| Gender, Honor, and Charity in Late Renaissance Florence Contributor(s): Gavitt, Philip (Author) |
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ISBN: 0511976798 ISBN-13: 9780511976797 Publisher: Cambridge University Press OUR PRICE: $140.25 Product Type: Open Ebook - Other Formats Published: September 2011 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Europe - Italy |
| Dewey: 945.5 |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Italy |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: 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. |
Contributor Bio(s): Gavitt, Philip: - 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). |
