Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy

by Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Lydia G. Cochrane (Translator)

Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, a brilliant historian of the Annales school, skillfully uncovers the lives of ordinary Italians of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Tuscans in particular, young and old, rich, middle-class, and poor. From the extraordinarily detailed records kept by Florentine tax collectors and the equally precise ricordanze (household accounts with notations of events great and small), Klapisch-Zuber draws a living picture of the Tuscan household. We learn, for example, how children were named, how wet nurses were engaged, how marriages were negotiated and celebrated. A wealth of other sources are tapped—including city statutes, private letters, philosophical works on marriage, paintings—to determine the social status of women. Klapisch-Zuber reveals how women, in their roles as daughters, wives, sisters, and mothers, were largely subject to a family system that needed them but valued them little.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Renaissance, Italy, 16th Century

354 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1985

Reviews

[DS25 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Parte degli studi, di carattere assolutamente semjnale, della storica francese sulla Firenze del XIV-XV secolo (e non su "Renaissance Italy" , come dice poco correttamente il titolo inglese).

Studi che fanno parte dello spostamento d'asse totalizzante che ha caratterizzato la storiografia europea dagli anni '60 del secolo scorso, con l'integrazione della figura femminile, non come semplice contrapposizione al "potere maschile" ma come modo di vedere la realtà attraverso una lente complessa.

[Walt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of scholarly essays rather than an organized monograph, Klapisch-Zuber covers unfamiliar group with studies on topics like children's toys, wet nurses, raunchy music, and nuptial gifts excluding dowries. Additionally, Klapisch-Zuber backs up her narrative with strong primary source material and some statistical modeling. The result is thorough, ground-breaking research if a bit dry and at times difficult to digest.

The early chapters are some of the hardest to read. They are long and attempt to use statistics to support observations in the source material. The basis for these chapters is Catasto, something akin to a census for the territory of Florence ca. 1427-1430. American studies analyzing census data is not nearly as difficult to read as these chapters. Similarly, there are charts and graphs attached to one of the essays that are mind-boggling to decipher. In several cases she uses a scatter-plot graph without labeling wither axis.

The second type of source she uses are the Ricordanze, a type of family journal among Renaissance Florentines. Her studies that rely on these sources are much easier to understand. Her brilliance at studying and describing obscure topics shines through. Even though many readers would glance over essays on dolls and wet-nursing, there are interesting conclusions and the essays are very informative, if a bit dry. Because the Ricordanze are written by men and have a business-like construction, women and children appear to be much more like commodities than people. This view leads Klapsich-Zuber to describe society in very unflattering terms and to add a rather dark perspective on an era known for humanism.

The style remains very academic and this is certainly not for a casual reader. However, the subject matter is largely novel, so readers curious about women, children, and society in the Renaissance will obtain a very new and startling look at Florentine society. I learned a lot from every essay, whether it was about source material for Renaissance Italy or how raunchy serenades had to be regulated in cities because of a threat to the general order, I hesitate to recommend to advanced students of history.

[hélène]

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[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's an impressively thorough book. In a collection of essays Klapisch-Zuber undertakes a rather extensive (by medieval history standards) statistical analysis of the Florentine catasto of 1427-1430 and supplementary evidence from ricordanze (family record books) and uses her findings to examine a wide range of topics from attitudes towards children to wet nurses to the evolution of the marriage ceremony and the dowry. I think she occasionally will paint a bit too dire a portrait for women (her main sources are predominantly sources that would have favored male voices, and she doesn't always attempt to understand the less legally-based manners in which women may have contributed to or influenced their surroundings).

[Robert Monk · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of essays, rather than a work in and of itself, this book was particularly interesting to me in that it gave me something to compare to my knowledge of English medieval family structure. I've learned that, in England, the nuclear family was the standard as far back as we can see. In other words, there never was a time when multigenerational households were the norm. This made me ask: was this true throughout Europe, or was it specific to the place that I'd studied most intently? This book suggested that it was a Northern European phenomenon. Ms. Klapisch-Zuber -- a historian of the French Annales school -- made an intensive study of 15th Century Tuscan tax records and household journals, which gave her insight into what happened in (mostly middle-class) families. It seems that sons usually stayed in their father's households until the father died, bringing their wives into that household, whereas daughters were sent off to husbands, where they essentially became tenants of that husband's father. This is a very different situation than England, where couples generally didn't get married until they had the wherewithal to set up their own household, where they would form their own separate hearth.

There are all sorts of interesting tidbits within these essays, which discuss such things as dowries, marriage ceremonies, wet nurses and little statues of the baby Jesus. But what I suspect I'll remember the most is how it described the late medieval Florentine household and its makeup.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very probably groundbreaking at the time, but now mostly useful to see where many of the current debates began and how they have developed in the past 20-30 years. Sadly, nothing will ever convince me that the Florentine catasto is not dull.

[Sandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disjointed account and dry read even for a history buff like me. This book read like a bunch of graduate research papers shoved between one cover.

[Ella]

Read for History 226: Renaissance & Reformation?