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Private lives : art, architecture, and the family in Renaissance Venice / Patricia Fortini Brown.

By: Brown, Patricia Fortini, 1936- [author.].
Material type: materialTypeLabelBookPublisher: New Haven : Yale University Press, [2004]Copyright date: ©2004Description: vii, 312 pages : illustrations (chiefly colour) ; 29 cm.Content type: text Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 0300102364 (hardback).Subject(s): Decoration and ornament -- Social aspects -- Italy -- Venice | Decoration and ornament, Renaissance -- Italy -- Venice | Interior decoration -- Italy -- Venice | Upper class families -- Homes and haunts -- Italy -- VeniceDDC classification: 306.47
Contents:
The title of their gentility -- Not having the name of Palazzo -- To live nobile -- The mirror of ancient ladies -- The game of life -- A paradise of Venus -- Not one but many separate cities -- Theaters of the world -- Appendix: Family trees. Bembo ; Bragadin ; Condulmer ; Da Lezze ; Soranzo.
Summary: "This book offers an engaging and original perspective on the private lives and material culture of patrician families in 16th-century Venice. Distinguished art historian Patricia Fortini Brown takes us behind the elegant facades of grand palaces built along the Venetian canals and examines the roles of both fine and applied arts in family life as well as the public messages that these impressive homes conveyed. Illustrated with hundreds of varied and unusual images, the book provides a lively picture of the aristocratic lifestyle during a period of changing definitions of nobility. The author considers such wide-ranging themes as attitudes toward wealth and display, the articulation of family identity, and the visual culture of Venetian women—how they decorated their homes, dressed, undertook domestic tasks, entertained, and raised their children. Recapturing the interplay between the public and private, she offers an account of Venetian households unequaled in vividness and detail" - inside cover.
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Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Status Barcode
General lending MTU Crawford College of Art and Design Library Lending 306.47 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 00196989
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This book offers an engaging and original perspective on the private lives and material culture of patrician families in sixteenth-century Venice. Distinguished art historian Patricia Fortini Brown takes us behind the elegant façades of grand palaces built along the Venetian canals and examines the roles of both fine and applied arts in family life as well as the public messages that these impressive homes conveyed.
Illustrated with hundreds of varied and unusual images, the book provides a lively picture of the aristocratic lifestyle during a period of changing definitions of nobility. The author considers such wide-ranging themes as attitudes toward wealth and display, the articulation of family identity, and the visual culture of Venetian women--how they decorated their homes, dressed, undertook domestic tasks, entertained, and raised their children. Recapturing the interplay between the public and private, she offers an account of Venetian households unequalled in vividness and detail.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-302) and index.

The title of their gentility -- Not having the name of Palazzo -- To live nobile -- The mirror of ancient ladies -- The game of life -- A paradise of Venus -- Not one but many separate cities -- Theaters of the world -- Appendix: Family trees. Bembo ; Bragadin ; Condulmer ; Da Lezze ; Soranzo.

"This book offers an engaging and original perspective on the private lives and material culture of patrician families in 16th-century Venice. Distinguished art historian Patricia Fortini Brown takes us behind the elegant facades of grand palaces built along the Venetian canals and examines the roles of both fine and applied arts in family life as well as the public messages that these impressive homes conveyed. Illustrated with hundreds of varied and unusual images, the book provides a lively picture of the aristocratic lifestyle during a period of changing definitions of nobility. The author considers such wide-ranging themes as attitudes toward wealth and display, the articulation of family identity, and the visual culture of Venetian women—how they decorated their homes, dressed, undertook domestic tasks, entertained, and raised their children. Recapturing the interplay between the public and private, she offers an account of Venetian households unequaled in vividness and detail" - inside cover.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

  • Acknowledgements (p. vi)
  • Preface (p. vii)
  • 1 The Title of Their Gentility (p. 1)
  • 2 Not Having the Name of Palazzo (p. 23)
  • 3 To Live Nobile (p. 53)
  • 4 The Mirror of Ancient Ladies (p. 91)
  • 5 The Game of Life (p. 123)
  • 6 A Paradise of Venus (p. 159)
  • 7 Not One but Many Separate Cities (p. 189)
  • 8 Theaters of the World (p. 217)
  • Conclusion (p. 253)
  • Appendix Family Trees (p. 255)
  • I Bembo
  • II Bragadin
  • III Condulmer
  • IV Da Lezze
  • V Soranzo
  • Notes (p. 261)
  • Bibliography (p. 290)
  • Photograph Credits (p. 303)
  • Index (p. 304)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Private Lives is that rare thing: a book that will instruct the scholar and delight the general reader. Effortlessly absorbing a vast amount of primary research into a smoothly constructed story line, Brown (Princeton Univ.) offers one of the fullest pictures yet produced of life in a Renaissance city. The focus is on the wealthy and privileged, which in Venice meant not only the upper class--the zentilhuomini--but also the many successful merchants of the cittadino class. Two chapters on the women of Venice--one on the highborn, another on the courtesan--make clear the remarkable standard of elegance they shared in home, dress, and an impressive level of personal cultivation. Included are excellent summaries of political, artistic, and building developments of late-15th- and 16th-century Venice, situating the life of the individual within the social and urban fabric of the city. The work is sumptuously illustrated, almost exclusively in color, with fascinating details of the interiors of private palazzi and curiosities hidden away in odd corners of the city. Straddling a number of disciplines, the book stands as a model of comprehensive social history at its best. ^BSumming Up: Essential. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through professionals. D. Pincus National Gallery of Art

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Patricia Fortini Brown is a professor at Princeton University where she is chair of the Department of Art & Archaeology.