ABSTRACT
Around one in nine of all the cases which passed before the Avogadori between 1589 and the end of the seventeenth century concerned women whose fathers were patricians. But who had been unable to take up patrician status themselves because they were born of concubinal relationships between their fathers and women of lower status. While this chapter is primarily concerned with that minority of the natural daughters of patricians who went on to become the subject of a prova di nobilt and, in most cases, to marry a patrician husband, this should be placed in the context of the experience of other natural daughters. In common with large numbers of the legitimate daughters of patricians, many became nuns. The long-term purposes of patrician fathers were made clear from the start by the terms in which they represented their behaviour towards their concubines and daughters. They made little or no attempt to hide the illegitimate origins of their daughters.
