Negotiating the Art of Fatherhood in Late Medieval and Early Modern Italy

Negotiating the Art of Fatherhood in Late Medieval and Early Modern Italy examines contested notions of fatherhood in written and visual texts during the development of the mercantile economy in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Italy. It analyzes debates about the household and community management of wealth, emotion, and trade in luxury “goods,” including enslaved women, as moral questions. Juliann Vitullo considers how this mercantile economy affected paternity and the portraits of ideal fatherhood, which in some cases reconceived the role of fathers and in others reconfirmed traditional notions of paternal authority.

“Vitullo’s book marks the first attempt to connect cultural and economic practices to ideas of fatherhood, and does so in a compelling fashion. Her contribution is a highly original study, and relies on humanistic and poetic analysis to show how fifteenth-century Italians viewed fathers and wealth. In telling her story about fatherhood in its cultural context, the author advances what we know about patriarchy at a moment of rapid social transformation.” (Bianca Lopez, W.R. Nicholson Endowed Assistant Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Southern Methodist University, USA)

“This engaging volume brilliantly analyzes Italian Renaissance fatherhood. Vitullo examines an extraordinary range of sources to explore merchants who impregnate their slaves, portray themselves as charitable, and struggle with how much affection to show their sons. Historically grounded and theoretically challenging, Vitullo revolutionizes the way we think about Renaissance fatherhood.” (Diane Wolfthal, David and Caroline Minter Professor of Humanities, Rice University, USA)

Juliann Vitullo is Associate Professor of Italian, Senior Sustainability Scholar, and Co-Director of the Humanities Lab at Arizona State University, USA.  She has written on various aspects of medieval, early modern, and contemporary Italian culture with emphasis on the relationship between textual traditions and the material world, including money and food.  Her publications include The Chivalric Epic in Medieval Italy (2000) as well as the co-edited volumes: At the Table: Metaphorical and Material Cultures of Food in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (2007) and Money, Morality, and Culture in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (2010).