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Plenary II: Goods
Abstract: Paternosters,
Handkerchiefs, Mirrors,
and Italian Renaissance Brides
Presented by: Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, Vassar College
Renaissance brides went to their new husbands with a certain amount of trepidation. Their marriage was usually negotiated for them, and sometimes they didn't meet their intended until these negotiations were sufficiently advanced. Part of the negotiations between fathers and sons-in-law involved the establishment of the donora, equivalent in many ways to the more modern trousseaux.This donora was divided into two parts: certain number of dresses, jewels, and costly objects valued at an agreed-upon amount. The second was the unestimated donora, encompassing everything else. Because this second part was not under the same strict control as the rest of the marriage process, with its notaries, contracts, and financial agreements, it was usually more personal. Unestimated donore usually included a wide range of objects for the bride's personal use: paternosters, handkerchiefs, and mirrors were only a few of the various items in a typical donora. In some cases the items were purchased new, but in others they were inherited.This paper looked at a number of these donore from fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Tuscany.If the new bride was considered in many ways a gift to her groom, her unestimated donora was a gift to her, separate from the strict finances involved in the rest of the marriage negotiations. By assessing the donora, we get a fuller sense of what it was like to be a new bride in the Renaissance.