Education to Magnificence: Aristocratic Schooling and College Academies in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-century Rome

This contribution investigates the fundamental role that Roman colleges played in aristocratic schooling and, in particular, in the education of gentlemen to magnificence, a process discussed here as the transmission and acquisition of a set of techniques that are socially defined and shared. Using documents related to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Roman colleges, this essay sheds light on the ways in which the techniques of magnificence were imparted to students. In particular, it considers how the spaces in which students lived exemplified magnificence, and how the activities they engaged in as part of their education, such as the chivalric arts and theatre, functioned to train and shape their bodies, voices, and gestures. In addition, this chapter shows how students’ participation in gatherings and performances of academies in the college context provided them with the opportunity to acquire and experiment with ceremonial and behavioural skills and protocols. After college, the young gentlemen would have acquired the cultural models that were fundamental to the social behaviours, cultural production, and consumption systems effective in early modern court society.