Worldly Consumers

Book excerpt: This book focuses on how inexpensive maps, produced for the masses, accrued cultural value for everyday consumers in Renaissance Italy, who wanted to own and display maps in their homes as works of artnot for practical use, but for their cultural capital as commodities. Genevieve Carlton considers how and why maps took on this new identity, as coveted and revered material objects and symbols of status and power, which in turn elevated or reinforced the public personae of their owners. She reconstructs the market for maps by examining household inventories as well as the ways in which maps were displayed in the interiors of Renaissance homes. Her survey shows that consumers from every level of society owned and displayed maps and used them for personal gain, to reinforce a particular identity."