Stepmothers and stepdaughters in early modern Florence

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the relationship between patrician stepmothers and stepdaughters in early modern Florence. With the high rate of remarriage, stepfamilies were not uncommon though the intimate workings of these complex family relationships are often difficult to reconstruct. The account book and correspondence of Maddalena Ricasoli reveal that enduring bonds between stepmothers and stepdaughters could develop and last beyond the death of the male figure who brought them together. Both Maddalena Ricasoli and her stepdaughter, Maria Arrigucci Carducci, worked together to divide family assets in the aftermath of Filippo Arrigucci’s death in the mid-sixteenth century. Maddalena’s niece, Cassandra Ricasoli, also strategically formed complicated female kinship ties to her own stepmother and half-siblings after her father’s remarriage as well as to her aunt Maddalena and Maddalena’s stepdaughter, Maria Carducci. These case studies suggest that women incorporated stepmothers and stepdaughters into their female networks and reveal a more inclusive conception of the early modern family that moved beyond the patriline.