33 pages • 1 hour read
Gene A. BruckerGiovanni and Lusanna: Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1986A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Horns
Throughout the book, Brucker refers to an incident in which a set of horns known as “cornia bestiarum” are nailed “over the lintel of Lusanna’s house” (85). He notes that this practice was common throughout Italy during the Renaissance, and it was used “to indicate that a social norm had been violated and to warn the victims to mend their ways” (89). Brucker frequently alludes to the horns to demonstrate the extent to which Lusanna has tarnished her reputation in her community. The horns also symbolize Florence’s intense societal emphasis on following a certain moral and religious code. To stray from society’s expectations was to invite scrutiny and criticism and, in severe cases, ostracism from neighbors and excommunication from the Catholic Church.
Florentine society’s expectations for women are especially harsh. After her first husband’s death, Lusanna must always appear in public dressed as a widow to maintain her respectability. She also must not seek romance or actively pursue a new husband. Instead, Lusanna must rely on marriage brokers to approach her with lists of potential suitors. Due to her well-known extramarital relationships, Lusanna gains a reputation as a “mala femina,” a woman “who had violated her marriage vow and dishonored herself, her husband, and her family” (89). In spite of this, Lusanna still maintains an air of respectability by appearing as a widow in public and never openly meeting with Giovanni. Though her neighbors frequently criticized her, they never fully “shunned [her] as a pariah” as they would a prostitute or other immoral woman (90).
Florentine Weddings
In Florence, weddings are a highly ritualized affair, requiring a series of public events to be considered legally binding. The difference between a typical, public Florentine wedding and the clandestine marriage between Giovanni and Lusanna is one of the key points of conflict during their trial. Instead of celebrating romantic love, Florentine weddings essentially exist to formalize a legal contract between two individuals. The two families whose children are getting married engage in “lengthy and arduous negotiations” that result in a written contract, which must be signed and notarized at the “sponsalia,” or “betrothal ceremony” (83). These contracts form a binding, legal agreement, and breaking the contract “could lead to lawsuits and even vendettas” (83). After the contract was signed, a bride would parade through the streets of Florence to her new husband’s house, announcing to the entire city that the two individuals were married.
In contrast, Giovanni and Lusanna secretly marry at Lusanna’s brother’s house because Giovanni does not think his aristocratic father would approve of his marriage to a lower-class woman. A friend of Giovanni’s, Friar Fra Felice Asini, officiates the wedding, and Giovanni’s friends and Lusanna’s family serve as witnesses. However, the wedding is otherwise kept a secret from the larger Florentine community. Though Giovanni visits Lusanna and refers to her as his wife in private, the couple does not live together, and Lusanna continues to dress as a widow in public. Brucker speculates that Giovanni may have believed that a clandestine wedding would not be legally binding. He also suspects that Giovanni only agreed to the wedding to appease Lusanna and to maintain peace in their relationship.
Historical Archives
Access to archival papers is essential to this work, as it is through archival research that Brucker is able to reconstruct the story of Giovanni and Lusanna’s relationship. Brucker learns of Giovanni and Lusanna through a legal archive: the records of the court notary Ser Filippo Mazzei. While these records of witness testimony and legal motions paint a picture of the couple’s relationship, there is much information that the record leaves out. In writing his book, Brucker is faced with two opposing tales of the relationship: one provided by Lusanna and her witnesses and one provided by Giovanni and his. There is no definitive proof in the historical record about which side is more accurate, and Brucker can only use his historical knowledge to make an approximation of the objective truth of Giovanni and Lusanna’s relationship.
