Famiglie divise: storie di conflitti e trasgressioni (Italia e Spagna, secoli XVI-XVIII)

Abstract

In historiography and in the collective imagination, the image of the close-knit family, traceable in Southern Europe, as opposed to the 'weak' family, widespread in Northern Europe, has long resisted. In recent years, however, many new perspectives have opened up in the field of historical research on the family in the Early Modern Age. They have helped to shift the focus from the complementarity of sex roles and horizontal relationships within families to the disunity and tensions that ran through parental relationships in many other cases. The authors of the essays collected in this book consciously wanted to investigate the reasons for disputes, the more or less latent individual or generational contrasts within family groups, such as the tensions between parents and sons/daughters or between cadets and firstborn concerning political disputes or relating to the control and redistribution of family resources. These were conflicts generated by the will of individuals and their unconventional behaviour, the full extent of which is not lost on the emotional dimension of the cases, the language of feelings, the ever-present anxiety over the preservation of the name and heritage.