritative review of the current research on women and gender in early modern Europe from a multi-disciplinary perspective. The authors examine women’s lives, ideologies of gender, and the differences between ideology and reality through the recent research across many disciplines, including history, literary studies, art history, musicology, history of science and medicine, and religious studies. The book is intended as a resource for scholars and students of Europe in the early modern period, for those who are just beginning to explore these issues and this time period, as well as for scholars learning about aspects of the field in which they are not yet an expert. The companion offers not only a comprehensive examination of the current research on women in early modern Europe, but will act as a spark for new research in the field.

Long neglected by scholars, medieval and Renaissance Bologna is now recognized as a center of economic, political-constitutional, legal, and intellectual innovation, as the city that served as the cultural crossroads of Italy. The city’s distinctive achievements and its transition from medieval commune to second largest city of the Renaissance Papal State is illuminated by essays that present the work of current historians, many made available in English for the first time, from the broadest possible perspective: from the material city with its porticoes, the conflicts that brought bloodshed and turmoil to its streets, the disputations of masters and students, and to the masterpieces of artists who laid the foundations for Baroque art. See inside the book.

A thought-provoking study of how knowledge of provenance was not transferred with enslaved people and goods from the Portuguese trading empire to Renaissance Italy In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Renaissance Italy received a bounty of "goods" from Portuguese trading voyages—fruits of empire that included luxury goods, exotic animals and even enslaved people. Many historians hold that this imperial "opening up" of the world transformed the way Europeans understood the global. In this book, K.J.P. Lowe challenges such an assumption, showing that Italians of this era cared more about the possession than the provenance of their newly acquired global goods. With three detailed case studies involving Florence and Rome, and drawing on unpublished archival material, Lowe documents the myriad occasions on which global knowledge became dissociated from overseas objects, animals and people. Fundamental aspects of these imperial imports, including place of origin and provenance, she shows, failed to survive the voyage and make landfall in Europe. Lowe suggests that there were compelling reasons for not knowing or caring about provenance, and concludes that geographical knowledge, like all knowledge, was often restricted and not valued. Examining such documents as ledger entries, journals and public and private correspondence as well as extant objects, and asking previously unasked questions, Lowe meticulously reconstructs the backstories of Portuguese imperial acquisitions, painstakingly supplying the context. She chronicles the phenomenon of mixed-ancestry children at Florence’s foundling hospital; the ownership of inanimate luxury goods, notably those possessed by the Medicis; and the acquisition of enslaved people and animals. How and where goods were acquired, Lowe argues, were of no interest to fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italians; possession was paramount.

This volume explores the late medieval and early modern periods from the perspective of objects. While the agency of things has been studied in anthropology and archaeology, it is an innovative approach for art historical investigations. Each contributor takes as a point of departure active things: objects that were collected, exchanged, held in hand, carried on a body, assembled, cared for or pawned. Through a series of case studies set in various geographic locations, this volume examines a rich variety of systems throughout Europe and beyond. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781315401867, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license