Love & Marriage in Renaissance Florence: The Courtauld Gallery Wedding Chests |
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| Friday, 20 February 2009 02:48 |
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Marriage – or the lack of it – was one of the key defining events for most Renaissance Italians. However, a Renaissance marriage had little in common with its modern equivalent. A marriage in fifteenth century Florence was not primarily about love, or even religion. Instead it was a legal contract agreed between the families of the couple, a dynastic alliance informed by wealth, power and prestige. If conjugal love developed between a husband and his wife, that was a bonus, but it was not essential. Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence: The Courtauld Wedding Chests, on view at The Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, London, through May 17, 2009, is the first exhibition in the United Kingdom devoted to these important objects. Historically, they have been underestimated by art historians because they straddle the modern division between the fine and decorative arts. However, they offer a unique insight into the values of Renaissance Florence and how family life was lived in its palaces. At the heart of this exhibition are the celebrated Morelli-Nerli chests; the only pair of Renaissance Florentine marriage chests to survive with their accompanying painted backboards (spalliere) and to be fully documented. Vaggia Nerli brought with her a sizeable dowry of 2,000 florins, but her husband was responsible for redecorating his rooms to welcome his wife to her new home on the Borgo Santa Croce.  Lorenzo recorded these considerable costs in a surviving document entitled ‘My expenses when I took my wife home’. He had the existing bed and lettuccio (daybed) in his camera (chamber) gilded, and commissioned further carved decoration for the lettuccio as well as new curtains for the bed. Almost two-thirds of Lorenzo’s substantial decoration expenses (61 large florins) were for the pair of painted cassoni, ordered in 1472, now in The Courtauld Gallery. From the documents, we know that the chests and spalliera panels were constructed by the woodworker Zanobi di Domenico. They were adorned with gilded and painted decoration by the painting partnership of Biagio di Antonio and Jacopo del Sellaio. Like his contemporaries, Lorenzo placed his cassoni in his chamber. They probably dominated this relatively small but significant space at the centre of the household’s activities. Here, the husband and wife would – hopefully – conceive the next generation of their family. Here, too, important guests might be entertained or family discussions held. The cassoni provided the backdrop to the life of the family and their painted decorations were chosen with suitable care, providing both entertainment and instruction. The final section of the exhibition considers the subsequent history of cassoni. Lorenzo Morelli passed his chests to his son, and they remained in the family’s possession for over two hundred years as valued memorials of an important marriage. Like many chests they were purchased in the nineteenth century by collectors eager to own objects made during the ‘Golden Age’ of Lorenzo de’ Medici. At this point they were altered so that they conformed to nineteenth-century ideals of the Renaissance. As a result, cassoni are not merely significant Renaissance objects but important material documents of how fashion and taste, and successive generations’ interpretations of Renaissance Italy, have changed over the years. Visit The Courtauld Gallery at : http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/index.html Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
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