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
7-8 May 2004
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Lecture Theatre

PROGRAMME

Friday, 7 May 2004
10.00 Registration (Lecture Theatre Landing)

Morning Session
Chair: Carolyn Sargentson (Victoria & Albert Museum)

10.30 Patricia Fortini Brown (Princeton University)
‘Living Domestically in the Renaissance: The North Italian Experience'

11.00 Brenda Preyer (University of Austin, Texas)
‘The Domestic Interior in Tuscany’

11.30 Break

11.45 Stephanie Hanke (Fondazione Longhi, Firenze)
‘Bathing all'antica. Private Bathrooms in Genoese Palaces
and Villas of the Sixteenth Century’

12.15 Luke Syson (National Gallery, London)
‘Representing the Domestic Interior in the Fifteenth Century:
Record or Convention, Myth and Model’

12.45 Discussion

Lunch (Gamble Room)

Afternoon Session
Chair: A V (Royal Holloway, University of London)

14.15 Stanley Chojnacki (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
‘Cosse per uxo de la dicta dona: Wives in the Venetian Palazzo’

14.45 Katherine McIver (University of Alabama at Birmingham)
‘Two Cousins: A Look into Two Private Homes and the Women Who Owned Them’

15.15 Barbara Bettoni (Università degli Studi di Brescia)
‘Urban Aristocracy without Court: Domestic Interiors in Brescia
during the Sixteenth Century (Casa Gambara al Fontanone, Cittadella Vecchia)’

15.45 Break

16.00 Anna Bellavitis (Université de Paris 10-Nanterre)
Isabelle Chabot (Università degli Studi di Trieste)
‘Case e oggetti, famiglie e lignaggi a Venezia e Firenze tra XIVo e XVIo secolo’

16.30 Jacqueline Musacchio (Vassar College)
‘Baptismal Ritual in Renaissance Florence’

17.00-17.30 Discussion

Saturday 8 May 2004
10.10 Registration (Lecture Theatre Landing)

Morning Session
Chair: Giandomenico Romanelli (Musei Civici, Venezia)

10.30 Allen Grieco (Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti)
‘Dining Rituals, the Credenza and the Birth of the Dining Room’

11.00 Beth Holman (Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the
Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture)
‘The Credenza in Early Modern Italy: Vas quasi corpus’

11.30 Break

11.45 Guido Vannini (Università degli Studi di Firenze), Angelica Degasperi (Università degli Studi di Firenze), Marta Caroscio (Università degli Studi di Firenze)
‘From Renaissance Maiolica to Slipware. Hypothesis on the Reconstruction of the Laid Table and Sideboard during the Renaissance in Florence. Preliminary Notes on Cafaggiolo’

12.15 Dale Kent (University of California at Riverside)
‘An Accountant's Description of His House and Life-Style
in Fifteenth Century Florence’

12.45 Discussion

Lunch (Gamble Room)

Afternoon Session
Chair: John Styles (Victoria & Albert Museum)

14.15 Fabrizio Nevola (University of Warwick)
‘Home Shopping: The Social and Architectural Place of Business
in Renaissance Palaces’

14.45 Franco Franceschi (Università degli Studi di Siena)
‘Lavorare in casa nella Firenze del rinascimento’

15.15 Break

15.30 Francesca Cavazzana Romanelli (Direzione generale archivi – Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali)
‘Le scritture d’archivio nella casa rinascimentale veneziana’

16.00 Jerome Hayez (Institut d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, Paris)
‘Uno iscritoio che basterebe a la Ghabella de’ chontrati: Espaces de l’écriture dans le palais et les agences de Francesco di Marco Datini (vers 1370-1410)’

16.30-17.30 Discussion and Roundtable
Chair: Suzanne Butters (University of Manchester)

GENERAL INFORMATION

Part One of the symposium will take place at the Victoria & Albert Museum in the Lecture Theatre, which is off the Silver Galleries. Registration begins at 10.00 AM, when the Museum opens.

Registration
Fees: Full price - £60, Student price - £30. Fee includes sandwich lunch, morning coffee and afternoon tea.

Registration is done by prebooking. (Deadline for registration is 23 April 2004). Payment can be made by credit card or cheque made out to Royal College of Art. Please download the booking form and return with payment to AHRB Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior, Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London, UK SW7 2EU.

For further information contact the AHRB Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior, csdi@rca.ac.uk; t. +44 (0)207 590 4183; f. +44 (0)207 4580.

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.