Visions of the Florentine Family in the Renaissance

Abstract

One of the burgeoning specialties among historians is history. Journals devoted exclusively to family history have been recently founded, research centers sponsor projects focusing on the history of the family, practitioners of the art eschew the old label of social history to present themselves as family historians, and, inevitably, numerous gatherings of historians are devoted to the history of the family. If seen in this light, Francis Kent's book will be appreciated for what it is: a most distinguished contribution to the recent discussions on the history of the family, yet one that suffers some of the limitations which characterize much of the recent literature belonging to this genre. One could argue that Florentine families have had their historians since the Trecento. ricordi and prioristi of the Renaissance were essentially celebrations of the city's major lineages. Already, by the fifteenth century, a tradition of genealogical studies had developed, first represented by Giovanni Cambi, later by Scipione Ammirato. These genealogies, memoranda, chapbooks, and account books compiled by scores of Florentines created a vast literature which served as the basis for Philip Jones's seminal article on the economic and social fortunes of Florentine families in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.2 Even so, it could be suggested that the current interest in the history of the Florentine family began nearly a decade ago with the publication of Richard Goldthwaite's book on the subject.3 Goldthwaite's ideas have been the focus of debate since the book's publication and are used as a constant foil against which Kent presents many of his conclusions. Goldthwaite, much taken by P. Aries's idea that the nuclear family occupied a central position in modern European social structures, sought to locate the origins of this phenomenon in fifteenth-century Florence. Basing his studies on a minute analysis of the account books of four Florentine families, he concluded that the old extensive sociability of medieval families, evident in the organization of clans during Dante's age, disappeared in the Renaissance. The modern conception of the family as a private association of a man, his wife, and their children, held together by the bonds of affection, has one of its first manifestations here and certainly it was a distinctive feature of Florentine society at the time. 4 Echoes