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| Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence |
| [Exhibition Review] London's Courtauld Gallery wedding chests |
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Kevin Driscoll (km0d5)  |
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Published 2009-03-09 11:38 (KST) |
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Florence, that most beautiful and beguiling of cities, can justifiably lay claim to being the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. It was where towards the end of the 14th century, a few inspired artists dared to experiment with new ways of depicting the world around them. These radical experiments came to fruition throughout the succeeding century, culminating in art of such rare quality, that it has come to represent a high-water mark in the history of European culture. This achievement was echoed in the sister arts of sculpture and architecture, with the result that all three disciplines have been studied and documented so exhaustively, it is tempting to feel there is little left to say about this golden age in the visual arts. However, the folly of this assumption is admirably demonstrated by the Courtauld Gallery's current exhibition, Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence: the Courtauld Wedding Chests.
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| Initially at least, the idea of a show devoted to the obscure subject of Renaissance wedding chests, may sound a little too dry; more the province of the PhD specialist, yet this highly focused exhibition is both accessible and visually enthralling. Wedding chests, also known as Cassoni, have for too long been under estimated as a subject worthy of serious study by art historians, simply because these objects span the rigid demarcation between fine and decorative art. But beside their aesthetic and symbolic value, these sumptuous pieces of palatial furniture, offer a rare insight into the values of Renaissance Florence. Crucially, they provide valuable information on how family life was lived, albeit by families at the apex of Florentine society.
Marriage for patrician Florentine families was a serious business, with the emphasis very much on business; notions of love or even compatibility rarely entered into the equation. What counted above all was class, financial and political power and blood relationships between the ruling patrician families. In an age where mortality through war, disease or childbirth was shockingly high, the imperative of continuing the family name and heritage was of the utmost significance. Hence the bride tended to be considerably younger than the man to whom she was betrothed. In fact, it was not unknown for her to be as young as fifteen, while her prospective husband might well be in his late 20s or even early 30s.
That said, the protracted process of these carefully arranged marriages, might take as long as two years. In short, marriage for the elite of Florentine society was a dynastic alliance defined by wealth, power and prestige, with wedding chests providing the tangible emblems of that alliance. Once the marriage had been formally announced, the bridegroom would buy expensive clothes, jewels and rare textiles for his wife. However, these goods and chattels were essentially loaned to the wife, who was obliged to return them to her husband's family, should he die before her.
After redecorating his suite of rooms in the family palace, the bridegroom's next big expenditure would be the commissioning of Cassoni to celebrate the wedding itself and which contained the wedding gifts. These elaborately decorated chests were usually placed in the Master's principal chamber, where he and his wife would, it was hoped, conceive the next generation of his family.
Given their symbolic importance, it comes as no surprise that huge sums of money were lavished on the decoration of these stunningly ornate wedding chests. The decoration comprised carving, gilding and above all, exquisitely painted panels. In particular, it is the painted panels which are of signal importance, because these pictures are the earliest known type of secular painting executed in large numbers in Renaissance Italy.
Although they act as visual story books designed to transport the viewer to an imaginary world, combining elements of both the past and present, they are also wonderfully realised works of art in their own right. The narrative was, on the whole, derived from the literature and history of Ancient Greece and Rome, the Old Testament and the poetry of Boccaccio and the Petrarch. However, it was scenes from Roman history that was the preferred theme for Lorenzo Morrelli's Cassoni; a truly magnificent pair of wedding chests that form the centrepiece of the exhibition.
 | |  Lorenzo di Matteo Morelli's chest | | | ©2009 Courtauld Gallery | |  | | | Vaggia di Tanai Nerli's chest | | | ©2009 Courtauld Gallery | | Although Lorenzo di Matteo Morelli married Vaggia di Tanai Nerli in 1471, it was not until a full year later that he was able to commission his wedding chests, so great was the expense. Thanks to the survival of his account book, we are able to trace the evolution of the commission in some detail. We know for instance, that the carpenter, a specialist in wedding chests, was a certain Zanobi di Domenico. We also know that these Cassoni were the most expensive items that Lorenzo ever purchased for the Palazzo Morelli. Miraculously, these two chests -- his and hers -- survived the vicissitudes of history and fashion, intact. They are the only pair of Cassoni to have retained their spalliera, or backboards, a crucial feature of the overall design of the chests.
