Fifteenth-Century Venice: Performing Imaging

Abstract

The portraiture hitherto discussed is representative of the modernisation of the genre in fifteen-century Europe. As urban professionalism settled within the spheres of power, it stimulated cultural and material by-products that also constitute the visual signs of these portraits. A study of these signs should consider the extent to which mimetic expressions betrayed the practical and psychological concerns of shifting social orders. Regarding female portraiture, it should also consider the extent to which the economy of this urban professionalism had benefited from the patriarchal system. The Venetian culture of display suits an exploration of these questions. Therefore, it is the subject with which I shall conclude this book. This final chapter probes the effects of the laws on dowries and marriage on the Venetian patriciate. In treating this subject as a case study, I propose that portraiture as an object of display was complemented by symbolic actions in the public sphere, the theatre for self-imaging.