Family Memory in Florence in the Time of Giuseppe Pelli Bencivenni

Abstract

In the passage from the end of the early modern era to the beginning of the contemporary as usually understood, between end 18th and beginning 19th centuries, the Efemeridi by Giuseppe Pelli may well appear to be unique for its size, genre characteristics, and motivations. The fertile ground from which diaristic writing grows, by now fully 18th century in a number of ways, is also in the Florentine writing of family books, an almost uninterrupted tradition beginning at the end of the 13th century, winding through the centuries up to the 18th and even the 19th centuries. Particular spores can also be found in the precedents to this memory, both familial and autobiographical, within Pelli Bencivenni's own family. Family memory in Florence at the time Pelli begins to write, in mid-18th century, has existed for four and a half centuries.Keywords: family memory; Florence; Giuseppe Pelli Bencivenni