Luxury

Renaissance Europeans held contradictory views about luxury. On one hand, they placed a greater value than ever before on the quality and number of their material possessions. The objects people owned helped define their identity as consumers, collectors, and patrons* of the arts. On the other hand, there remained an undercurrent of religious and moral suspicion about excessive displays of wealth. Most places had laws governing how much money people could spend on such luxuries as jewelry and fine clothing.

Material Culture. The Renaissance gave birth to a new cultural trend that focused on the pursuit of worldly goods. This "material culture" first arose in the city-states of Italy, which had been centers of European economy and trade for several centuries. Italy's urban elites* displayed their wealth, power, and taste by investing in splendid buildings, clothing and ornaments, books and art objects, and lavish public celebrations.

Italy experienced a building boom during the Renaissance. Churches grew larger, creating a demand for murals, paintings, and sculptures to decorate them. Secular* urban architecture also reflected a new concern with magnificence. Cities built public buildings and monuments to reinforce their new roles as political, economic, and cultural centers. Wealthy families built residences that advertised their wealth and social standing. For instance, the palace of Cosimo de' MEDICI in Florence, built in the 1400s, displayed the family's coat of arms* on the front. While most of the poor continued to live in single-room, single-bed dwellings, the wealthy began dividing their homes into more rooms, offering greater privacy to those who lived there.

One of the most important rooms in the house was the study. Many men regarded their studies as retreats* where they could keep their private papers out of the hands of women. The study also provided a place to display collections of books, maps, scientific instruments, or artworks. The urge to collect became a passion in the Renaissance. Many intellectuals kept a Kunstkammer, or cabinet of curiosities, in which they stored such interesting natural objects as plants, skeletons, and animal specimens. These collections gave rise to the first museums of natural history.

By the late 1400s, home furnishings accounted for a larger percentage of overall household expenses than in earlier times. Owners kept their most precious treasures, such as jewels and silver, locked up, often in their private studies. Other luxury items, such as gilded* leather, fine fabrics, and decorative sculptures, became more common throughout the house. Artworks also made up part of the home's furnishings. New artistic techniques helped lower the price of paintings, making them a major consumer product.

Over time, the material culture of Italy spread to other areas. Foreign travelers to the Netherlands—which overtook Italy as Europe's leading economic center in the 1600s—noted the abundance of country mansions, lavish gardens, and specialty shops bursting with wares, especially in the city of Amsterdam. The Dutch became deeply fond of decorative objects, including mirrors from Venice and silks from Persia (now Iran). This passion reached its height in the 1600s, when tulips became the object of a collecting craze.

Sumptuary Laws. Many parts of Europe had laws designed to prevent extravagance in dress, food, and other goods. Known as sumptuary laws, these regulations focused on fancy clothing, jewelry, and other ornaments. Governments had two main reasons for passing sumptuary laws. First, from a moral standpoint, many people saw luxuries as signs of sinful pride. On a more practical level, these laws helped prevent people from overspending and falling into debt. Some sumptuary laws restricted the amount people could spend on events, such as weddings and funerals. In some cases, laws limited the size of girls' dowries* for fear that large dowries would lead to late marriages and a low birthrate.

Sumptuary laws helped reinforce the boundaries of class and social standing. For example, they often placed limits on who could wear certain furs and fabrics, with the finest goods reserved for royalty. In Germany, strict dress codes established visible differences between servants and their employers. Prostitutes throughout Europe also had to follow dress codes. The city of Florence used its sumptuary laws to generate income by requiring women to register all garments above a certain value and pay taxes on those that were considered too fancy. The city even hired inspectors to examine women's clothes chests. Sumptuary laws also sought to enforce decency by closely regulating the depth of women's necklines.

Punishment for breaking the sumptuary laws usually took the form of a fine. The enforcement of the laws varied widely, with Switzerland particularly strict in its punishments. From 1541 to 1564, when Protestant reformer John CALVIN held power in the Swiss city of Geneva, there were more than 800 arrests, 76 banishments, and 58 death sentences for moral offenses, including violations of the sumptuary laws. In England, by contrast, records show few punishments for breaking these laws. During the reign of JAMES I in the 1600s, the country did away with its sumptuary laws altogether.