Celebrating a wedding in the Lante della Rovere family: an exercise of magnificence (1682-1683)

Considering the concept of magnificence in Rome and the practices it entailed within seventeenth-century aristocratic Roman families, this article focuses on a series of festive events organised by the Lante della Rovere family between November 1682 and February 1683 to celebrate the marriage of their eldest son with the younger sister of Marie-Anne de La Trémoille, who, some years previously, had married Flavio Orsini, Duke of Bracciano and the leader of the Francophile party. A close analysis of the ac- counts of the Lante della Rovere makes it possible to reconstitute the precise chronology of all the steps involved in producing these events, to gauge the importance within the annual budget of the family of the expenses engaged for these celebrations, and to discover the strategies used to deal with the indebt- edness they generated. Ultimately, this case study reveals the underside of conspicuous consumption, that essential practice adopted by the aristocracy of the age to sustain its social prestige.