Articles by Paula Hohti Erichsen
Fashioning the Early Modern: Creativity and Innovation in Europe, 1500-1800 , 2016
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Historians of early modern Italy have traditionally viewed the city's public spaces, such as stre... more Historians of early modern Italy have traditionally viewed the city's public spaces, such as streets, quarters, taverns and marketplaces, as the chief locations in which claims to identity were launched into the broader urban community. Recent studies on the domestic interior, however, have shown that the distinction between ‘public’ and ‘private’ in the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century urban space was much more complex. In this period, private urban houses became sites for an increasing range of social acitvities that varied from informal evening gatherings to large wedding banquets. Focusing on this ‘public’ dimension of the private urban house, this article explores how the middling classes of artisans and shopkeepers used the domestic space to construct identities and to facilitate social relations in sixteenth-century Siena. The aim is to show that in providing a setting for differing forms of economic and social activity, the urban home together with its objects and furnishings may have provided an increasingly important physical location for craftsmen, shop-owners and traders to negotaite individual and collective identities within the broader communities of the city.
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Renaissance Studies
This essay explores the ways in which the middling classes of Sienese artisans and shopkeepers ex... more This essay explores the ways in which the middling classes of Sienese artisans and shopkeepers experienced Renaissance culture. Drawing on a range of archival documents, it examines what attitudes were expressed by people of a lower social rank towards wealth, luxury, ‘conspicuous’ consumption, and social emulation; how well informed ordinary Italians were of the cultural codes and practices that were cultivated among the Italian Renaissance elites; and what reasons other than social recognition motivated families from the artisan classes to acquire various types of material artefacts. In assessing, on the one hand, what mechanisms of acquisition were available for the local artisans and shopkeepers to get hold of a range of domestic artefacts and, on the other, what objects and furnishings were found and displayed in individual homes, the aim is to evaluate what possessions and possessing meant to those outside the ranks of the wealthy elites. The intention is to move away from exclusively social concerns of consumption and cultural objects to consider the range of motivations that may have driven local Sienese individuals and families to use and acquire material goods, in order to complicate and add nuance to our understanding of the factors behind Renaissance consumption.
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M. Ascheri, G. Mazzini’, F. Nevola (eds.),Siena nel Rinascimento: l'ultimo secolo della Repubblica, II: Arte, architettura, cultura, p. 271-81., 2009
Focusing on the economic context of goods acquisition, this study demonstrates that a complicated... more Focusing on the economic context of goods acquisition, this study demonstrates that a complicated micro-economy operated below the level of official financial documentation, which made a wide circulation of material goods possible at most social and economic levels of the 16th -century Siena.
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M. O'Malley and E. Welch (eds.), The Material Renaissance, 1450-1600, p. 242-59., 2009
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Gender & History, vol. 21, no. 1, 2009, pp. 202-3, Jan 1, 2009
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Renaissance Studies, vol. 22, issue 5, pp. 729-734, Jan 1, 2008
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Books by Paula Hohti Erichsen
Did ordinary Italians have a 'Renaissance'? This book presents the first in-depth exploration of ... more Did ordinary Italians have a 'Renaissance'? This book presents the first in-depth exploration of how artisans and small local traders experienced the material and cultural Renaissance. Drawing on a rich blend of sixteenth century visual and archival evidence, it examines how individuals and families at artisanal levels (such as shoemakers, barbers, bakers and innkeepers) lived and worked, managed their household economies and consumption, socialised in their homes, and engaged with the arts and the markets for luxury goods. It demonstrates that although the economic and social status of local craftsmen and traders was relatively low, their material possessions show how these men and women who rarely make it into the history books were fully engaged with contemporary culture, cultural customs and the urban way of life.
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Edited books by Paula Hohti Erichsen
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Articles by Paula Hohti Erichsen
Books by Paula Hohti Erichsen
Edited books by Paula Hohti Erichsen