The Domestic interior of a prosperous Florentine merchant in sixteenth-century Birgu

Abstract

Maurice de Giorgio’s successful involvement in the furniture industry, starting from the early post-war years when Malta was still struggling to recover from the ravages of war, and his determining involvement in the Patrimonju antique furniture exhibition in 2002, have prompted me to direct my short study to a topic which I am sure is of great interest to him – luxurious domestic interiors in the first decades of Hospitaller Birgu. Reconstructing history has its limitations, especially in the absence of suicient primary material. Apart from the paucity of written documentation, another major obstacle to the study of interiors for this period is the lack of any graphic record which would help the researcher visualize the relationship between space and utility. Rather than the isolated description of a piece of furniture, or of other household furnishings, the holistic arrangement of interiors set in a particular context is of utmost importance, since it is only in their proper arrangement that these items best speak of a way of life. The ways in which people slept, cooked, rested and did various other chores according to their social standing dictated the demand for household commodities. Notwithstanding the dearth of available contemporary sources for pre-Siege Birgu, one can still sketch a general outline by studying the few inventory lists that have survived in our archives. These inventories are mainly related to persons who died ab intestato, but similar listings containing detailed information are also found in wills and dowry agreements. As shall be discussed, some of the most interesting insights available to the researcher are those which record the possessions of established merchants and traders who were operating in the early years of Hospitaller rule. All of these records, irrespective of their original function, open up small windows on various aspects of life during the mid-sixteenth century. They are not only reflective of the social status of a particular merchant or trader, but also expose different trends in clothing, jewellery and house furnishings.