Women In Renaissance Florence

In the traditional political history of Italy the people outside of the ruling class of the society were rarely studied. Only with the use of social history did the issues of class and gender begin to be debated by scholars. Numerous recent articles have done a great job of analysing particularly men of high status. In this paper I will look at the lower classes of Renaissance Florence. More specifically, I will center my focus on the lives of women during this era, how they were treated and viewed by people of other classes and how women were viewed and treated by men.

Social historians in recent years have started to look at the people who made up most of the population in cities, people who are usually ignored when looking at society,

Young women were expected to work. From a young age, women needed to contribute to the family income for the family to survive. His chapter is helpful in understanding what happened to young women who were struggling. Terpstra notes that homes like that of the Pieta were set up to help these women. Terpstra’s argument really informs the reader on the struggle present for so many lower class women. He writes that the lives of these young women were unstable, due to the fact that these women were always on the move. In Terpstra's research, he found that when women left the house to pursue a job, more than a third returned shortly after leaving. In Terpstra’s work again we see the theme of women in lower positions being abused by men in higher

Gregorio Dati, according to the primary source, was married four times, and he documents the last three marriages. The manner in which he writes about these marriages does not show much emotion. Dati writes, for example:

“The dowry promised me was 600 florins. I went to dine with her that evening… The Saturday after Easter… I gave her the ring and then on Sunday evening, March 30, she came to live in our house simple and without ceremony.”

This excerpt is important when analysing how women were viewed by men and society. It shows the reader numerous practices. One is that the process was very quick, and this is also shown by his previous marriages. They were married within days of negotiating the marriage. A second interesting point is that wife is not present in the discussions, further proving the points that Cohn argues, namely that women had very little power. Lastly, there was no ceremony to celebrate the marriage. This speaks volumes to the reader. It further emphasizes that marriage was about the money, and women were objects used to get