Material culture, marriage and gender in Renaissance Italy
autonomy over the private sphere of her domestic setting and over the children below her. The scene is not chaotic because the spheres of influence are clearly defined as the artist or the patron wanted.
While this only represents one cassone depicting one myth it serves as a first step to forming an idea of the social constructions operating within Renaissance Italy, which dictated women’s role in society. While we cannot imagine all women as a ‘Hersilia’, as she was depicted in these two panels, we can begin to understand the paradigm of womanhood for Italians during the Renaissance. Moreover, while these cassoni seem exclusive to the elite, patrician class, they can also provide some evidence for the position of women in the middle and lower classes. Another cassone depicting the rape of the Sabine women shows a number of women, only two of whom are sexually assaulted, the only two wearing simple clothing, who are obviously lower-class. 40 This elite view of marriage in the lower classes suggests that there are more marriages for love and not for alliance, an idea backed up by Klapisch- Zuber’s analysis which revealed lower age difference in lower -class marriages. 41 Material history supports the historical consensus around marriage in the public setting, providing further evidence and context for the transactional nature of Renaissance marriage. However, as cities, especially Florence, began to introduce sumptuary laws, the role of the cassone became increasingly domestic. 42 Both the rings and the cassone create a clear delineation between the public and private sphere, making clear that the role of the new bride is among the other women, either those behind Hersilia or those passing on the rings. Cassoni provided points of identification for women launched into a new domestic sphere. While we cannot suggest the exact response of a woman to a painting like Figure 3, it shows the clear parameters of female power with the possibility for autonomy within those domestic limits. Emic analysis of material culture requires careful consideration of the social and economic context in which a work takes place. As Grassby points out in his essay, artefacts often don’t offer a singular clear message, entirely random factors can decide which artefacts survive the test of time and their provenance is often unknown. 43 Therefore, the conclusions drawn from such analysis cannot be considered absolute and cannot be considered in isolation without looking at other similar objects. However, the analysis provides an extremely useful tool to try and understand the culture of a period and understand the cultural structures individuals, especially those neglected by records, were operating in. Therefore, using the work of documentary sources to provide social and economic context, it is worth further scrutinizing objects associated with weddings so that gender can be ‘ defined and examined with new eyes ’ . 44
40 Ibid.: 118. 41 Klapisch-Zuber 1985: 210. 42 Cook, What are Cassoni? 43 Grassby 2005: 598-600. 44 Krohn 2008: 14.
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