Power, Dependence, and Social Welfare in Early Modern Italy

This seminar examines the visual and material culture of power, propaganda, and social justice during the early modern period in Italy (c.1450-1800). Noble families set the tone for art patronage in public and private spaces across Italy. Prominent silk merchants sponsored the construction of the first institutional orphanage in Florence, while local nobility housed slaves. Venetian fathers consigned unwilling daughters to convents, as nuns in Naples built ‘invisible cities’ and employed artists to adorn them in lavish style. ‘Talking statues’ in Rome advocated for the end of oppressive taxation by over-zealous popes as The Church marshalled indigenous artisans to propagate the iconography of Catholicism and conversion in the Americas. We consider a range of works (painting, sculpture, prints, woodwork, ceramics, textiles, and clothing) to flesh out emerging, often conflicting discourses of social welfare, charity, opportunity, and oppression across Italy.