Giovanni and Lusanna Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence
In 1455 Lusanna, a beautiful Florentine woman from an artisanal home, brought suit in Archbishop Antoninus's court against her wealthy, high-born lover Giovanni. Giovanni had contracted to marry a young, aristocratic woman, and Lusanna, claiming that she and Giovanni had been secretly married during their clandestine twelve-year affair, fiercely opposed their match. What makes this bitter legal dispute of special interest to readers today is the rich texture of the material that the case accumulated. Since the lovers inhabited vastly different social milieux, their witnesses came from every stratum of Florentine society. The testimonies provide intriguing glimpses of the attitudes on love and the marriage market, as well as the broader social structures and values of Renaissance Florence. Brucker's analysis also illuminates some of the elaborate mechanisms of the Florentine political order, particularly the delicate balance of power between ecclesiastic and secular authorities. Blending scholarship with vivid narrative, the book portrays an extraordinary woman who challenged the unwritten codes and barriers of the social hierarchy and who dared to seek a measure of personal independence in a male-dominated world.