Main entry:

Romano, Dennis, 1951-

Title & Author:

Housecraft and statecraft : domestic service in Renaissance Venice, 1400-1600 / Dennis Romano.

Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Description:

xxvi, 333 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 305-320) and index.
Pt. I. Norms. One. Treatises on household management and service. Paolino the Minorite, Francesco Barbaro, and the Venetian tradition of treatises on household management ; Giovanni Caldiera and the apogee of the political metaphor ; Giocomo Lanteri and the social utility of servants ; Agostino Valier and :Christian" economy ; An encyclopedia, a book of fashion, an oration, and a treatise on death -- Two. The Venetian government and the regulation of domestic service. The capi di sestieri and the registration of servants ; The capi di sestieri and the Capitulary of 1503 ; The transfer of authority to the censori and the Capitulary of 1541 ; Later-sixteenth-century legislation concerning servants ; The censors as judges -- Pt. II. Three. Servants in the Venetian household. The ducal household ; The patrician household ; The cittadino household ; The artisan household ;Toward a quantitative analysis of servant keeping : census data Status animarum records -- four. Recruitment, contracts, and wages : the mechanics of labor. finding work ; Recruitment of servants ; Contracts ; The length of contracts ; Wages ; Payment schedules -- Five. The lives of servants. Childhood ; Marriage ; Work and associative life ; Old age ; Death and burial -- Pt. III. Six. The dynamics of master-servant relations. Loyalty and obedience ; Disloyalty and disobedience ; Punishment and submission -- Seven. The significance of service. Domestic service in Renaissance Venice ; Service, honor, and class relations in early modern Venice -- Appendix A. The capi di sestieri's Capitulary of 1503 -- Appendix B. The Censors' Capitulary of 1541.
Dust jacket.

Summary:

In Housecraft and Statecraft historian Dennis Romano examines the realities and significance of domestic service in what was arguably the most important city in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe - Venice. Drawing on a variety of materials, including humanist treatises on household management, books of costumes, civic statutes, census data, contracts, wills, and court records, Romano paints a vivid picture of the conditions of domestic labor, the difficult lives of servants, the worries and concerns of masters, and the ambivalent ways in which masters and servants interacted. He also shows how servants - especially gondoliers - came to be seen more and more as symbols of their masters' status. Housecraft, and Statecraft offers a unique perspective on Venice and Venetian society as the city evolved from a merchant-dominated regime in the fifteenth century into an aristocratic oligarchy in the sixteenth. It traces the growth, within the elite, of a new sense of hierarchy and honor. At the same time, it illuminates the strategies that servants developed to resist the ever more powerful elite and, in so doing, demonstrates the centrality of domestic servants in the struggles between rich and poor in early modern Europe.

Resources:
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description

ISBN:

0801852889 (acid-free paper)
9780801852886 (acid-free paper)

Subject:

Household employees Italy Venice History.
Household employees Legal status, laws, etc. Italy Venice History.
Employés de maison Italie Venise Histoire.
Household employees.
Household employees Legal status, laws, etc.
Huishoudelijk personeel.
Late middeleeuwen.
Domestics Italy Venice History.
Domestics Legal status, laws, etc. Italy Venice History.
Venice (Italy) History.
Venise (Italie) Histoire.
Italy Venice.

Form/genre:

History.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 196386
Call No.: ID HD8039.D52.I865; ID:97-B3949
Status: Available