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Fragments from the ‘life histories’ of jewellery belonging to prostitutes in early‐modern Rome
Author(s) -
Storey Tessa
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
renaissance studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1477-4658
pISSN - 0269-1213
DOI - 10.1111/j.1477-4658.2005.00128.x
Subject(s) - inscribed figure , relation (database) , aesthetics , focus (optics) , sociology , field (mathematics) , art , history , physics , geometry , mathematics , database , computer science , pure mathematics , optics
Prostitutes and courtesans in early modern Italy were frequently portrayed as wearing sumptuous jewellery. This article seeks to move away from an understanding of such objects purely in terms of luxury and display and focuses on aspects of their ‘life history’. Starting with an overview of the broader field of relations in which jewellery was inscribed, and which dominated the cultural meanings of jewellery, it then examines a number of case histories which illustrate the meanings, values and functions which jewellery had at a personal level for prostitutes. The main focus is particularly on the moment in which jewellery was acquired, and it seems that the ‘rituals’ of the giving of jewellery by men to prostitutes can most usefully be understood in relation to the norms and praxeis underlying such gifts between men and ‘honest’ women, even though these norms sometimes seem to have been subverted in the world of prostitution. (pp. 647–657)