Le maschie virtù. Le strategie familiari di una madre del Cinquecento

The manly virtues.The family strategies of a sixteenth century mother\ Joanna Fabbri, wife of Theseus Rasponi, plaid an important role in Ravenna in the first half of the sixteenth century. She was a head of the family − the most important of the city − and the Ghibelline faction. To preserve Rasponi’s House power she administered the family property as well the lives of hers children (especially daughters). She needed to preserve the political and economic family assets and that led her to force the daughters and grandchildren to become nuns, almost all against their will. Joanna case study shows how difficult it is to speak of a gendered style − as was done in the past − when it concerns political and economic interests. Joanna case shows also what was already established in the mid-sixteenth century, the awareness that the political future depended on the culture of the lineage and the closure of the patrician oligarchies closed and selected by their ancient origins. The women of the family, who were no longer need to make multiple bonds of alliance, could be sacrificed and forced into choices not shared, even if the head of the family was a woman.