Giovanni and Lusanna : Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence - Softcover

Brucker, Gene

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520063287 ISBN 13: 9780520063280

Publisher: University of California Press, 1988

Synopsis

This compelling account of a wronged woman in Renaissance Florence, first published in 1986, is a fascinating view of Florentine society and its attitudes on love, marriage, class, and gender. Lusanna was a beautiful woman from a middle-class background who, in 1455, brought suit against Giovanni, her aristocratic lover, when she learned he had contracted to marry a woman of his own class. Blending scholarship with insightful narrative, the book portrays an extraordinary woman who challenged the unwritten codes and barriers of the social hierarchy and dared to seek a measure of personal independence in a male-dominated world.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

PRAISE FOR THE PREVIOUS EDITIONS:

"Set against the grindstone of social class, this story of Lusanna versus Giovanni, gleaned from the archives of Renaissance Florence, throws a floodlight on relations between the sexes. Gene Brucker's wonderful account has remarkable resonance."
Lauro Martines, author of April Blood

In the years since it first appeared, Gene Brucker's Giovanni and Lusanna has attracted a large and loyal readership. There is no better introduction to the complex realities of life (and love) in Florence during the Renaissance.”
William J. Connell, Professor of History and La Motta Chair in Italian Studies, Seton Hall University

"At its core, this splendid study is about stubborn love and the forms of law, and the impossibility of each to accommodate the ultimate claims of the other."
New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Gene Brucker is Shepard Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Renaissance Florence (UC Press, 1983), Florence: The Golden Age (UC Press, 1998), and Living on the Edge in Leonardo's Florence: Selected Essays (UC Press, 2005). Margaret Meserve is Associate Professor of History at Notre Dame University and the author of Empires of Islam in Renaissance Historical Thought.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0520063287
• ISBN 13: 9780520063280
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 100