ABSTRACT

Early Modern Italy is a fascinating survey of society in Italy from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries - the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Covering the whole of the Peninsula from the Venetian Republic, to Florence, through to Naples it shows how the huge economic, cultural and social divides of the period still affect the stability of present day united Italy.
This is an essential guide to one of the most vibrant yet tempestuous periods of Italian history.

chapter 1|15 pages

Disunited Italy

Unity and disunity

chapter 2|16 pages

Geography and demography

Physical geography

chapter 3|11 pages

The changing rural and urban economies

General economic trends: decline and shift

chapter 4|20 pages

The land and rural society

Prelude: contadini, peasants and landowners

chapter 5|23 pages

The urban environment

chapter 6|21 pages

Urban society

The variety of urban occupations

chapter 7|22 pages

The family and household

Different concepts and composition of the ‘Family’

chapter 8|20 pages

The social elites

Attitudes to nobility and status

chapter 9|18 pages

Social groupings and loyalties

chapter 10|21 pages

Parochial society

The parish systems and parish priests

chapter 11|23 pages

Social tensions, control and amelioration

Social disharmony, violence and social control

chapter 12|7 pages

EPILOGUE