Private Lives in Renaissance Venice

by Patricia Fortini Brown

"This book offers a perspective on the private lives and material culture of aristocratic families in sixteenth-century Venice. Art historian Patricia Fortini Brown takes us behind the elegant, closed doors of grand palaces built along the Venetian canals - the homes of families who wished to live in a noble manner. She examines the roles of both fine and applied arts in family life as well as the public messages that these impressive homes conveyed." "As the sixteenth century opened, members of the patriciate were increasingly withdrawing from trade, desiring to be seen as "gentlemen in fact" as well as "gentlemen in name." The author considers why this was so and explores such wide-ranging themes as attitudes toward wealth and display, the articulation of family identity, the interplay between the public and the private, and the emergence of characteristically Venetian decorative practices and styles of art and architecture. Brown focuses new light on the visual culture of Venetian w