The period between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries arguably witnessed the birth of consumer society. The economic boom following the devastation of the Black Death resulted in a significant increase in the production and consumption of material goods, which in turn took on increasing representational value, particularly within the home. What did it mean to represent music visually in this expanding and diversifying material landscape? How was music signified in images and why? Where were representations to be found and how did this change during this period? Focusing on the material culture of Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, this chapter will explore these questions in order to reflect on music's changing relationship to everyday life.

This article considers how the sounds produced by the preparation and consumption of meals in Italy changed between around 1300 and 1700. It argues that by focusing on sound, and by using ecological approaches, we can rediscover obscured connections between different categories of material objects. By examining material and textual evidence for three categories of objects associated with cooking and dining - metalwork, ceramics, and glass - the article traces changes in the material cultures of kitchen and table, and the clear impact these changes had on domestic soundscapes. It considers these sound-producing objects as agents of social interaction, exploring the social relationships they constructed, and the role sound played in those relationships. The article then focuses on the practices of cooking and dining, and the way they shaped the sound of objects. Finally, the article situates objects and social practices within the spatial context of the home, tracing an increasing impetus to manage and control specific types of sound in relation to gender. In the discourse on hospitality, noise came to signify a badly-managed, and therefore morally dubious, household, while silence testified to decorous and authoritative domestic management.

One of the rarest sixteenth‐century objects going into the new Medieval and Renaissance Galleries has a dual identity: it is both a knife and a piece of music. On one side of its broad blade is a clear, perfectly notated musical setting of a blessing of the table, to be sung before a meal; on the other, a prayer giving thanks, to be sung when the meal has ended. This knife is usually presented as a single item. However, the inscription ‘.i. 9 [primus] tenor’ implies the existence of other voices, suggesting that it was once part of a larger set of knives, each of which bore one part of a complete polyphonic, or multi‐voiced, song. This article confirms that the V&A's knife is one of at least twenty examples surviving in other museums and collections or published during the nineteenth century, and is the first study to consider them as a group. It explores the possible social and symbolic functions of these distinctive objects, relating them to contemporary dining practices, and situates them in the context of broader relationships between music and the material culture of the table during the sixteenth century.

The ephemeral dimensions of the home-the tactile, odorous, and auditory-have been marginalized in studies of interiors. 1 Scant, scattered, often problematic evidence makes such characterizing aspects of domestic space perilously difficult to retrace, yet their profound influence on domestic experience is undeniable. "I have the most wretched room (if you can call it that) in the whole town, and the worst company, and I suffer the worst discomfort in the world,"grumbles the writer Anton Francesco Doni in a letter describing his Venetian accommodation in 1550:

Renaissance StudiesVolume 20, Issue 5 p. 623-628 Approaching the Italian Renaissance interior: sources, methodologies, debates Marta Ajmar-Wollheim, Marta Ajmar-WollheimSearch for more papers by this authorFlora Dennis, Flora DennisSearch for more papers by this authorAnn Matchette, Ann MatchetteSearch for more papers by this author Marta Ajmar-Wollheim, Marta Ajmar-WollheimSearch for more papers by this authorFlora Dennis, Flora DennisSearch for more papers by this authorAnn Matchette, Ann MatchetteSearch for more papers by this author First published: 15 November 2006 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-4658.2006.00370.xCitations: 2Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume20, Issue5November 2006Pages 623-628 RelatedInformation

Journal Article Review: Italian survivals Get access Flora Dennis Flora Dennis Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Early Music, Volume 33, Issue 1, February 2005, Pages 130–132, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/cah051 Published: 01 February 2005

Organ parts survive for many of the works, and the editors have sensitively provided parts where they do not exist; exceptions are the tuneful five-part almaines, where a theorbo seems more appropriate (if a chordal accompaniment is needed at all), and the six-part almaines, which are thought to have been the repertory of the royal wind consorts—due in part to their narrow range and the royal Stuart arms, ‘in a garland of vine-branches, flanked by lion and unicorn supporters’, stamped in gold on the binding. Pitch is another uncomfortable topic addressed squarely, with on the one hand recent research suggesting a high pitch for English chamber organs, and on the other hand the observations by both Michael Praetorius and Mersenne that the English played their viols at a low pitch ‘so as to render the sound of them sweeter and more charming’. The prefatory material also includes six pages of illuminating facsimiles: a keyboard score in Thomas Tomkins’s hand; Berardi’s example in Arcani musicali svelati; a first treble part perhaps copied by Sir Nicholas Le Strange’s ‘musical servant’ Thomas Brewer, and annotated by Sir Nicholas and his scribe; the treble part of the pavan ‘On Four Notes’ copied by Thomas Myriell and set to Jonson’s words: ‘Heare mee, O God!’; a compressed score on four staves; and another organ part in John Hilton’s hand. For the musical text itself, in the absence of any autographs, the editors have decided against choosing one version as a ‘best source’, but rather have created a conflation ‘that is likely to reflect Ferrabosco’s intentions’. I feel we are in excellent hands here, and the comprehensive textual commentary gives the extensive variants in a remarkably digestible and engaging manner. The scores are clear and clean, with discreet cross-references to other readings when appropriate. That 50 sources still survive bears witness to Ferrabosco’s esteem; many others must have disappeared. Fifteen large Musica Britannica pages are given to a discussion of provenances, which once again makes captivating reading. One manuscript, now housed in Christ Church, possibly belonged to Sir Thomas Crewe (1565–1633), who in 1623 became Speaker of the House of Commons; another, in the Rowe Library of King’s College Cambridge, was purchased by the economist Maynard Keynes and donated to the college during his time as bursar there. In short, this edition is a formidable achievement and a model of how to tackle such a task. Happily, instrumental parts are also available for all works: Musica Britannica have issued the consort music of five parts (with the four-part hexachord piece) under the catalogue reference H443, and David Pinto has edited the six-part works for the Corda Early Music Series in three books, CMP 410 to 412. Here is a feast of music by the composer whom Anthony Wood described as: ‘The most famous man in all ye world For fantasies of 5, or 6 parts’.