Fatherhood and the non-propertied classes in Renaissance and early modern Italian towns

Abstract

The relationship between father and son in the early modern period has been conceptualised exclusively in terms of submission of the latter to the authority of the former and as implying a one-way flow of obligations and resources running from the father to the son. This study reverses this usual perspective by showing that the legal institution of patria potestas also entailed a son's economic obligation to his father, for it gave fathers full rights over the earnings of their grown-up sons. It was to escape this burden that many adult men, sometimes married and fathers in their own right, resorted to the legal deed of emancipation, which freed them from the patria potestas of their living father and hence from any economic obligations to his family. The analysis of a sample of over a hundred deeds from the last quarter of the 17^th century reveals that emancipations were particularly frequent among those urban classes which largely lived of their work and participated in the labour market from an early age. The arguments used by sons to justify their request for emancipation throw light on the specific nature of the father-son relationship among these groups. Fathers are often portrayed as too poor to comply with the duty of settling all male children in a trade and paying for the dowries of the daughters, and as obliged to rely on older sons to fulfil these essential paternal and masculine roles. They are implicitly depicted as failed patriarchs and their legal prerogatives over the son thus appear illegitimate. The analysis of these narratives, together with a brief examination of representations of fatherhood in earlier artisans' diaries exposes the gulf between shared expectations about fatherly roles and practice that made the position of the paternal figure particularly vulnerable among the non-propertied classes. Here paternal roles were often shared by a range of male figures, rather than being entirely fulfilled by the biological father. Tensions or simply emotional and physical distance characterised the father-son relationship, in sheer contrast with the rhetoric of the time, which depicted such bond as ‘the greatest love there is’.

Keywords:

• fatherhood
• patriarchy
• generational conflict
• masculinity
• labouring classes
• early modern Italy

Notes

^1. The literature on the increased political significance of the family and the public value that the role of head of the household acquires in this period is huge. My references will be limited to overviews of these processes and to studies of the Italian case.

^2. For an intruiguing interpretation of Alberti's treatise as a critique of the patriarchal rule of fathers see Najemy 2002, especially pp. 67–70 and p. 77.

^3. On the difference between Italy and other European countries in this matter, see Cavallo 2007 chapter 9 and Cavallo 2008.

^4. For an exception, see Christiane Klapisch-Zuber's discussion of the family life of Gaspare Nadi, a case to which I shall return below (Klapisch-Zuber, 2002).

^5. Ricordanze . For Piero and Bartolomeo see the entries 60, 65, 240, 379; for Nicolò the entries 128 and 279; for Matteo, Romolo and Leonardo the entries 318, 347, 376.

^6. Diario , pp. 91, 94, 102–3.

^7. Diario , pp. 4–5.

^8. Diario , pp. 97–98, 108, 109, 110, 113, 264.

^9. Ricordanze, entries 318, 347.

^10. The expression ‘labouring classes’ will be used in this study to refer to social groups who largely relied for their living on the income obtained with their own labour – either as self-employed artisans or traders or as employed by others and on receipt of a salary - rather than on the revenue produced by capital investment, properties or office-holding.

^11. Some of the material examined in the following pages was also discussed, in a different perspective, in Cavallo 2009.

^12. For an exception see Kuehn 1982. The study focuses on the Renaissance period and is concerned with the social milieu of the Florentine patriciate. Brief remarks on the working of this institutions are found in Mulliez p. 61 and Molinier pp. 138, 140.

^13. I have considered one year in every five between 1665 and 1695 and hence included in my sample all the deeds of emancipation drawn up in Turin in 1665, 1670, 1675, etc. My statistical remarks are based on this group of documents. Beside this more systematic sample, I have also considered the emancipations identified for a previous, more selective project concerning a specific professional milieu, that of artisans involved in services of care, appearance and comfort of the body (Cavallo, 2007). These documents have not been included in any quantitative analysis presented in this study.

^14. In the seven years under consideration the number of deeds varies between 11 registered in 1665 and 1685 and 15 in 1695.

^15. Aside from this, emancipation appears to have been used by a fairly wide range of classes and ages, as well as by older and younger sons, by Jews as well as Catholics, by the French and Spanish as well as by natives of the region. Archivio di Stato di Torino (AST), Insinuazione di Torino (Ins.), 1670, l.4, c.315; 1675, l.5, c.183; 1680, l.6, c.738; 1695, l.12, c.625.

^16. As recently documented by Thomas Kuehn, inheriting was not a passive act but a right that could be negotiated or even rejected by the legitimate beneficiaries (Kuehn, 2008).

^17. The perruquier Fassina commits himself to paying 600 lire within 3 years; the surgeon Meda pays out 350 lire at the same time of the deed. AST, Ins., 1679, l.7, c.15 e 1692, l.5 c. 597. Benna will pay 50 lire a year. AST, Ins., 1680, l.3, c.605.

