Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance Terpstra, Nicholas
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Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance Terpstra, Nicholas Published by Johns Hopkins University Press Terpstra, Nicholas. Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance: Orphan Care in Florence and Bologna. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. Project MUSE. doi:10.1353/book.60316. https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/60316 [ Access provided at 25 Sep 2021 12:58 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 01Terpstra FM 10/18/05 4:09 PM Page i Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance 01Terpstra FM 10/18/05 4:09 PM Page ii The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science 123rd series (2005) 1. Stephen G. Alter, William Dwight Whitney and the Science of Language 2. Bethany Aram, Juana the Mad: Sovereignty and Dynasty in Renaissance Europe 3. Thomas Allison Kirk, Genoa and the Sea: Policy and Power in an Early Modern Maritime Republic, 1559–1684 4. Nicholas Terpstra, Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance: Orphan Care in Florence and Bologna 01Terpstra FM 10/18/05 4:09 PM Page iii Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance Orphan Care in Florence and Bologna Nicholas Terpstra The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore 01Terpstra FM 10/18/05 4:09 PM Page iv This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of the Lila Acheson Wallace–Reader’s Digest Publications Subsidy at Villa I Tatti. © 2005 The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2005 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 987654321 The Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Terpstra, Nicholas. Abandoned children of the Italian Renaissance : orphan care in Florence and Bologna / Nicholas Terpstra. p.cm. — (The Johns Hopkins University studies in historical and political science ; 123rd ser.) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8018-8184-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Orphanages—Italy—Florence—History—16th century. 2.Orphanages—Italy—Florence—History— 17th century. 3. Orphanages—Italy—Bologna—History—16th century. 4. Orphanages—Italy—Bologna—History—17th century.I. Title. II.Series. hv1190.t47 2006 362.73′2—dc22 2005003707 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. 01Terpstra FM 10/18/05 4:09 PM Page v For Nigel, Christopher, and Alison 01Terpstra FM 10/18/05 4:09 PM Page vi This page intentionally left blank 01Terpstra FM 10/18/05 4:09 PM Page vii Contents List of Tables, Graphs, and Figures ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction. Down and Out and Off the Streets: Sheltering Renaissance Children 1 1 Opening a Home 28 2 Entering a Home: Prescriptions and Procedures 70 3 Making a Home with Girls 103 4 Making a Home with Boys 149 5 Running a Home 187 6 Leaving Home 245 Conclusion. The Politics of Renaissance Orphanages 280 Appendix: Institutional Finances 289 Notes 293 Bibliography 331 Index 343 01Terpstra FM 10/18/05 4:09 PM Page vi This page intentionally left blank 01Terpstra FM 10/18/05 4:09 PM Page ix Tables, Graphs, and Figures Tables 2.1 Ages of Boys Applying to Orphanages 77 2.2 Ages of Girls Admitted to Conservatories 78 2.3 Ages of Girls Admitted to Conservatories: Average, Median, Mode 80 3.1 Alms Gathering in Conservatories 120 3.2 Basic Food Purchases at the Pietà, 1578–1579 122 3.3 Seasonal Work Patterns at S. Maria del Baraccano, 1593–1599 131 3.4 Girls in and out of Domestic Service at the Pietà, 1555–1601 147 4.1 Alms Gathering in S. Bartolomeo di Reno, 1582–1598 167 5.1 Bigallo Captains’ Terms of Office 217 5.2 Bigallo Captains’ Political Standing 218 5.3 Income Generation at the Pieta, 1566–1578 231 6.1 Ages of Girls Leaving Conservatories 256 6.2 Duration of Stay for Conservatory Girls 258 6.3 Comparative Outcomes for Conservatory Girls 260 6.4 Returns to Family for Conservatory Girls 262 6.5 Length of Time in Pietà (1554–1556 Cohort) 264 6.6 Age, Time, and Fates at the Pietà, 1559–1624 265 6.7 Exits from the Pietà and Baraccano by Decade, 1558–1627 277 A.1 Budget Totals in Monetary Terms in Conservatories and Orphanages 291 A.2 Expense and Income by Percentage in Conservatories and Orphanages 292 Graphs 2.1 Nominations and Admissions at S. Onofrio, 1575–1603 92 2.2 Nominations and Admissions at S. Maria del Baraccano, 1563–1601 93 01Terpstra FM 10/18/05 4:09 PM Page x x Tables, Graphs, and Figures 2.3 Biannual censuses at S. Maria del Baraccano, 1586–1647 96 2.4 Admissions to S. Giuseppe, 1616–1641 98 2.5 Admissions to S. Niccolò, 1570–1621 99 6.1 Entrances and Exits at the Pietà, 1558–1623 278 Figures I.1 Master of the Johnson Nativity, Our Lady