A Renaissance baron and his possessions
Subtitle: Paolo Giordano I Orsini, Duke of Bracciano (1541-1585)
By: by Barbara Furlotti
Series: Cursor mundi -- v. 15; Cursor mundi (Turnhout, Belgium) -- v. 15.
Publisher: Brepols
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Turnhout
Language: eng
Number of pages: 333
ISBN-13: 9782503534749
Subjects: Art collections; Estate; Nobility; History; Collectors and collecting; Consumption (Economics)
Description: This book explores the subject of baronial identity and material culture in sixteenth-century Rome by focusing on the Duke of Bracciano, Paolo Giordano I Orsini, his court, and his possessions. It is an investigation into the way in which a Roman baron constructed and disseminated his sense of self through the objects he owned, the events he organized, and the relationships he forged by means of material goods and works of art. The analysis of the use of artistic and luxury goods in the form of pawns, rentals, loans, gifts, and thefts shows how aristocratic patrimonies were subject to continual mobility and served a multiplicity of goals. Supported by a wealth of documentation, mostly unpublished, including inventories, correspondence and account books, this study provides a new dynamic insight into a Renaissance aristocratic court.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [293]-326) and index.
Table of contents: title: Part I. The creation of a Renaissance baron; title: Paolo Giordano Orsini in context; title: Performing identities; title: Part II. Possessions; title: Displaying status; title: The mechanisms of consumption at Paolo Giordano's court; title: Part III. Mobility and value; title: Pawns and credit; title: The rental market and loans; title: Gifts and thefts.