ABSTRACT
Whether dancing with other aristocratic youths in front of the Mercato Nuovo 2 or reading a classical author by candlelight in one’s study, 3 leisure in Renaissance Florence took many different forms, both in the public realm outside the walls of the casa or within the interior of the home. The semi-public revelries enjoyed at Italian Renaissance courts, and the public festivities celebrated on the streets of Florence, have been well investigated, as extensive documentation of these diversions exists. 4 Though not limited to Florence, Katherine McIver, for instance, considers courtly banquet seating in the city and the country in the cinquecento in this volume. 5 Domestic sociability and the objects related to those amusements remain under-explored facets of the domestic interior of the Florentine home, especially for the quattrocento. A few scholars have laid the foundations for further studies. Marta Ajmar-Wollheim has addressed sociability in the later decades of the cinquecento casa, 6 while Brenda Preyer has examined the manner in which the layout and the built-in decorations of the quattrocento Florentine palace facilitated social exchange. 7
