Crossing the Alps: Information, Invention, and the Architectural Cabinet (1550-1680)

At the turn of the seventeenth century, almost every princely patron in Europe commissioned at least one luxury cabinet. These furnishings, whether portable or stationary, exhibit representations of architecture and are often architectural in their forms and components. My dissertation studies the creation and development of the architectural cabinet from 1550 to 1680, examining transalpine artistic interactions and collaborations between Augsburg and centers in the Italian peninsula. The variety of materials used and the purposeful adaptation of classical elements and designs by cabinetmakers raise several questions: What generated the demand in Augsburg and Italy for display cabinets with explicit references to architectural forms and urban centers? What are the sources of these designs, and how did they contribute to and express the function of the cabinets? My dissertation examines the mobility of materials and ideas for cabinet designs to illuminate the historical importance of transalpine exchanges for the inventiveness of these objects and their meanings, which reveal intriguing insights about material resources, designs, princely connections, mercantile networks, and artistic interactions.