by Pixie Clearwater

Created on: June 02, 2011   Last Updated: June 03, 2011

Within the extreme climate that has become known as the Renaissance, an institution stood firm against the rising tides of great cultural upheaval within the Italian states, the family. The family structure remained surprisingly rigid throughout the Italian Renaissance that has been hastily labelled from the end of the 13th century to around the mid seventeenth century. One only has to look at some of the ruling states of Italy at the time to fully comprehend the true power that the family structure could have, the prime example been the Medici family who essentially ruled over Florence throughout the Renaissance.

At the very heart of the Renaissance Italian family was the father and husband. Essentially, the power that he held over his family came from a very simple fact that he was often much older than the woman he would marry. Certainly, this was common practice in the rather elaborate state of Venice at this time, when men would enjoy their early wives indulging in all that the city had to offer, for the wealthy men this would almost certainly include regular visits to the city's famous courtesans. In the diaries of Veronica Franco, one of the ladies of the night in the city of Venice, she proclaimed that much of her time was spent enjoying the attentions of the young and as yet unattached men of the city. Marrying at a more mature age was essential for men in this period to ensure that they could guarantee a marriage of rank, certainly social mobility was at a minimum. However, this caused an additional problem of a large number of widows that resided within Italian cities. The importance of inheritance was therefore central to family life. Many widows were left with no other option but to remarry, hence many families would be made up of children from various marriages and women bringing up children that were not their own.

The very essence of the Renaissance Italian family is captured in portraits of the age. A portrait of the family was an essential status symbol to have displayed within the casa. This was a great age of Italian painters and they can offer a window into the family structure during this period. Often, the husband and father will be displayed at the very centre of the image to show his centrality to the family and overall importance. His wife will often be captured to his side, devoted and attentive to his needs, a clear signal of her role within the family. Children would sometimes be included in the images and scenes were often depicted

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