CSDI - The Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB) Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior, based at the Royal College of Art in London, brings together three institutions: the Royal College of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Bedford Centre for the History of Women at Royal Holloway, University of London. Launched in September 2001, its goal is to develop new histories of the home, its contents, and its representation. It pursues research into the changing appearance and layout of rooms in a range of buildings, from tenements to palaces; the objects that furnished those rooms; the ways rooms and objects were depicted; the manner in which people used them; and how they thought about them.

A Casa: People, Spaces and Objects
in the Renaissance Interior
Two-Part Symposium

Part I
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
7-8 May 2004

Part II
Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies
at Villa I Tatti, Florence
10-11 June, 2004

‘A Casa: People, Spaces and Objects in the Renaissance Interior’ is a two-part symposium consisting of four full days of papers. The event will be divided between the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti, Florence and we hope that as many people as possible will be able to attend both parts. This is the final symposium of a series related to ‘The Domestic Interior in Italy, 1400-1600’, a research project launched in 2003 culminating in a book and major exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2006. An international group of scholars (largely funded by a Collaborative Research Grant from the Getty Grant Program) has been working together over the past year, starting to definine the character and look of the Italian casa, and exploring the relationships between its rooms, contents and inhabitants.

The two-part symposium ‘A Casa’ will broaden the scope of this research, including many contributions from other scholars from a wide variety of disciplines. It will explore the non-princely urban house in Renaissance Italy as a setting for the development of art and culture, and for the unfolding of everyday life and rituals. Furnishings, objects and decoration associated with domestic life survive, and one aim of the symposium is to integrate evaluation of their considerable aesthetic impact with greater understanding of their audiences and consumers. Other issues of central concern for the symposium include topics such as entertainment and sociability, devotion and education, work and the marking of life events as expressed through the use of objects and spaces.

Registration is required for Part I of the event only (Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 7-8 May 2004). To register, download the booking form (Word format).

This event is organized by the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti, and the AHRB Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior (Royal College of Art, Victoria & Albert Museum, and Royal Holloway, University of London). Generous support has been provided by The Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Amici del Bargello.