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pursuits, the collection of works of art, recreation, or entertainment. In
architectural terms, the location of objects in inventories can cast light on
the use of individual rooms, although it is important to remember that in
the immediate aftermath of a death, objects were often moved around.
Furniture and clothing help to give substance to the social identity of the
subject, often illuminating the geographical provenance of the objects.
The profusion of inventories of women’s possessions helps to illuminate
the gendering of architectural space, but the study of inventories needs
to be approached cautiously, for a woman’s possessions often listed only
those items specified in her dowry at the time of her marriage.
The relationship between family life in the city and the villeggiatura
enjoyed by both Venetians and their subjects on the terraferma now
benefits from a more subtle analysis, thanks to recent scholarship and
exhibitions.110 Even the suburban villas of the islands of the lagoon have
become better known.111 Whereas images of country recreations such as
banqueting, music-making, and hunting illuminate the more agreeable
aspects of villa life, the fruits of economic history now go much further
towards explaining the true extent of the period’s agricultural revolution.
It has been shown, for example, that many of Palladio’s patrons were
actively involved in silk production and manufacture.112 This previously
unrecognized dimension helps to establish their close contacts with Vene-
tian commerce and to explain their access to capital for building. The
records of the purchase and sale of farmland now need to be analyzed
in a more subtle way, because of the growing realization of the extent to
which Venetian landowners offered mortgage loans to their neighbors by
“buying” small parcels of land on a temporary basis.113
The recent explorations of private life and its relationship to architecture
have not yet extended fully enough to the 17th and 18th centuries. Venice
in this period still suffers from its characterization as a city dominated by
masked balls, carnival antics, theatrical events, gambling, courtesans, and
110 Guido Beltramini and Howard Burns, eds., Andrea Palladio e la villa veneta da
Petrarca a Carlo Scarpa, exh. cat. (Venice, 2005).
111 Goy, Venetian Vernacular Architecture, pp. 172–250; Patrick Monahan, “Sanudo and
the Venetian villa suburbana,” Annali di architettura 21 (2009), 45–64.
112 Edoardo Demo, “Le attività economiche dei committenti vicentini di Palladio.
Nuove suggestioni sulla base dei recenti ritrovamenti archivistici,” in Franco Barbieri
et al., Palladio 1508–2008: Il simposio del cinquecentenario (Venice, 2008), pp. 25–28.
113 Brian Pullan, “The Occupations and Investments of the Venetian Nobility in the
Middle and Late Sixteenth Century,” in J. R. Hale, ed., Renaissance Venice (London, 1974),
pp. 379–408, on pp. 388–89; Lucia Bullian, “La villa come centro di credito rurale: il caso dei
Barbaro a Maser,” in Renzo Derosas, ed., Villa: Siti e contesti (Treviso, 2006), pp. 211–20.