The state as surrogate father: State guardianship in Renaissance Florence, 1368--1532

In the late fourteenth century, the Florentine government assumed the traditional familial duty of guardianship. Through the Office of the Pupilli, state guardians administered the estates of wealthy orphans and invested their money in government coffers until the children reached majority age. The service faltered in the mid-fifteenth century, however, and citizens found other ways to protect their relatives. When the government revived the Pupilli office in the 1470s, it changed its mission. The office served orphans from diverse backgrounds and no longer offered financial support to the state. State guardianship was promoted as a charitable service, but state guardians primarily claimed wardships in areas of particular interest to the government. In order to claim wardships, the Pupilli had to incorporate the kinsmen of state wards into its administration. This revised partnership between families and the state conditioned the survival of state guardianship for centuries.; This dissertation traces how the Florentine government took over the duty of guardianship from families. Through a quantitative examination of the backgrounds of state wards and a qualitative study of testaments and laws, it addresses both the nature of the Florentine family and the changing relationship between Florentine subjects and their government. Florentines defined their families broadly, and bonds of responsibility and affection between extended affinal kinsmen were durable. Florentine citizens did not rely on state guardianship, moreover, because of a breakdown of the extended family and a shifting of allegiance to the state, as some historians maintain. Citizens were responsible for the expansion and definition of government authority over guardianships, but the responsibility of guardian was never disassociated from the family. The history of the government's attitude toward state guardianship also undermines historians' characterizations of both the Albizzi (1382--1434) and Laurentian regimes (1469--1492) by suggesting that motivations for expanding the authority of the state were more complex than these characterizations permit.