THE RENAISSANCE IN THE FIELDS by Duccio Balestracci, Betsy Merideth (Trans), Paolo Squatriti (Trans) ( 9780271018799 )

Item Details

Title:

THE RENAISSANCE IN THE FIELDS
FAMILY MEMOIRS OF A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY TUSCAN PEASANT

By:

Duccio Balestracci, Betsy Merideth (Trans), Paolo Squatriti (Trans)

Format:

Paperback

List price:

£24.95

Our price:

£22.46

Discount:

10% off

You save:

£2.49

ISBN 10:

0271018798

ISBN 13:

9780271018799

Availability:

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Stock:

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Publisher:

PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Pub. date:

30 June, 1999

Pages:

176

Translated from:

Italian

Synopsis:

In the early 1980s, Duccio Balestracci discovered in a Sienese archive two account books kept from 1450 to 1502 by a Tuscan peasant named Benedetto del Massarizia. Benedetto knew how to read but not how to write. Infected by the urban habit of detailed personal record keeping, he asked various of his literate acquaintances to put into writing the details of his daily affairs. The resulting account books offer an unparalled glimpse into the economic and social world of late mediaeval peasants. In this text Balestracci uses these account books and a host of supporting archival records to explore the lives of Benedetto and his family over the course of the 15th century. In Benedetto we see how country people could organize land and capital and protect themselves, at least a little, from rapacious landlords and urban administators. By capturing the changing realities of life in the countryside, the book offers the best introduction to how the peasant economy really worked, and to how most people actually lived during the Italian Renaissance.

Illustrations:

1 Maps; 3 Halftones, black and white

Publication:

Imprint:

Pennsylvania State University Press

Returns:

Returnable

Some other items by this author:

ATLAS SUPPLEMENT (PB)

BONDS OF BLOOD

CEREMONIAL CULTURE IN THE PRE-MODERN WORLD (PB)

CIVIC RITUAL IN RENAISSANCE VENICE (PB)