"This book offers a perspective on the private lives and material culture of aristocratic families in sixteenth-century Venice. Art historian Patricia Fortini Brown takes us behind the elegant, closed doors of grand palaces built along the Venetian canals - the homes of families who wished to live in a noble manner. She examines the roles of both fine and applied arts in family life as well as the public messages that these impressive homes conveyed." "As the sixteenth century opened, members of the patriciate were increasingly withdrawing from trade, desiring to be seen as "gentlemen in fact" as well as "gentlemen in name." The author considers why this was so and explores such wide-ranging themes as attitudes toward wealth and display, the articulation of family identity, the interplay between the public and the private, and the emergence of characteristically Venetian decorative practices and styles of art and architecture. Brown focuses new light on the visual culture of Venetian women - how they lived within, furnished, and decorated their homes; what spaces were allotted to them; what their roles and domestic tasks were; how they dressed; how they raised their children; and how they entertained. Bringing together both high arts and low, the book examines all aspects of Renaissance material culture." -- From book jacket.