Worlds of the Renaissance 2000 - Rachel Casteel's Project

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The Worlds of the Renaissance Projects, 2000

Women in the Renaissance Lab

(7) Document 5 Leon Battista Alberti, The Family in Renaissance Florence, The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance, ed. Kenneth Bartlett, (Lexington, Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company, 1992)

Alberti was a papal secretary as well as an accomplished painter, architect, athlete, musician, orator, mathematician and author. He is often cited as an ideal Renaissance man. He wrote The Family in Renaissance Florence m the 1430's.

Lionardo How did you reprimand her?

Giannozzo I waited till we were alone. Then I smiled at her and said, "Oh dear, how did your face get dirty? Did you by any chance bump into a pan? Go wash yourself, quick, before these people begin to make fun of you. The lady and mother of a household must always be neat and clean if she wants the rest of the family to learn good conduct and modest demeanor "

She understood me and at once began to cry. I let her go wash off both tears and make-up After that I never had to tell her again.

Lionardo What a perfect wife. I can well believe that such a woman, so obedient to your word and so modest by her own nature, could elicit respect and good behavior in the rest of the household.

Giannozzo All wives are thus obedient, if their husbands know how to be husbands. But some I see quite unwisely suppose that they can win obedience and respect from a wife to whom they openly and abjectly subject themselves. If they show by word and gesture that their spirit is all too deeply lascivious and feminine, they certainly make their wives no less unfaithful than rebellious. Never, at any moment, did I choose to show in word or action even the least bit of self-surrender in front of my wife. I did not imagine for a moment that I could hope to win obedience from one to whom I had confessed myself a slave. Always, therefore, showed myself virile and a real man. Always I encouraged her to love virtue. Always I reminded her to be most disciplined. ( kept her always conscious of all that I, myself, knew was right for a perfect mother of a family and wanted her to know also.

(7) Document 5	Leon Battista Alberti, The Family in Renaissance Florence, The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance, ed. Kenneth Bartlett, (Lexington, Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company, 1992)
	Alberti was a papal secretary as well as an accomplished painter, architect, athlete, musician, orator, mathematician and author. He is often cited as an ideal Renaissance man. He wrote The Family in Renaissance Florence m the 1430's.
	*Lionardo* How did you reprimand her?
	*Giannozzo* I waited till we were alone. Then I smiled at her and said, "Oh dear, how did your face get dirty? Did you by any chance bump into a pan? Go wash yourself, quick, before these people begin to make fun of you. The lady and mother of a household must always be neat and clean if she wants the rest of the family to learn good conduct and modest demeanor "
	She understood me and at once began to cry. I let her go wash off both tears and make-up After that I never had to tell her again.
	*Lionardo* What a perfect wife. I can well believe that such a woman, so obedient to your word and so modest by her own nature, could elicit respect and good behavior in the rest of the household.
	*Giannozzo* All wives are thus obedient, if their husbands know how to be husbands. But some I see quite unwisely suppose that they can win obedience and respect from a wife to whom they openly and abjectly subject themselves. If they show by word and gesture that their spirit is all too deeply lascivious and feminine, they certainly make their wives no less unfaithful than rebellious. Never, at any moment, did I choose to show in word or action even the least bit of self-surrender in front of my wife. I did not imagine for a moment that I could hope to win obedience from one to whom I had confessed myself a slave. Always, therefore, showed myself virile and a real man. Always I encouraged her to love virtue. Always I reminded her to be most disciplined. ( kept her always conscious of all that I, myself, knew was right for a perfect mother of a family and wanted her to know also.