The Morelli Cassoni is flanked by personifications of Fortitude and Justice, while the spalliera depicts the episode from Livy's history where Horatius Cocles single handedly fends off the Etruscan hordes, who desperately attempted to cross the Tiber and sack Rome. But the two painters who executed the panels -- Jacobo del Sellaio and Biagio di Antion - have excelled themselves in their painting of the front panel. For they have somehow managed to convey a palpable sense of the full drama of Camillus driving the Gauls from Rome.
This has perhaps been achieved by the way the scene is given a distinctly modern flavour by interpreting the actual conflict in such a way that it owes more to contemporary battles and jousts, than it does any accurate portrayal of ancient warfare. By contrast, the Nerli chest, is adorned with the virtues of Temperance and Prudence, on the side panels. While the story of the Schoolmaster of Faleris, is reserved for the all important front panel.
The town of Faleris is besieged by that man Camillus and the Roman army. A cowardly schoolmaster of the town offers up his charges along with the keys to the town, in exchange for his life. But the wise and honourable Camillus instructs the pupils to punish their treacherous master -- represented by a humourous cameo in the middle distance, while their fathers open the gates to their worthy conqueror. The moral of the story, is to instruct Nerli not to use her children as bargaining tools in games of political expediency.
Selected with great care and deliberation, the choice of images provided both entertainment and moral instruction in an age of limited literacy. Moreover, Morelli and his like, saw themselves as the true heirs of Roman heroes like Camillus, they were fierce in the defence of their family and their city -- as well as enlightened dispensers of justice.
 | | | Detail of left side of the panel titled "The Reconciliation of the Romans and the Sabines" | | | ©2009 Harewood Trust | | One of the highlights of the show is The Reconciliation of the Romans and the Sabines, by the Master of Marradi, a panel detached from its accompanying wedding chest. Although now resembling a spalliera panel, it was originally made to decorate the front of a Cassone. Its pair, records the familiar story of the Rape of the Sabine Women, but in this hieratic format, ideally suited to storytelling, we see the reconciliation brokered by the unfortunate Sabine women, between their fathers and newly acquired husbands. In this busy, but skillfully orchestrated panorama, the artist manages to condense the act of reconciliation in the Sabine King Tatius' blessing of the wedding of Romulus and Hersilia. The story is sensitively adapted to accord with the wedding etiquette of 15th century Florence.
All too often these days, the tendency is towards the super blockbuster exhibition, where the presentation and choice of subject reveals little imagination or scholarship; but is nevertheless a guaranteed crowd puller. In other words, the show is a sure-fire financial success, which has become the principal criterion by which an exhibition's success or failure is now judged.
By contrast the Courtauld is to be congratulated for being one of the select few galleries to buck this depressing and short-sighted trend, and is leading the way with focused and thoughtful shows, that are both visually and intellectually engaging. Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence is the first show in Britain devoted to this hitherto neglected, though significant art form. It tells us as much about the social history and social anthropology of the time, as it does the art of the Renaissance. Both the material and the ideas of the exhibition are presented in such a way as to make this a thoroughly rewarding show.
Don't miss it!
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| The exhibition Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence: The Courtauld Wedding Chests is at the Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, Strand, London. WC2R 0RN, Feb. 12 to May 17, 2009. Opening times 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily (last admission 5:30 p.m.) Price of admission Five Pounds (concession four pounds). Free admission Mondays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and free at all times for under 18s, full time UK students and unwaged. |
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©2009 OhmyNews
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