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| Review | Journal of Social History, 40.4 | The History Cooperative
40.4  
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Summer, 2007
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REVIEWS

SECTION 3
CONSUMERISM AND LEISURE

Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy 1400–1600. By Evelyn Welch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. ix plus 403pp. $45.00).
In Shopping in the Renaissance, Evelyn Welch examines some very practical issues about consumer goods and behavior in Italy—predominantly northern Italy— in the years between 1400 and 1600. She tells us who went shopping—including their gender and class—and what they bought. We learn where shoppers went to purchase goods, when they did this shopping, what sorts of establishments they might encounter, what those establishments looked like and the goods that were available. But, as Welch writes in her conclusion, "...Renaissance shopping, whether undertaken as a regular outing or as a special occasion, was not a simple act. It was a key moment that brought people of different status, religion and sex together." (p. 303) And so, in what is the great strength of this book,Welch explores the cultural context of shopping; she explains the world in which the shopper functioned and his or her ideas about the shopping experience. She argues that when Renaissance shoppers went to marketplaces to choose items, negotiate prices and take those items home, they were taking part in and reinforcing a complex set of beliefs that was an integral part of the social order. . . .
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