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.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Note on Florentine Currency, Units of Measure, and Dates
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- A Network Model of Family Life
- The Spinelli and Ricasoli Families
- Gender and Epistolary Exchange
- 1. Marriage and Family Authority: Wives, Mothers, and Widows
- The “Duties” of a Wife: Mattea and Benedetto Spinelli
- Mothers and Daughters: Cassandra Gualterotti and Costanza Gualterotti Ricasoli
- Conclusion
- 2. Siblings and Family Ties: Sisters, Brothers, and Half-Siblings
- Sisters and Brothers: The Spinelli Family
- Sisters and Brothers: The Ricasoli Family
- Half-Siblings and Competing Ties of Kinship
- Conclusion
- 3. Secular and Sacred Networks: Between Convent Communities and Family Life
- Negotiating Secular and Sacred Networks in Convent Communities
- Female Bonds within and beyond Convent Walls
- Conclusion
- 4. Amicizia e Famiglia: Female Friendship and Sociability
- Female Sociability and the Exchange of Gossip
- Raccomandazione and the Exchange of Gifts: Paving the Path to Friendship
- Friends and Family: Sisters and Sisters-in-Law
- Conclusion
- 5. The Politics of Social Networking: Gender, Family Strategy, and Political Culture
- Strategy and Family Politics from Republic to Principate: The Spinelli Family
- Connections to the Medici Court at Home and Abroad: The Gondi and Ricasoli Families
- Conclusion
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Family Trees
- Index
- List of Figures and Family Trees
- Figures
- Figure 1: Map of the territory of Florence by Joan Bleau in 1640. The map is held at the Museo Navali di Pegli in Genoa, Italy. Scala/Art Resource, NY.
- Figure 2: Map of Florence created using the DECIMA project. The DECIMA project uses the census data from the 1561 decima and GIS technology to map occupations, owners, and residents in the city. Each home identified on the map is marked with a blue marker
- Figure 3: An illustrated family tree of one main branch of the Spinelli family discussed in the book. The image is from the Armorial Book, with the history of the early Spinelli by Giovanni Vincenzio and genealogical charts by Pier’Lorenzo Maria Mariani,
- Figure 4: A photograph of the current location of the villa of Cacchiano in Tuscany, which was the country residence of one branch of the Ricasoli family in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Cacchiano is located in the municipality of Gaioli
- Figure 5: A photograph of Brolio Castle or Castello di Brolio in the municipality of Gaioli in Chianti in the Province of Siena. The castle has been rebuilt over the years, and much of the current brick structure in neo-gothic style was begun under Baron
- Figure 6: A photograph of the ancestral parts of Brolio Castle that remain alongside the more modern structure today.
- Figure 7: A photograph of the view from Brolio Castle to the city of Siena. The image captures the lands surrounding Brolio Castle and the Ricasoli family wine business.
- Figure 8: A modern map of Tuscany created using the DECIMA project. This map uses the GIS tool connected to Google Maps to show the relationship between the city of Florence and the country estates of the Ricasoli and Spinelli families. The black star mar
- List of Family Trees
- Family Tree 1. Mellini-Spinelli Family and Spinelli-Ugolini Family
- Family Tree 2. Peruzzi- Spinelli Family
- Family Tree 3. Albizzi-Ricasoli Family
- Family Tree 4. Gualterotti-Ricasoli Family
- Family Tree 5. Gualterotti-Ricasoli-Rucellai-Anselmi Family
- Family Tree 6. Peruzzi-Nobili-Ricasoli Family
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