Cultures of Charity

Women, Politics, and the Reform of Poor Relief in Renaissance Italy

Nicholas Terpstra

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780674067097
• eBook ISBN: 9780674067929
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Renaissance History
• Index: History

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.

Table of contents

• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Introduction
• 1. Showing the Poor a Good Time: Gender, Class, and Charitable Cultures
• 2. Worthy Poor, Worthy Rich: Women’s Poverty and Charitable Institutions
• 3. Tightening Control: The Narrowing Politics of Charity
• 4. Meeting the Bottom Line: Alms, Taxes, Work, and Legacies
• 5. The Wheel Keeps Turning: Moving Beyond the Opera
• 6. Baroque Piety andthe Qualita of Mercy
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgments
• Index