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Journal of Design History 2002 15(4):211-221; doi:10.1093/jdh/15.4.211
© 2002 by Design History Society
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Public Magnificence and Private Display

Giovanni Pontano's De splendore (1498) and the Domestic Arts

Evelyn Welch

School of European Studies, University of Sussex


  Abstract

This article examines a treatise on the concept of Splendour from the late fifteenth century. Written by the Naples-based humanist, Giovanni Pontano, it deals, with the domestic display of wealth. Based on Aristotelian models, the treatise opened up new opportunities for differentiating private forms of expenditure, such as the purchase of gems, vases and tableware from the public forms that were associated with the virtue of Magnificence, such as architectural patronage. This division, the article argues, was a rhetorical exercise based on literary models. It was not a description of actual practice or a manual of behaviour. Nonetheless, it provided a way of formulating modes of display that allowed the new class of wealthy administrators in the Kingdom of Naples to express their elite status without suggesting that they belonged to the royal aristocracy.

Key Words: Splendour • Magnificence • Renaissance • Naples • Giovanni Pontano • domestic display


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