House and Home

Households in Renaissance Italy varied greatly in size and composition. This chapter introduces the idea of home as a social unit and considers this in relation to its physical characteristics, size, and the layout of rooms. Private chapels were rare except in elite families, but in every home, however modest, it was possible to designate a special corner or small table (altarino) for family prayers. The life of the Holy Family, as narrated in popular texts, provided a model for the pious home. The camera or bedroom, which was also a living room, seems to have been the usual site of domestic worship, and household inventories of the period suggest that devotional objects were often located around the bed. Practices varied between town and country.