Conspicuous’ consumption and popular consumers
Material culture and social status in sixteenth-century Siena
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11500124 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paula Hohti (0000-0001-7160-5259, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 654-670 |
| Publication date | 2010-11-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Renaissance Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0269-1213 • E-ISSN: 1477-4658 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1477-4658.2010.00643.x |
| OpenAlex | W1948575875 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
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
Advertising · Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Business · Conspicuous consumption · Consumer Culture · Consumption (sociology · Emulation · Order (exchange · Political science · Social order · Social science · Social status · Social stratification · Sociology · The Renaissance · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law · Psychology · Renaissance and Early Modern Studies · Social Psychology
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| Citations per year | 0.46 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2023 (11) |
| Highly cited | No |