Art and Identity Construction: Patricia Rubin's Interpretation of Fifteenth-Century Florence

Abstract

This article discusses Patricia Lee Rubin’s Images and Identity in Fifteenth-Century Florence and its interpretation of the relationship between visual culture and identity formation in Renaissance Florence. By combining visual analysis with historical documents, family records, religious materials, and literary sources, Rubin reveals that images in fifteenth-century Florence were not merely artistic representations, but also important media through which elite families displayed honor, reinforced power, communicated religious and moral values, and constructed social identity. Particular attention is given to Rubin’s analysis of viewing as an active cultural process. Through her readings of Dante’s “visible speech” and Botticelli’s wedding paintings, Rubin demonstrates how images invited viewers to participate emotionally, morally, and socially in the production of meaning. This article argues that Rubin’s work expands the methodological scope of art history by integrating visual, social, religious, and literary analysis, offering an important interdisciplinary model for the study of Renaissance art and identity.

Keywords

• Fifteenth-century Florence
• visual culture
• images and identity
• art patronage
• Renaissance art
• viewing experience
• social identity construction
• Patricia Lee Rubin

References

1. Rubin P L. Images and Identity in Fifteenth-Century Florence[M]. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
2. Alberti L B. The Family in Renaissance Florence: A Translation by Renée Neu Watkins of I libri della famiglia[M]. Translated by Renée Neu Watkins. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1969.
3. Boccaccio G. The Decameron[M]. Translated by G H McWilliam. London: Penguin Books, 1995.