French Literature Reviews - 2026
Élisabeth Crouzet-Pavan, Another History of the Renaissance: The Voice of Objects
History, Politics and Society
Another History of the Renaissance: The Home, Objects, and Practices (15th-Century Italy)
Welcome to 15th-century Italy. Resting on a windowsill is a majolica jar, adorned with leaf motifs and a striking metallic luster. Imported from the Valencia region, it holds an ornamental plant. On a desk, alongside a pair of scissors, spectacles, and quills, sit three inkwells. One, brought to Venice from Mamluk Syria, is made of damascened bronze; another of more or less precious glass; while the last, made of earthenware, was crafted in Italy, in Faenza. On a bed lie stacked quilts, bedspreads, and pillows, surrounded by bed curtains—an abundance of velvet, taffeta, and even gold cords, fringes, and embroidered patterns in shades of green, crimson, and purple. Hanging nearby, keeping watch over the sleepers, is a painting of the Madonna and Child; further along the wall, a mirror. Also in the room are chests with painted panels telling stories, and carpets from Anatolia or Cairo. In the great hall, on a table set for a formal banquet and on the sideboard, there is an unprecedented profusion of glassware and tableware.
These objects lie at the heart of our inquiry, which seeks to restore their forgotten lives by exploring the practices they enabled and the connections they forged with those who crafted, purchased, used, and circulated them. Furniture, textiles, vessels, and forks tell an anthropological story of the Renaissance—one just as significant as the triumphs of the arts and humanism, charting the transformation of material culture and depicting an Italy open to the wider world.
Élisabeth Crouzet-Pavan is Professor Emeritus of History at Sorbonne University. She is a specialist in late medieval and Renaissance Italy.
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The study of material culture has become a significant branch of historical inquiry, moving beyond the traditional focus on elite artistic production to consider the everyday items that shaped domestic life. By analyzing household goods such as textiles, ceramics, and metalwork, historians can reconstruct the social habits and economic networks of the past. In the context of 15th-century Italy, this approach highlights how imported goods and local craftsmanship intersected within the private sphere. Readers interested in the history of daily life and the development of Renaissance domesticity may find this examination of material practices relevant.
The study of material culture seeks to understand past societies by looking at the objects that mediated human experience. Another History of the Renaissance: The Home, Objects, and Practices (15th-Century Italy) focuses on the circulation of items like Anatolian carpets, Syrian inkwells, and Italian glassware. The text depicts an Italy open to the wider world and explores the connections forged with those who crafted, purchased, used, and circulated these objects, prioritizing the tangible environment of the Italian home.
An article on this work by Maxime Folconis can be read on nonfiction.fr…