Foreword

The growth of princely states in early Renaissance Italy brought on a thorough renewal of the old seats of power. One of the most conspicuous outcomes of this process was the building or rebuilding of new court palaces, erected as prestigious residences in accord with the new ‘classical’ principles of Renaissance architecture. The novelties, however, went far beyond architectural forms: they involved the reorganisation of courtly interiors and their functions, the new uses of the buildings, the relationship between the palaces and their surroundings. The whole urban setting was affected by those processes, and so the social, residential and political customs of its inhabitants. This book is devoted to all this, aiming to analyse the evolution of Italian court palaces in the Renaissance as a whole, in a comparative perspective.