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  • Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy 1400–1600
  • Jana Byars
Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy 1400–1600. By EvelynWelch ( New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. ix plus 403 pp. $45.00).

In Shopping in the Renaissance, Evelyn Welch examines some very practical issues about consumer goods and behavior in Italy—predominantly northern Italy—in the years between 1400 and 1600. She tells us who went shopping—including their gender and class—and what they bought. We learn where shoppers went to purchase goods, when they did this shopping, what sorts of establishments they might encounter, what those establishments looked like and the goods that were [End Page 1032] available. But, as Welch writes in her conclusion, "{...}Renaissance shopping, whether undertaken as a regular outing or as a special occasion, was not a simple act. It was a key moment that brought people of different status, religion and sex together." (p. 303) And so, in what is the great strength of this book, Welch explores the cultural context of shopping; she explains the world in which the shopper functioned and his or her ideas about the shopping experience. She argues that when Renaissance shoppers went to marketplaces to choose items, negotiate prices and take those items home, they were taking part in and reinforcing a complex set of beliefs that was an integral part of the social order.

Welch divides the main body of her work into five sections introduced by a short but far-ranging chapter exploring the wider context of consumerism. Each section contains two topical chapters. The first, and perhaps richest, section, "Seeing Shopping," explores the ideas about the marketplace and way shoppers interacted with those conceptions. According to chapter one, "Markets and Metaphors," marketplaces were places of necessity; the exchange of goods was essential for survival, both on the individual and societal levels. Yet, the marketplace had long been considered a dangerous place that attracted society's liminal and illicit elements and allowed for interaction between these characters and their betters. The way an individual behaved when faced with these elements reinforced their position in society, both in regards to social status and moral rectitude. Likewise, the municipalities themselves interacted with the marketplace. They literally constructed the spaces in which these interactions took place, and metaphorically constructed the landscape of interaction. Thus, chapter two, "Shopping and Surveillance," deals with civic control of the exchange of goods. In the second section, "The Geography of Expenditure," Welch discusses the development of urban space and architecture. The demarcation of commercial space was a multivalent effort, involving not only designating certain urban spaces for market activities, but also certain times. Chapter four, "Time," covers the regulation of holy days, Saturdays, and regular market hours; chapter five, "Place," covers the physical appearance of shops, including signage and the manner in which items were displayed. Part three, "Acquisition and Excitement," contains two chapters, "Fairs," and "Bidding and Gambling." They delve into transitory and illicit marketplaces that offered exotic, or at least unusual, goods and created a level of excitement. The fourth section, "Renaissance Consumers," as its title indicates, looks at the shoppers themselves, and the manner in which goods were acquired as well as the goods they were likely to purchase. In chapter eight, "Men in the Marketplace," Welch looks at the account books of Florentine and Venetian families; in chapter nine, she looks at the very famous female consumer Isabella d'Este. Finally, her conclusion, titled, "Priceless," applies the lessons of the previous chapters on two diverse commodities: antiquities and indulgences.

This book is beautiful, sumptuous even. Upon opening the book, the reader is likely to first leaf through its large, glossy pages to take in all 213 illustrations. That reader will find diverse offerings indeed, including woodcuts contrasting Christ and Antichrist, terracotta figurines, perfectly rendered portraits and modern photographs of the Rialto bridge. These images and the material culture and art they reference are only some of the many sources the author employs and well represent the diversity of material she brings to bear on her study. [End Page 1033] Among her other sources are family account books, price lists, literary sources and criminal...

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