Inventories and Treasures

Treasures and gifts these are the keywords that have characterized studies on princely material culture so far. This book, however, passes the mere focus on luxury at the court and investigates the essential question, which objects princesses and princes possessed, how they dealt with them, how they described them and for which purposes they used them. The analysis focuses on people and objects in move between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Southern Germany and Northern Italy. Starting from the German-Italian princely wedding contacts of the 14th and 15th centuries the author traces the relationships people engaged with objects during this age and geographical area of transition. One of the core questions is if we can already speak of an early modern consumer culture, which is often located in Renaissance Northern Italy. The author not only asks what objects people bought but also if there existed something like a shopping experience already in the Renaissance. How intensely were people of the Renaissance and the Middle Ages bound to the objects they possessed? Did they have emotional bonds to single objects? Besides inventories, the author analyses marriage contracts and last wills in order to answer these questions. At times it is possible to detect traces of objects that were handed down from grandmother to daughter and granddaughter. In the metaphor of the family chest the author catches this meaning of objects which surpasses generations. Yet the most precious object was not always the most important one. For sure those things were especially dear which people wore directly on their bodies. Objects tell us moreover what rooms at court looked like. They sketch areas outside the castle such as for instance the garden or nature which was explored in hunting excursions. Like the luggage for a life yet to be lived objects from the bridal trousseau tell us about hopes and expectations projected on the bride. The sources moreover show the experts of administration and crafts who produced the objects, cared for them, repaired them and held them in safe custody. Thus also the cultural history of the administration of objects becomes visible. The luxury items are integrated in the whole range of things that were located in the princely chambers and chests. From the most exquisite gold works to the simple sewing needle with twine this is the panorama of things, which are looked at in this book. The reader gets a portray of princely material culture from the 13th to the 15th century. Practices linked to objects become visible as well as social networks and cultural contacts. Inventories are analyzed as texts and objects and the author traces their genesis back to the early middle ages