Cultures of charity [electronic resource] : women, politics, and the reform of poor relief in Renaissance Italy / Nicholas Terpstra.
Terpstra, Nicholas.
2013
HV295.B6 T47 2013eb
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Title Cultures of charity [electronic resource] : women, politics, and the reform of poor relief in Renaissance Italy / Nicholas Terpstra.
Author Terpstra, Nicholas.
ISBN 9780674067929 electronic book
9780674067097
Publication Details Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, c2013.
Language English
Description 1 online resource (x, 379 p.) : ill.
Call Number HV295.B6 T47 2013eb
Dewey Decimal Classification 362.5/57094541109031
Summary Renaissance Italians pioneered radical changes in ways of helping the poor, including orphanages, workhouses, pawnshops, and women's shelters. Nicholas Terpstra shows that gender was the key factor driving innovation. Most of the recipients of charity were women. The most creative new plans focused on features of women's poverty like illegitimate births, hunger, unemployment, and domestic violence. Signal features of the reforms, from forced labor to new instruments of saving and lending, were devised specifically to help young women get a start in life. Cultures of Charity is the first book to see women's poverty as the key factor driving changes to poor relief. These changes generated intense political debates as proponents of republican democracy challenged more elitist and authoritarian forms of government emerging at the time. Should taxes fund poor relief? Could forced labor help build local industry? Focusing on Bologna, Terpstra looks at how these fights around politics and gender generated pioneering forms of poor relief, including early examples of maternity benefits, unemployment insurance, food stamps, and credit union savings plans.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description Description based on print version record.
Series I Tatti studies in Italian Renaissance history.
Available in Other Form Cultures of charity.
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1. Showing the poor a good time : gender, class, and charitable cultures. Two cultures of charity ; "Good mothers of the family"
2. Worthy poor, worthy rich : women's poverty and charitable institutions. The turning wheel : charitable institutions and life cycle poverty ; The critical decade ; Nights and days at the opera
3. Tightening control : the narrowing politics of charity. Making it work ; People versus patricians : civil society and controlling charity
4. Meeting the bottom line : alms, taxes, work and legacies. Begging for beggars : keeping the opera Pia dei Poveri Mendicanti afloat ; Taxation by other means ; Making a workhouse ; Deeper in debt and richer all the time : building a legacy
5. The wheel keeps turning : moving beyond the opera. Enclosing the circle : shelters and the reform of poor women ; Credit where credit was due : investing in marriage ; Beyond charity : mutual assistance and the working poor
6. Baroque piety and the qualità of mercy. Bringing discipline to practical charity ; The aesthetics of poverty and the qualità of mercy.

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