Eighteenth-Century Global Domesticity. The Collection of Don Luigi and Donna Caterina, Spanish Ambassadors

Abstract

As a diplomat of the Spanish crown, Don Luigi Riggio et Branciforte, Prince of Campofiorito, travelled through Europe for 34 years with his wife, Donna Caterina Gravina, bringing with them a vast collection of assorted furnishings. This article explores the connections that the Riggio family interweaved with societies around them and investigates their role as cross-agents in Sicily. Its intent is to investigate the relationship between their cross-agency and the materiality around them, by considering the capacity of architecture, as a comprehensive space made of walls, floor, ceiling, furniture, frescoes, and so on, to actively affect people's attitudes and behaviours. The article argues that the eclectic collection, constructing the international trait of the couple, stressed their alignment with both the hybrid taste introduced by the Bourbon monarchs of Spain and the politics underlying this taste.