How was marital life in the Italian Renaissance, how were gender roles within the couple and, more importantly, what did you need to do to be considered virtuous?

Providing an answer to these questions is the Virtues of Love exhibition, hosted in two venues in Florence, in the Horne and Accademia Gallery museums.

Renaissance marital life is portrayed in an exhibition of over 40 valuable paintings of the 15th century from renowned international and Italian museums.

These paintings adorned sumptuous furnishings – chests (cassoni), headboards, beds – of Florentine houses of the time and are a celebration of weddings and dynasties, of civic and marital values. The paintings were commissioned for the weddings and were mostly due to be part of the spouses’ bedrooms, centre of the public and private marital life.

The main function of room paintings was to warn or push the couple towards an exemplary behaviour through the scenes portrayed. The exhibition aims at highlighting this aspect, which helps us to understand a key feature of 15th century Florence: the virtues of love were not subject to laws related to feelings, but related to the laws of society.

The exhibition draws on the so-called “Cassone Adimari” held by the Accademia Gallery in Florence and painted by Masaccio’s brother Scheggia. Wedding chests were meant to rest against a wall, which is why only three of their sides are painted; intact wedding chests of the time are very far and few between: the exhibition includes the chest portraying the Palio di San Giovanni, a fair of historical costumes and crafts, by Giovanni Toscani of Bargello National Museum.  

Other paintings part of the exhibition are at the Horne Museum, which hosts works from private collections. It’s worth remembering that a wedding also and mainly meant new children and perpetuating the lineage.

This is why the last section of the exhibition focuses on the glory of the dynasty, portrayed in stories that illustrate the creation of well-known lineages, such as Enea and David or Petrarch’s “The Triumphs of Fame, Time and Eternity”. These images were also painted on birth trays (deschi da parto), circular or multi-sided medium-sized trays painted on both sides. Originally they were probably used as trays to present a meal to the mother after childbirth and they then became propitiating gifts for a strong and healthy progeny and to ward off risks related to labour or childbirth and were hung on the room’s wall. An outstanding birth tray is the one portraying the “The Triumph of Fame” by Scheggia and now held by New York’s Metropolitan Museum and once owned by Lorenzo the Magnificent and painted for his birth in 1448

Virtues of love. Nuptial painting in 15th century Florence
Accademia Gallery
Horne Museum
8th June- 12 December
Opening Hours: Accademia 8.15am - 6.50pm
Horne 9am-1pm
info 055 294883
www.unannoadarte.it