At the turn of the seventeenth century, artists working in Rome were drawn to increasingly gritty subject matter, painting scenes showing people fighting, drinking and playing cards. They frequently incorporated the same cast of characters, including soldiers, tricksters, Romani fortune tellers and prostitutes. Although partly influenced by popular theatre, artists such as Caravaggio and his followers found a vital source of inspiration among the people they encountered on the busy and often violent streets of Rome. The city’s population expanded rapidly during this period, and it was a magnet for people coming from all over Italy and abroad in search of work and new opportunities.
This talk considers what insights prints and paintings can shed on the lives of some of Rome’s poorest inhabitants. Considering artworks in conjunction with other evidence, for example trial records, edicts, sumptuary laws and inventories, it will focus on their social interactions, the neighbourhoods they frequented and changing public perceptions about them. Historical accounts often record details about their physical appearances and dress, and the talk will also explore the significance of clothing as a means of defining identity and status even for people with very few material possessions.
Elizabeth Currie is an author and lecturer specializing in early modern Italian dress and textiles. She teaches at Central Saint Martins and is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her publications include Street Style: Art and Dress in the Time of Caravaggio (Reaktion Books, 2025) and Fashion and Masculinity in Renaissance Florence (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016).
