Lo specchio della corte. Il maestro di casa. Gentiluomini al servizio del collezionismo a Roma nel Seicento

Abstract

It is conventional in the history of collections for those same collections to go by the names of their princely owners: Colonna, Chigi, Pamphilj, etc. But who actually selected and made the acquisitions? In this study of the Roman courts of the seventeenth century, the author convincingly argues that, within the pyramidal hierarchy that characterized the princely court down to the end of the ancien régime, and even down to the late nineteenth century in the special case of Sicily, there was a synergy between the various levels. A pivotal role was played in this respect by the persons who occupied a midway position between the prince himself and the servants, that is, the maggiordomo, maestro di casa and guardaroba. In three chapters she discusses the treatises on the various roles within the princely household, the most influential of which was the Dialogo del maestro di casa (1609) by the appropriately named Cesare Evitascandalo; the archival evidence concerning the functions and activities of the main officers who operated within the courtly setting; and the wills and inventories of eight of them. A hundred pages are occupied by the extremely useful publication of those wills and inventories, as well as an alphabetical list of those officers and their patrons documented in Rome between the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, and a glossary to explain many of the technical terms for household items found in the inventories.