Knife-and-Fork Set with Mars and Diana (Unit #2 Historical Item)
A couple of years ago, I saw this item from a website and it totally caught my attention. This historical item is supposed to be a knife and fork sets with mars and Diana. What catches my interest about this historical item is the idea on what utensils they would use to eat in the past. I would want to know how do people eat or even cook with. I really thought that those knife and fork sets looks really cool. The artwork of the knife and fork set looks very different than a regular knife and fork.
The thing is that I want to learn more about those knife and fork sets in order to understand its historical value is the symbolic detail behind the item. What I mean by that is how are the use of the fork known as the a new sign of civility . The reason why is because I believe that it shared littles about it. It mentioned that one was expected to have one’s own eating utensils, and the use of a fork was a new sign of civility; in the Renaissance, most people, including the nobility, ate with their hands in the 1600s. I don’t think it is enough to back it up. I think that if we want to understand the historical values about those knife and fork sets, then we should include more information on how and why the use of fork was the new sign of civility.
I believe that the one of the 5 Cs does my historical item addresses is context. In the website, it shared details about the whole context behind the historical item. The historical significance of the item that I have identified is it is supposed to be a common wedding presents based on the flanders and Dutch Republic in the 1600s. Pairing forceful Mars, god of war, with virtuous but resourceful Diana, goddess of the hunt, was a gesture to the qualities that couples saw in each other, although these two gods were never a pair in Greco-Roman mythology. In the Renaissance, most of the people ate with their hands. The knife and fork sets is supposed to be displayed as prestige gifts & as demonstrations of virtuosity in carving.
