Renaissance Weddings and the Antique: Italian Secular Paintings from the Lanckoronski Collection

The book discusses some thirty Italian Renaissance domestic paintings from the Viennese collection of Count Karol Lanckoronski (1848-1933), which since 1994 have belonged to the Wawel Royal Castle in Krakow. The majority of them depict mythological subjects and scenes from Greek and Roman history; they once served as decorations on the walls of nuptial chambers (spalliere) or the fronts of painted wedding chests, usually referred to as cassoni. The domestic paintings amassed by Lanckoronski in the last quarter of the 19th century in an exemplary way reflect the Renaissance fascination with classical literature, archaeology, and the classical tradition in the visual arts. Above all the book provides an explorative study of the subject matter of the paintings in the context of weddings, although stylistic analysis is also discussed.