Provincial luxury in Renaissance Verona

AbstractThis article investigates the ways in which taste for luxury was expressed in the homes of the provincial Renaissance elite in sixteenth‐century Verona. Through an analysis of the domestic inventories of a crosssection of Verona’s elite, this article argues that items such as gilded and carved chests, opulent bedding, tapestries, decorated objects and religious paintings formed an integral part of luxury display and formation of family identity in elite Veronese households in the sixteenth century. The article explores how otherwise utilitarian goods were frequently ornamented and used to display taste, wealth, piety and status, as the Veronese elite competed to maintain and augment their position within Verona and the Veneto.Importantly, it is argued that as notable families in Verona manoeuvred amongst an elite social group in the Venetian mainland empire, there developed a shared taste for luxury, which largely mirrored domestic fashions emerging in Venice. Luxury furniture, fabrics and devotional objects were an important part of the construction of a splendid home and thus a positive public reputation for families navigating their way through fragile social hierarchies.