ABSTRACT
In the early twentieth century, Princess Nicoletta Boncompagni Ludovisi believed such milk to be safer and more nutritious for the children than any other type of animal milk. It has been difficult to assess the interactions between biological mothers, wet nurses, and children in such families, even though such exchanges were crucial in the rearing of children in aristocratic, and even some artisanal families. An aristocratic mother therefore sought many women who could make the milk that, according to Eleonora, might make the difference between the life and death of the child. Too few children could create stresses of another kind on the noble mother, especially a lack of male heirs, as was the case in Gregorio Boncompagni's generation. Subsequent negative developments in the breastfeeding child's health might prompt the re-evaluation of the wet nurse's milk, but primarily according to its material outcomes in the infant. As food and medicine, milk was critical.
