ABSTRACT
Originally from the Latin luxuria, the term in its basic sense denotes excess, extravagance and magnificence. While these facets remain inherent to our modern usage of the term and understanding of the concept, there is no shortage of recent works emphasising the problematic usage of luxury both as a concept and as a term of description. As Christopher Dyer points out, the first issue lies in its shifts in meaning over time and thus its inability to ‘be strictly and easily defined’.2 The second issue arises in the use of the concept of luxury by individuals from the classical to the modern period to describe actions or desired actions of individuals, groups or polities. Jan de Vries underlines luxury as ‘an essential prop upholding the established order,
1 Pero Tafur, Travels and Adventures, trans.Malcom Letts (London: Routledge, 2005), 200.
