ABSTRACT

It would be easy for historians to interpret personal correspondence largely in the same way as political documentation, in other words, literally, and to conclude that if intimate forms of address are used, intimacy between the individuals can be assumed. However, personal letters of the Renaissance cannot be read as a direct expression of the writer’s thoughts and feelings, but rather had formalized characteristics related more to kinship expectations and diplomatic proceedings than to intimate relationships. Correspondence between courts, even in its most confidential moments, followed highly ceremonious communication patterns. In this chapter, I shall focus on the correspondence of a Renaissance noblewoman to her son-in-law. Her letters were located at the junction of public and personal concerns, using apparent emotional bonds to maintain consensus between her family and her son-in-law. My aim is to show the strategies she used to express her opinions and pursue her aims within the ritualized relationship between the related courts. An analysis of both the subtle strategies working in the textual background of the letters, and the circumstances in which they were written provides clues to the intentions behind the letters and to the writer’s opinions.