Gender and Family Networks in Early Modern Italy

Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-94-6298-457-8
Verlag: Amsterdam University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 27, 298 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Gendering the Late Medieval and Early Modern World

Women from the Ricasoli and Spinelli families formed a wide variety of social networks within and beyond Florence through their letters as they negotiated interpersonal relationships and lineage concerns to actively contribute to their families in early modern Italy. Women were located at the center of social networks through their work in bridging their natal and marital families, cultivating commercial contacts, negotiating family obligations and the demands of religious institutions, facilitating introductions for family and friends, and forming political patronage ties. This book argues that a network model offers a framework of analysis in which to deconstruct patriarchy as a single system of institutionalized dominance in early modern Italy. Networks account for female agency as an interactive force that shaped the kinships ties, affective relationships, material connections, and political positions of these elite families as women constructed their own narratives and negotiated their own positions in family life.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Moran, Megan

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Note on Florentine Currency, Units of Measure, and Dates

List of Figures

List of Family Trees

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1: Marriage and Family Authority: Wives, Mothers, and Widows

Chapter 2: Siblings and Family Ties: Sisters, Brothers, and Half-Siblings

Chapter 3: Secular and Sacred Networks: Between Convent Communities and Family Life

Chapter 4: Amicizia e Famiglia: Female Friendships and Sociability

Chapter 5: The Politics of Social Networking: Gender, Family Strategy, and Political Culture

Conclusion

Appendix: Family Trees

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Moran, Megan
Megan Moran is an Assistant Professor of History at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Her research focuses broadly on themes of family and gender in early modern Italy. Her published articles have explored sibling relations, motherhood, gender and fashion, and stepfamilies in sixteenth and seventeenth century Florence.