Luxury and the Ethics of Greed in Early Modern Italy. Catherine Kovesi, ed. Early European Research 14. Turnhout: Brepols, 2018. xxx + 308 pp. €90

Building on the work of Richard Goldthwaite, who examined the idea of luxury in the production of art in Renaissance Italy, and a series of research projects focused on material culture, consumption, and the collecting of objects of art and the domestic interior, this volume fills a gap in the scholarship on material culture and consumption by defining and contextualizing luxury and greed in a “precise historical and geographical context in early modern Italy” (6). With the phenomenon of luxury, ethics, and consumerism in mind, the essays included here investigate a wide range of topics, from Dante to food and chocolate, to dress and fashion, to maiolica ware and gift giving, and even ways of faking luxury and magnificence. Section 3 (“Disseminating Luxury”) covers the power of luxury goods and what gift giving can do for the giver.