Gusto for Things: A History of Objects in Seventeenth-Century Rome
Renata Ago
Translated by Bradford Bouley and Corey Tazzara with Paula Findlen
With a Foreword by Paula Findlen
392 pages | 38 halftones, 56 tables | 6 x 9"
University of Chicago Press, 2013
We live in a material world—our homes are filled with things, from
electronics to curios and hand-me-downs, that disclose as much about us
and our aspirations as they do about current trends. But we are not the
first: the early modern period was a time of expanding consumption, when
objects began to play an important role in defining gender as well as
social status. Gusto for Things reconstructs the material lives of
seventeenth-century Romans, exploring new ways of thinking about the
meaning of things as a historical phenomenon.
Through creative use of account books, inventories, wills, and other
records, Renata Ago examines early modern attitudes toward possessions,
asking what people did with their things, why they wrote about them, and
how they passed objects on to their heirs. While some inhabitants of
Rome were connoisseurs of the paintings, books, and curiosities that
made the city famous, Ago shows that men and women of lesser means also
filled their homes with a more modest array of goods. She also discovers
the genealogies of certain categories of things—for instance, books went
from being classed as luxury goods to a category all their own—and
considers what that reveals about the early modern era. An animated
investigation into the relationship between people and the things they
buy, Gusto for Things paints an illuminating portrait of the meaning of
objects in preindustrial Europe.
Foreword: Early Modern Romans and Their Things, by Paula Findlen
Acknowledgments
A Note on Roman Coins and Money
Introduction
Part One. The Nature of Goods
Chapter One. The Function of Goods
Chapter Two. Reflecting on Things
Part Two. Material Goods
Chapter Three. Furniture
Chapter Four. Furnishings and Clothing
Part Three. Immaterial Things
Chapter Five. The Great Collections
Chapter Six. Paintings
Chapter Seven. Ostentatious Things
Chapter Eight. Books
Conclusion
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo9035480.html
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