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  • Human Nature in Rural Tuscany: An Early Modern History
  • Christopher F. Black
Human Nature in Rural Tuscany: An Early Modern History. By Gregory Hanlon. [ Italian and Italian American Studies.] (New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2007. Pp. xxvi, 218. $74.95. ISBN 978-1-403-97764-9.)

The odd title masks an important and interesting study of "the minutia of daily life lived almost four centuries ago" (p. xi) in the feudal fief of Montefollonico. The title signals a reaction to certain anthropological attitudes and behavioral studies that Gregory Hanlon sees affecting historical studies. He rejects various concepts of "culture" and seeing "peasants" as "other." He accepts universal building blocks of human life such as hierarchy and governance, cooperation and competition, reproduction, and invention and adaptation (and these govern the sequential structure of the book). He looks for "good reasons that people in contexts different from our own had for acting in ways that seem foreign to us" (p. xii), so explaining regularities and variations in these central aspects of human existence. Montefollonico is an attractive ridge-top community positioned between the Chiana and Orcia valleys, looking to Montepulciano and Pienza, towns on which it depended as part of the Sienese province of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in the seventeenth century. Then the walled community ( castello) had about 350 inhabitants, with about 500 people in the seventy sharecropping farms below. Notably Hanlon came across a rich cache of documents that allows us to see how a feudal fief operated, and how its inhabitants lived and worked in the seventeenth century. He argues that the Coppoli fief holders operated a benign feudalism, with the castelloled by poor nobles, and with an effective local legal system. The sharecropping, mezzadria, and mixed-farming benefited both sides; and the rural economy made some beneficial adaptations under health and economic crises, with expanding vineyards, glass-making and silk production, and repopulation fostered by the Coppoli. The main confraternity was the largest landowner and a key feature in the castello's life, including charity.

Hanlon has well utilized rich secular and ecclesiastical court records, baptismal and status animarumrecords, 268 (or 269) marriage contracts, sixty-five wills (male and female), and eight family compromise agreements ( lodo), arbitrated by notables and priests. His analysis is good on marital strategies; godparenthood; different family structures in the castelloand on the farms; the comparative richness of material possessions, especially clothes; and literate businessmen and artisans. Wills show the power of widows, if they did not remarry, and that unmarried males helped nephews. Hanlon controversially argues, from male and female birth records, for a high level of female infanticide under crises. The records show a physically and verbally abusive society, with sexual abuse and weapon-carrying, especially among youths, and much litigation over property damage, although much might be settled out of court, with "peacemaking"—hence the "Cooperation" theme. Not-guilty verdicts were common, with "tit-for-tat" concepts being well understood; cross-questioning might be rough, but torture was rare. The Coppoli were ready [End Page 824]with pardons. Some violent youths mellowed into solid citizens. Women were ready to air their concerns to officials, including complaints about priests. Clerical standards of behavior were deemed low (bishops often noting the resort to prostitutes). The community chose its parish priests of San Bartolomeo. Some families like the Barbieri combined extreme youth violence and clerical careers, at home and away. Giuliano Vettori moved from youthful group violence to parish priest, when he thrice attempted to murder rivals, and was accused in the inquisition court of invoking the devil to help his sexual exploits. Some rather cryptic, less documented discussion of "The Church Triumphant" points to an expansion of confraternities, to the Madonna elbowing-out devotional competition, and to some missionary and educational improvements (although outside schoolteachers could be poorly treated). Hanlon has produced a rich study of a small community (by Italian standards), with some enviable records to deploy, although more quotation would have been welcome.

Christopher F. Black
University of Glasgow

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