of Succour, ca. 1450 10 1.1 Carlo Portelli, Charity, ca. 1570 64 1.2 Carlo Portelli, Madonna in Heaven with Angels Adored by Two Children, ca. 1570 65 1.3 Map of Bologna, giving location of homes 67 1.4 Map of Florence, giving location of homes 68 4.1 Orphan boy 152 01Terpstra FM 10/18/05 4:09 PM Page xi Acknowledgments This study began with wider ambitions in a narrower field. Having set out to write a book on the full range of charitable institutions founded in sixteenth- century Bologna, I was diverted to Florence by a fellowship from the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies (Villa I Tatti). I Tatti proved to be more than just diverting—though thanks to an animated group of Fellows in 1994– 95, it certainly was that—and my first thanks are to then-director Walter Kaiser and the community of Fellows and staff who made up that incomparable center. They facilitated my entry into Florence’s archives and history, and have proven unfailingly generous and personally supportive in the years since. Having ini- tially intended never to work on the city by the Arno, I was surprised by how congenial and stimulating it could be. A number of colleagues whom I first met in that year have made subsequent returns to Florence all the more welcome, and I would like to thank in particular Sabine Eiche, Allen Grieco and Sara Matthews-Grieco, and John Law. What became a comparative study still had roots firmly planted in Bologna. Mauro Carboni has been instrumental in helping those roots dig deeper into Bolognese soil. Mary Posthuma, herself adopted into Bologna and ever its pas- sionate advocate, has been the most generous and spirited of friends. A number of people contributed significantly to the project in various stages, including research assistants Elizabeth Bernhardt, Roisin Cossar, Petra Fisher, Jamie Smith, and Jenea Tallentire. Edwin Bezzina, Sheila Das, and Sandra Par- megiani were instrumental in moving the work forward, and frequently re- minded me that what may eventually end up as data on a page or a statistic in a table starts with a very human story about vulnerable boys and girls. Peter Thompson offered critical professional help when the tables seemed in danger of collapsing. Sabine Eiche secured the photos, and Byron Moldofsky and Jane Davie of the Cartography Office at the University of Toronto prepared the maps of Florence and Bologna. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada provided 01Terpstra FM 10/18/05 4:09 PM Page xii xii Acknowledgments the first funding for this study, and has continued to support it generously. The Andrew Mellon Foundation offered the fellowship that allowed me to spend the year at Villa I Tatti. AMS Services gave funds for more focused research into health conditions and medicines in the conservatories, and the Renaissance So- ciety of America awarded a Senior Scholar Grant to enable work in the Archivio di Stato in Florence. The University of Toronto has supported this research through a number of small grants and with a larger Connaught Research Grant. I am grateful to these agencies for making this research possible. With the text finished, Villa I Tatti continued its generosity with a Lila Acheson Wallace Reader’s Digest Publications Subsidy that allowed it to be illustrated with con- temporary images. I would like to thank Director Joseph Connors and the Pub- lications Committee for their support. Some parts of this book appeared previously in an earlier form and are used here with permission of the publishers. The articles were “Making a Living, Making a Life: Work in the Orphanages of Florence and Bologna,” Sixteenth Century Journal 31, no. 4 (2000): 1063–79; “Competing Views of the State and Social Welfare: The Medici Dukes, the Bigallo Magistrates, and Local Hospi- tals in Sixteenth Century Tuscany,” Renaissance Quarterly 54, no. 4 (2001): 1319– 55; and “Mothers, Sisters, and Daughters: Girls and Conservatory Guardian- ship in late Renaissance Florence,” Renaissance Studies 17, no. 2 (2003): 201–29. There are four people for whom this study of abandonment has not been a scholarly abstraction. There may be some irony in the fact that the research for it required me to regularly spend weeks or months away from home; if so, they have very graciously avoided mentioning it. Angela has supported it at every stage and through all difficulties. To her I owe more than thanks can repay. There were times when Nigel, Christopher, and Alison came along for the work, and times when they were left behind. If in compensation they have some- times adopted a mocking stance of distance toward the Italian Renaissance— with Nigel dismissing it as “the Las Vegas of Classical Rome”—they have never exercised that distance toward their too-frequently absent father.