ABSTRACT
Examining the youth of women from both ‘middling sort’ and patrician families living in Bologna between 1550 and 1600, this study considers the role of domestic material culture in the upbringing and education of girls and young women, tracing how their relationships with objects and images developed and shifted over the early stages of life. Bringing together evidence from literary and archival sources as well as artefacts and images in museum collections today, this essay demonstrates that household objects were important and practical teaching tools as well as symbolic of a young woman’s knowledge, age, and social status. Additionally, girls and young women could use these same objects to attempt to alter or determine their own lives and futures.
