Gender, Honor, and Charity in Late Renaissance Florence - Softcover

Gavitt, Philip

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1107690870 ISBN 13: 9781107690875

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2013

Synopsis

This book examines the important social role of charitable institutions for women and children in late Renaissance Florence. Wars, social unrest, disease, and growing economic inequality on the Italian peninsula displaced hundreds of thousands of families during this period. In order to handle the social crises generated by war, competition for social position, and the abandonment of children, a series of private and public initiatives expanded existing charitable institutions and founded new ones. Philip Gavitt's research reveals the important role played by lineage ideology among Florence's elites in the use and manipulation of these charitable institutions in the often futile pursuit of economic and social stability. Considering families of all social levels, he argues that the pursuit of family wealth and prestige often worked at cross-purposes with the survival of the very families it was supposed to preserve.

About this title

Book Description:

This book examines the important social role of charitable institutions for women and children in late Renaissance Florence. Philip Gavitt analyzes the ways in which these charities, founded in response to growing social and economic instability, were used by elite families attempting to maintain their power, wealth, and prestige.

About the Author:

Philip Gavitt is associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University and the founder of its Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. A recipient of several fellowships from the Fulbright-Hays Program, from the ACLS and from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and both a former Fellow and visiting professor at the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies (Villa I Tatti), he is the author of Charity and Children in Renaissance Florence (1990).

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1107690870
• ISBN 13: 9781107690875
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 292