This project examines how changes in the material culture of food preparation and consumption over a five-hundred year period in Italy influenced soundscapes within the home. It investigates how the acoustic properties of different materials were understood and responded to, in an era that witnessed considerable technological change, the arrival of new foodstuffs, and an increasing specialization of domestic space and its domain knowledge. The sounds produced by iron cooking pots, glazed ceramic dishes, and steel cutlery influenced the behavior of the people around them, contributing to the sonic identity, and therefore public honor, of the household.
Francesco Xanto Avelli, Dish with The Woman of Sestos and the Eagle and arms of the Pucci family. Urbino, 1532, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Project
(2018)