Allen, Joanne (2009) Choir stalls in Venice and northern Italy : furniture, ritual and space in the Renaissance church interior. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis seeks to re-establish the significance of choir stalls in Venice and northern
Italy and seeks to place stalls in their artistic, liturgical and spatial context. Although
now situated in remote locations in the church, stalls were once highly prized items of
furniture and considered to be praiseworthy artistic structures in their own right. As
the location for religious ritual, the elevated status of the choir area was reflected in
the detailed and sophisticated design of its wooden furniture. Through an analysis of
visual and documentary material, stalls will be brought to the fore to consider broader
questions. What can documents reveal about Renaissance workshop practices and the
relationship between craftsmen and patrons? How did the form of stalls reflect their use in
religious ritual and the organisation of sacred space? How did choir furniture develop as
an independent medium within the artistic context of the Renaissance church interior?
Four main topics will be considered in the first four chapters: the visual history of stalls;
the contracting procedure; the use of stalls in liturgical practices; and changes to choir
placement. Chapter One reconstructs the stylistic history of north-Italian choir stalls from
the fourteenth to early sixteenth centuries and contains an excursus on the development and
meaning of intarsia iconography. Chapter Two focuses on choir contracts, which confirm
that choir furniture was a considerable investment and a potential source of rivalry between
church communities Chapter Three moves the focus away from stalls as material objects
to their role in liturgical practices. An excursus on the established use of misericords
in Carthusian liturgy will demonstrate the close interaction between form and function
in stall design, and places Italian stalls in the context of their European counterparts.
The placement of choirs in the church interior will be examined in Chapter Four using
case studies of choir placement in different secular and religious houses, in particular the
Franciscan Observants, Franciscan Conventuals and the Dominicans. Although changes in
choir placement are often associated with liturgical reforms implemented by the Council of
Trent, church renovations in fact occurred well before this period.
Two Venetian case studies demonstrate the value of examining individual choir precincts
in their original stylistic and spatial context. Chapter Five focuses on stalls in the
Benedictine nuns’ church of San Zaccaria in Venice, completed by the Cozzi workshop in
1464. The choir precinct in the Frari in Venice is amongst the best-preserved choir precincts
in Italy and is discussed in detail in Chapter Six; the circumstances of its construction
are closely related to new choir furniture in the Santo in Padua. Specific terminology
is explained and collated in the Glossary and an Appendix contains transcriptions and
translations of significant documents.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > NK Decorative arts Applied arts Decoration and ornament N Fine Arts > NA Architecture
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Choir stalls, Renaissance -- Italy, Northern, Choir stalls, Renaissance -- Venice (Italy), Wood-carving, Renaissance -- Italy, Northern, Church decoration and ornament -- Italy, Northern, Choirs (Architecture) -- Italy, Northern
Official Date:	September 2009
Dates:	Date Event September 2009 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of History of Art
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Cooper, Donal
Sponsors:	Arts & Humanities Research Council (Great Britain) (AHRC)
Extent:	4 v. (xxiii, 588 leaves) : ill.
Language:	eng

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