Lost Girls: Sex and Death in Renaissance Florence

Notes

191 notes Abbreviations AAF Archivio Arcivescovile di Firenze AD Acquisiti Diversi ASF Archivio di Stato di Firenze Bigallo Compagnia poi Magistrato di S. Maria del Bigallo BNCF Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale (Firenze) BRF Biblioteca Riccardiana (Firenze) Ceppo Fanciulle Abbandonate di S. Maria e S. Niccolò detto del Ceppo CRSGF Conservatorio di Domenicane denominato La Pietà di Firenze OGBP Otto di Guardia e Balia del Principato SMN Santa Maria Novella Chapter 1. Mystery and Silence 1. The Pietà began its first matriculation list of the girls, called the Libro Segreto, on 25 January 1555 when it registered fifty-girls girls (ASF CRSGF 112/78, 1r–13r). #49 Margherita di Ma Betta di Firenze. Registered 25 January 1555 at age 9, and sent to S. Maria Nuova February 1555 (13r). #88 Maria di Neghrante, soldato da zonta di Mugiello. Registered 6 March 1555 at age 9 and sent to S. Maria Nuova March, 1556 (22r). #108 Maddalena da Fra Billj dall Certosa di Firenze. Registered 15 July 1555 at age 12, and sent April 1556 to S. Maria Nuova (26r). The Florentine year began 25 March, but all dates in this book have been altered to modern form. 2. These six girls were all part of the first cohort of fifty two: ASF CRSGF 112/78: #39 Bartolomea di Mona Caterina di Mugello (10r); #30 Chaterina di Bastiano legniauolo (8r); #20 Lizabetta di Giovanni di Firenze (5r); #14 Agniola di Bastiano di Monte Aciuto (4r); #44 Lucrezia di Giulio dal Como da Giocho (10r); #41 Brigida di Antoniano da Firenze (10r). thirty-four of the first cohort of fifty-two girls (65.38) died while wards of the Casa della Pietà. 3. ASF, Acquisti e Doni, 291, ‘‘Onesta’’ [1560–83] this unpaginated notebook 192 Notes to Pages 4–19 contains summaries of condemnations before the Magistrato del Onestà from 1560–83. See also Brackett, ‘‘The Florentine Onestà,’’ 273–300. 4. Terpstra, Abandoned Children. 5. BRF, Moreni, AD 93. 6. On the physical and social contexts of adolescent sexuality, see Horowitz, ‘‘Worlds of Jewish Youth,’’ 83–119, and Crouzet-Pavan, ‘‘Flower of Evil,’’ 173–221. On girls in particular, see also Potter, ‘‘Greensickness in Romeo and Juliet,’’ 271– 91, and Parsons, ‘‘Medieval Aristocratic Teenaged Female,’’ 311–21. Chapter 2. The Setting: Sex and the City 1. I germini sopra quaranta meretrice. My thanks to Nerida Newbigin for the translation. Antonfrancesco Grazzini penned his plays on the model of Roman comedies between 1540 and 1566, though few were actually staged during his lifetime . Grazzini, Il teatro del Lasca, 576–78. Rondini, Antonfrancesco Grazzini, 1– 19.TwoofGrazzini’splayshavebeentranslated,IlFrate(TheFriar)andLaPinzochera (often translated as The Bawd, though ‘‘The Holy Woman’’ might better convey Grazzini’s wry irony). D’Orazio, ‘‘Antonfrancesco Grazzini (Il Lasca).’’ 2. Strocchia, ‘‘Taken into Custody,’’ 177–200. 3. Grazzini [D’Orazio], La Pinzochera, Act 1, Scene 6. On adolescent sexuality , see Eisenbichler, The Premodern Teenager, and particularly the following articles: Taddei, ‘‘Puerizia, adolescenza and giovinezza.’’ 21–24; Stoertz, ‘‘Sex and the Medieval Adolescent’’ 228–29, 234–38; Lansing, ‘‘Girls in Trouble,’’ 293–96. 4. Rocke, Forbidden Friendships. 5. So, for example, prostitute Margherita Negri purchased a lifetime exemption from the regulations on prostitution for 60 scudi, which was the cost of the cheapest dowry needed to enter the Convertite. Cohen, Evolution of Women’s Asylums, 49–53. The regulations are given in ASF Onestà, ms. 1. 6. Trexler, ‘‘Florentine Prostitution,’’ 373–414. Brackett, ‘‘Florentine Onestà,’’ 273–300. Trexler claimed on the basis of the Onestà’s prosecution of rule breakers that most of the clientele were foreigners, but since courts of all kinds tended to prosecute foreigners disproportionately, this is a shaky assumption at best. Disproportionate numbers of foreigners among prostitutes could also indicate either economic depression in their native territories or local prejudices that prevented them from getting other forms of work. Goldberg, ‘‘Pigs and Prostitutes ,’’ 178–79, 190. 7. On tavern names: Ruggiero, Machiavelli in Love, 96. Trexler, ‘‘Florentine Prostitution,’’ 387. 8. Trexler, ‘‘Florentine Prostitution,’’ 410–12. This was a common phenomenon across Europe. Goldberg, ‘‘Pigs and Prostitutes,’’ 182–85. Notes to Pages 20–22 193 9. Marco di Andrea Finocchio’s assault occurred in 1555: ASF Acquisti e Doni 291, Carnesechi, n.p. For foreign women as prostitutes, see ASF Acquisti e Doni 291, Onestà, n.p. (1566). 10. Gangs could either be informal groups of young men, the more organized festive groups known as potenze, or groups...