^18. AST, Ins., 1685, l.7, c.721; 1670, l.12, c.271.

^19. See the emancipations of Perotto (AST, Ins., 1665, l.8, c. 85), Boldratto (1670, l.2, c. 515), Gilardo (1675 l. 9, c. 19), Audazzo (1680, l. 7, c. 359), Gaudina (1680, l. 6, c. 204), Bonzollo (1685, l.1, c. 509), Diberto (1690, l. 3, c. 187), Valperga (1695, l. 12 c. 482), Richiardo (1695, l.11, c. 307) and Benna (1695, l.6, c. 1).

^20. AST, Ins., 1671, l.2, c. 535.

^21. AST, Ins., 1681, l.1, c. 387; 1686, l.1, c. 1001.

^22. AST, Ins., 1690, l.3, c. 413.

^23. AST, Ins., 1692, l.5, c. 79

^24. AST, Ins., 1675, l.5, c. 21. See also AST, Ins., 1665, l.2, c. 373.

^25. AST, Ins., 1665, l. 2, c. 465. See also the case of the Del Carretto nobles, AST, Ins., 1690, l.3, 1001.

^26. AST, Ins., 1676, l.3, c. 628.

^27. AST, Ins., 1670, l. 4, c. 315; 1670, l. 5, c. 447; 1671, l. 2, c. 5; 1670, l.3, c. 499; 1675, l.3, c. 519.

^28. The value of the furniture given by fathers for the first house varies as a rule between 100 and 250 lire. See the cases of Perrotino, Lapierra and Bonardo (AST, Ins., 1690, l.3, c.349; 1690, l.6, c. 152; 1699, l.4, c. 563), but when goods for the shop are added, higher sums are mentioned. Perotto for example pays 500 lire to supply goods and furniture for his son's workshop as master woodsman. AST, Ins., 1665, l.8, c. 85.

^29. AST, Ins., 1665, l.11, c. 219.

^30. AST, Ins., 1665 l.8, c. 317.

^31. AST, Ins., l.7, c. 359.

^32. AST, Ins., 1671, 1.2, c.5; 1695, 1.2, vo. 2, c.625.

^33. Gaudina (AST, Ins., 1680, l. 6, c. 204), Berardi (1690, 12, c. 447), Audo (1676, l.3, c. 519), Dupré (1675, l.5, c. 183), Raschioira (1680, l.10, c. 138), Colombatto (1697, l.5, 1051). For other examples of long absences from the home see the cases of Fenochio, Gonella, Bonzollo e Fontana (AST, Ins., 1670, l. 5, c. 447; 1695, l.12, vol.2, c. 625; 1685, l.1, c. 509; 1710, l. 1, c. 583).

^34. AST, Ins., 1671, l. 2, c. 5; 1699, l.4, c. 563.

^35. AST, Ins., 1680, l.10, c. 138.

^36. AST, Ins., 1680, libro 6, c. 301; 1682, l.5, c. 1483. See also the cases of Diberto (AST, Ins., 1690, libro 3, c. 187), Arnò (1690, l.12, c. 193) Bertina (1692, l.5, c. 583), Sognardo (1695 l.9 c. 55), Duprè (1675, l.5, c. 183), Barberi (1666, l.1, c. 3), Pastore (1665, l.6, c. 189).

^37. AST, Ins., 1665, l. 7, c. 33; 1680, l. 6, c. 301.

^38. AST, Ins., 1670, l. 5, c. 447.

^39. AST, Ins., 1695, l.6, c. 275.

^40. AST, Ins., 1680, l.6, c. 204.

^41. AST, Ins., 1670, l. 5, c. 447; 1680, l. 7, c. 565.

^42. AST, Ins., 1665 l. 2 c. 465; 1688, l.11, c. 545.

^43. AST, Ins., 1685, l. 5, c. 35.

^44. For example AST, Ins.,. 1695, l.12, vol.2, c. 625; 1670, l.4, c. 153.

^45. AST, Ins., 1670, l.3, c. 99, l.8, c. 91 e l.12, c. 271; 1676, l.2, c. 455, 1682, l.9, c. 89, 1683, l.3, c. 531.

^46. AST, Ins., 1692, l.3, c. 313; 1685, l. 2, c. 123.

^47. For example, AST, Ins., 1665 l. 7, c. 33; 1695 l. 12 c. 482.

^48. AST, Ins., 1665, l.8, c. 317.

^49. For an in depth discussion of this family model see Cavallo, 2007, especially Chapter 8.

^50. AST, Ins., 1690, l.3, c. 187.

^51. AST, Ins.,1675, l. 9, c. 19; 1700, l. 8, c. 239.

^52. AST, Ins., 1692, l.5, c. 79.