Sound and domestic space in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy

The ephemeral dimensions of the home - the tactile, odorous, and auditory - have been marginalized in studies of interiors. Scant, scattered, often problematic evidence makes such characterizing aspects of domestic space perilously difficult to retrace, yet their profound influence on domestic experience is undeniable. "I have the most wretched room (if you can call it that) in the whole town, and the worst company, and I suffer the worst discomfort in the world," grumbles the writer Anton Francesco Doni in a letter describing his Venetian accommodation in 1550.