A home is not a fixed backdrop that simply mirrors its times. The rooms and objects people live with both respond to social and cultural change and push it along. That makes the house a place where culture is produced, not only displayed.
When social life centres on the house, whoever runs hospitality gains real control. In Renaissance Italy the home was the main stage for sociability. The woman acting as hostess therefore held a stronger grip on the household than is usually credited.
A painted domestic interior can be built for use, not just as a record of reality or a code of symbols. Carefully chosen objects, and the noticeable absence of others, invite viewers to reflect on what is and is not there. Such pictures worked as aids to meditation and shaped how people prayed.
When an event is both unavoidable and deadly, people fill their homes with things meant to manage it. In Renaissance Italy, childbirth was essential to every family and risky for every mother. That combination helps explain the flood of charms, gifts and special objects made for conception and birth.
Working people needed a respectable public image as much as the rich did, but their housing was less secure and their lives more fragile. They used credit, pawning household goods, to keep up appearances. Their social and family ties also leaned more on the neighbourhood than on the household alone.