Cassone painting, humanism, and gender in early modern Italy
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Cassone painting, humanism, and gender in early modern Italy
（Cambridge studies in new art history and criticism）
Cambridge University Press, c1998
Available at 14 libraries
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-258) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Overlooked in traditional studies of Italian Art, cassone (decorated chest) painting was nonetheless a popular genre in Early Renaissance Tuscany. Made by anonymous painters for undocumented patrons, these decorated chests display 'high' art subject matter, a contradiction that has discouraged the study of domestic pictures within traditional art history. In this study, Cristelle Baskins questions the traditional readings of cassone imagery as merely didactic or moralising. Drawing on historical context and poststructuralist textual interpretation, she argues that these pieces performed an important role in the socialisation and gender formation of women during the Renaissance. Invariably depicting exemplary women from classical mythology, cassone, Baskins demonstrates, invite a range of responses, ranging from coercion to pleasure. Her study also shows how these domestic pictures contribute to revisionist approaches within cultural and literary studies of the Renaissance.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Object lessons: a cassone in the Della Famiglia
- 1. Le Nozze di Emilia: Amazons, armed and beautiful
- 2. Dido: taking the gold out of Carthage
- 3. Camilla: Filialogy and the family romance
- 4. Hersilia and the sabine women: Piece-making
- 5. Lucretia: dangerous familiars
- 6. Virginia/Virginius: her body, himself.
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