The Institute of Historical Research's Late-Medieval & Early-Modern Italy
Seminar (run by Trevor Dean, Kate Lowe and Alison Wright) includes Carol
Richardson on "The housing opportunities of a Renaissance cardinal:
Francesco Piccolomini and San Saba, Rome" (room 248, Senate House, Malet
Street, London, Thursday 28 November, 5:00 pm).
The University of Pennsylvania Press have just published Valentin Groebner,
"Liquid Assets, Dangerous Gifts: Presents and Politics at the End of the
Middle Ages", translated by Pamela E. Selwyn, ISBN 0-8122-3650-5. According
to their blurb, "Liquid Assets, Dangerous Gifts addresses the notions and
practices of gift giving in Europe between 1400 and 1550. Focusing on the
prosperous cities of the Upper Rhine, it explores the uses of gifts in
political ritual and the different functions of these donations.
Contemporaries spoke of these gifts - sometimes wine, sometimes coin or
other precious metals - as liquid; indeed, the same German word was used
for giving a present and pouring a fluid. These gifts were integral parts
of an economy of information marking complex differences and dependencies
in social hierarchy. The gifts were meticulously recorded and governed by
strict social codes, yet the terminology and traditions of gift exchange in
this period betray deep-seated ambivalence and anxieties about the practice."
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Rupert Shepherd
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Material Renaissance Project
Essex House
University of Sussex
Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QQ, U.K.
Tel. +44 (0)1273 872544 Fax +44 (0)1273 678644
[log in to unmask]
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/arthist/matren/
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