Wednesday, April 9, 2008

The Florentine Leon Battista Alberti was a moral philosopher as well as a celebrated artist and theorist of art, prompting the nineteenth-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt to call him the perfect example of the Renaissance individual who strove to develop his potential to the fullest extent possible. The excerpt here is from his Book of the Family, which is based on a work by the Athenian historian Xenophon, On the Household. Athens in the ancient world was noted for the restrictions placed on the lives of citizen women, who were enclosed in the house and admonished not to venture out in public except for special occasions, and not even then unless accompanied by a chaperone. This is a practice that seems to have been revived in Renaissance Florence, as we can see from our reading of Alberti here.

Francesco Barbaro, likewise, was a humanist and a member of the elite in his native Venice. His book On Wifely Duties was a wedding gift for Lorenzo de Medici, the unofficial boss of Florence in the latter part of the 15th century. Between the two authors, you can get a good picture of how the humanist emphasis on imitating ancient writers contributed toward theories about gender and family. To begin with, Barbaro in particular employs numerous examples taken from the ancient world, a practice that served to illustrate his erudition as well as get his point across. Alberti's book is in the form of a dialogue, a popular approach in the ancient literary tradition.

Homework and Presenter Questions: Our presenters should address all of the following questions, while the rest of the class can choose as homework two out of the four.

1. What is your overall response to both excerpts? How do you think this advice might go over in today's world? Think about this question from two perspectives: gender roles, and intimacy between husband and wife.
2. What seems to be the overall moral framework for a wife's behavior in Barbaro's account? What do you make of Barbaro's advocacy of love between marriage partners, in light of his advice about moderation in sexual love?
3. Look at Alberti's description of how Gianozzo handled his wife. What impression do you have of the expectations that Florentine men had of women? Which aspects of this picture are confining for women; which might show regard and respect for their role? Pay close attention to the language in which the men describe their reasons for supporting Gianozzo's approach.
4. Finally, compare what you have read here with accounts of marriages and marriage negotiations in the readings we did for Monday's class. Are these theorists realistic in their expectations?

See you in class.

Laurel Carrington carringt@stolaf.edu
Most recent update: January 24, 2008

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