Collecting Art in the Italian Renaissance Court: Objects and Exchanges

In this book, Leah R. Clark examines collecting practices across the Italian Renaissance court, exploring the circulation, exchange, collection, and display of objects. Rather than focusing on patronage strategies or the political power of individual collectors, she uses the objects themselves to elucidate the dynamic relationships formed through their exchange. Her study brings forward the mechanisms that structured relations within the court, and most importantly, also with individuals, representations, and spaces outside the court. The volume examines the courts of Italy through the wide variety of objects - statues, paintings, jewellery, furniture, and heraldry - that were valued for their subject matter, material forms, histories, and social functions. As Clark shows, the late fifteenth-century Italian court an be located not only in the body of the prince, but also in the objects that constituted symbolic practices, initiated political dialogues, caused rifts, created memories, and formed associations.

About the Author

Leah R. Clark is a Lecturer in the Department of Art History at The Open University, Milton Keynes. Her research explores the roles that the exchange, collection, and replication of objects played in the creation of social networks in the fifteenth century. She is co-editor (with Nancy Um) of a special issue of the Journal of Early Modern History, and her work has appeared in a number of publications including the Journal of the History of Collections. She has received prestigious awards and fellowships from a variety of institutions including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the British Academy and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.