Luxury and Consumption in Eighteenth-Century Italy: Intellectual History,Methodological Ideas and Interdisciplinary Research Practice

Summary

This article has two aims. In the first part I will present some methodological considerations on intellectual history, particularly in relation to other disciplines considered similar yet different, such as the history of ideas, the history of concepts and the history of discourse. I will then seek to clarify what it means, in terms of research practice, to write intellectual history, taking as a starting point the subject of my own research, namely the political implications of economic thinking on luxury and consumption in Italy during the second half of the eighteenth century. More specifically, I intend to highlight the unique characteristics of intellectual history, understood as global history, which requires the reconstruction of the different contexts in which its underlying ideas and objectives developed, concentrating on its highly interdisciplinary nature. In particular, I will focus on a specific type of interdisciplinarity that characterised the methodology of my research, namely the attempt to hold together political thought and economic analysis. Eighteenth-century Italy was in fact marked by a strong, multifaceted political evaluation of economic thinking on luxury and consumption, which led me to examine the discussion of the subject through two lenses, those of economic analysis and political thinking. This specificity shows how the reconstruction of economic thought constitutes a fertile course for the investigation of the political culture and social projects of Italian authors in the eighteenth century, at a time when economic science was taking shape as a separate discipline.     

Embroidery as a Means of Diplomacy: The Artisans’ Part in a Royal Marriage Proposal, 1560–1561

The use of fashionable dress played an important part in early modern dynastic politics. In this paper, the diplomatic efforts to engineer a marriage between Erik XIV of Sweden and Elizabeth I of England are used as an example of the interrelations of textiles and diplomacy. Parallel to their negotiations in London, the Swedes organised the production of luxury goods and set up temporary workshops on the spot. The study looks at the Swedish embroidery workshop in London, using written records to investigate its organisation and production, and to discuss artisanal skills and the transnational element in employment in a royal workshop. It is suggested that the entire enterprise was a diplomatic practice, designed to enable the Swedes to draw attention to their presence in London and make their consumption visible on all possible levels.     

Occupational genders and gendered occupations: the case of water provisioning in Maputo,Mozambique

Taking issue with how associations between technical prowess or entrepreneurship and masculinity tend to be taken for granted or are seen as stemming from natural or intrinsic gender differences, over the last two decades feminist scholars have developed theoretical approaches to understand the gendering of professions and abilities as the performative outcome of particular cultures and histories. We build on these insights to explore how associations between masculinities, technology and entrepreneurship shape ideas and practices of small-scale water provision in Maputo. Our findings show how activities (i.e. technical craftsmanship, hard physical work) or abilities (i.e. risk-taking, innovativeness) regarded as masculine tend to be considered the defining features of the profession. This shapes how men and women make sense of and talk about their work, each of them tactically emphasizing and performing those aspects best fitting their gender. Our detailed documentation of men’s and women’s everyday involvements in water provisioning challenges the existence of sharp boundaries and distinctions between genders and professional responsibilities. It shows that water provisioning requires many other types of work and skills and male and female household members collaborate and share their work. The strong normative-cultural associations between gender and water provisioning lead to a distinct under-recognition of women’s importance as water providers. We conclude that strategies to effectively support small-scale water businesses while creating more space and power for women involved in the business require the explicit recognition and re-conceptualization of water provisioning as a household business.     

Comparing the survival of osteocalcin and mtDNA in archaeological bone from four European sites

The small mineral-binding bone protein, osteocalcin, has been applied in a number of studies on ancient bone due to predictions of its long-term stability. However, the intact protein has not been shown to survive in ancient bone devoid of DNA, which is a much more phylogenetically informative biomolecule. In this investigation, the survival of osteocalcin is directly compared to the amplification of mtDNA in a set of 34 archaeological samples from four sites throughout Europe. We also present unpublished osteocalcin sequences of seven mammalian species in addition to the 19 published sequences to highlight phylogenetic limitations of this protein. The results indicate that the intact osteocalcin molecule survives less in archaeological samples than mtDNA and is more subject to the temperature of the archaeological site. Amino acid analyses show the persistence of the dominant protein collagen in samples that failed both osteocalcin and mtDNA analyses. The implications these findings present for biomolecular species identification in archaeological and palaeontological material are that, although proteins do survive beyond ancient DNA, osteocalcin does not appear to be the most ideal target.