Tra famiglia e lavoro. Donne e saperi pratici nella trattatistica e nelle scritture quotidiane
Research
Tra famiglia e lavoro. Donne e saperi pratici nella trattatistica e nelle scritture quotidiane
(Repubblica di Venezia, XVI–XVIII): censimento e digitalizzazione
Responsabile scientifico: Laura Casella
The project aims to investigate, for the centuries of the early modern period and from a gender perspective, the theme of women’s knowledge, and practical knowledge in particular, with reference to the territorial dimension of the Republic of Venice. Its purpose is to focus on the work carried out by women within the household and for the family, defined as paid work, by considering and valuing a range of female activities traditionally overlooked by economic history because of their presumed irrelevance: from tasks of care and assistance, to the management and co-management of family businesses and activities, to involvement in the various stages of food supply (production, acquisition, processing). Especially in the case of women from aristocratic landowning families, such activities clearly possessed economic value, situated between the household and the market. The project seeks to investigate specialised treatises and previously unpublished archival sources, with the aim of publishing them in a digital repository.
The expected results of the project include, first and foremost, the application of natural language processing tools to a corpus of early modern treatises, through text analysis activities aimed at identifying recurring topics, keywords and sources used by the authors, complemented by sentiment analysis. On the basis of the initial research findings, the publication of a scholarly article is planned, with particular attention to the gap between what emerges from the treatise literature and what is revealed by archival research. A further outcome will be the proposal of a contribution for the monographic issue of the journal Cahiers d’études italiennes (Filigrana), entitled Objets : genre, pratiques, représentations (Italie, Moyen Âge–Âge baroque), focusing in particular on the material aspects of women’s account books. In terms of dissemination, the project includes the organisation of a study day on women’s writings at DIUM, as well as the proposal of a panel for the 9th SIS Congress (Gender and History beyond Borders, Palermo, 20–22 June 2024), within the macro-theme dedicated to labour and economic agency.
Results in the field of Digital Humanities
Digitisation of primary sources (women’s account books) on the E-Dvara web platform
The project has enabled the creation of an initial, significant census of women’s accounting in the Venetian area, the results of which have already been partially uploaded to the E-Dvara repository. Within this platform, the documents have been carefully catalogued and described, although public access is currently restricted pending the necessary permissions for the publication of the digitised images and the editorial use of the sources.
The research, still ongoing as new registers are gradually being discovered, has so far identified 42 account books belonging to 18 different women who lived between 1557 and 1801 — with a clear predominance of seventeenth-century sources and the Debtors and Creditors Book typology — residing in Venice, Padua, Verona, and Ferrara. The study has encompassed a variety of archival locations, from the Venetian collections Donà di Riva di Biasio, Contarini da S. Antonin, Grimani, and Barbarigo, to the Paduan complexes Selvatico and Frigimelica, where the registers of Ippolita Muzzarelli Manfredi are also preserved, as well as the Veronese collections Giuliari and Malaspina and the Vicenza collection Folco Leonardo Priuli, providing a diverse documentary picture in which multiple series of account books survive for some women, while for others only a single surviving register has come down to us.
Publications
- Laura Casella, Models of female education and household management. Noblewomen in a rural context (Friuli, 16th–18th centuries) in «Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome. Moyen Âge», 135/1 (2023) 119–135. https://journals.openedition.org/mefrm/11800
- Maria Adank, Women’s Account Books in Venice and the Veneto Region. Material and Emotional Aspects, in «Cahiers d’études italiennes», 39 (2024). https://journals.openedition.org/cei/
- Laura Casella, Serena Galasso (Eds.), Genere e archivi, monographic issue of «Genesis. Rivista della Società italiana delle Storiche», 24/1–2, 2025. https://www.viella.it/libro/9791257011222
- Laura Casella, Introduzione: Genere, archivi e asimmetrie della memoria: un tema di lunga durata (with Serena Galasso). https://www.viella.it/libro/9791257011222/toc/7577
- Maria Adank, Scrivere, fare di conto e custodire le scritture: donne e archivi familiari a Venezia tra XVI e XVIII secolo, in Genere e archivi, monographic issue of «Genesis. Rivista della Società italiana delle Storiche!, 24/1–2 (2025), edited by Laura Casella and Serena Galasso. https://www.viella.it/libro/9791257011222
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