Everyday life during the Renaissance is vividly recreated in a new exhibition here looking at Italian households during the 15th and 16th centuries .
The show, At Home In Renaissance Italy, brings households from the period to life through a series of reconstructed rooms, which highlight the key role of interior living in the development of art and culture at the time .
The salon, bedchamber, study and kitchen of a Renaissance palazzo are all carefully recreated, complete with samples of furniture, artwork, decorations and everyday objects. The layout of the show is designed to encourage visitors to feel as though they have stepped inside an actual home from the time .
A quiet study contrasts with a busy kitchen, where a meal is being prepared, while the bedroom lies ready for the arrival of a newly wed couple. Exhibition organizers have highlighted the fact that the line between fine art and decorative art was still blurred at the time .
This meant that artists not only produced paintings and sculpture but also a variety of domestic objects .
The result was homes in which expensive paintings and sculptures shared space with finely carved mantelpieces, elaborate ewers and exquisitely decorated goblets, cruets and pomanders .
Among the everyday items on display are a walker for babies between the age of six and 12 months and a finely-worked metal corset for young noblewomen, to ensure erect posture .
Another intimate household item is an elaborately decorated gold and wood birth-tray that once belonged to the Medici family. The trays were a typical feature in Renaissance homes, used to carry food and gifts to new mothers, and passed down through generations. However, the exhibition also features more conventional art, including a number of paintings that once hung in private houses or depicted home life. Portrait of a Woman and a Man at a Casement by Fra Filippo Lippi is thought to be the earliest double portrait in Italian art. It shows Lorenzo di Ranieri Scolari and Angiola di Bernardo Sapiti, who married in Florence in 1436, facing each other, eyes downcast .
Two paintings by Paolo Veronese show the Count Iseppo da Porto and his wife Livia Thiene. Like the Lippi painting, they are considered particularly important, as they are among the earliest surviving full-length portraits .
Kitchen Scene by Vincenzo Campi strikes an entirely different note, depicting a lively bustling room with servants rolling pastry and grating cheese .
A painting by the female artist Sofonisba Anguissola also captures a moment from domestic life, with a portrait of sisters playing chess while their maid looks on. The painting, of Anguissola's own sisters, has an unusually intimate atmosphere, showing a young girl in mid-laugh as she glances at her older relative. An international team of experts from Italy, Britain and the US have been working on the exhibition for the last two years, and their finds and conclusions are contained in the exhibit's accompanying book .
At Home In Renaissance Italy can be visited in the Victoria and Albert Museum until January 7, 2007 .
photo: Antonello da Messina's St Jerome in his study
