1,721,190 research outputs found
“Noi abbiamo visto tante città, abbiamo un’altra cultura”. Servizio domestico, migrazioni e identità di genere in Italia: uno sguardo di lungo periodo
No full textAbstract
The article aims to show both long-term continuities and the transformation of domestic service in Italy during the 19th and 20th century. Firstly, the article shows that, today, domestic workers are possibly more numerous than a century ago, and it explains why Italian families seek private solutions (such as hiring a domestic worker) to the problem of reconciling reproductive and productive labour. The gap between "rich" and "poor" countries as well as Italian migration policy make this choice possible, because they make working in Italy as a domestic worker "attractive" for many migrants and employing a foreigner advantageous for Italian families. A further consequence is that there are a considerable number of men among migrant domestic workers: their arrival has contributed to a certain "re-masculinisation" of domestic personnel. The reasons for the feminisation of domestic service in the 19th and 20th centuries are analysed in the second and third section of the paper, where the author also considers the policies developed by servants' associations, the Catholic church and the Italian state. The author investigates the role of demographic and economic factors in stimulating migration and then focuses on two cases characterised by a growing imbalance between rural and urban areas, i.e., the province of Bologna in the 19th century and Italy during the fascist era. The author concludes by noting that domestic service (paradoxically) represented a way for many women to escape misery and become more independent
Esclavitud y religión en la Italia de la Edad Moderna
Full text linkThe article studies the different forms of religion expressed by the slaves in Early Modern Italy, focusing mainly on the city of Bologne. The author analises the implications of the fact of being a slave man or a slave woman. The main matter of this article is the conversion of slaves and how religion influenced their lives.Este artículo recoge reflexiones sobre las formas de religiosidad en esclavitud en Italia entre los siglos XVI y XVIII, centrándose fundamentalmente en la ciudad de Bolonia. La autora analiza las implicaciones del hecho de ser hombre o mujer respecto al estado de esclavitud. El tema fundamental de este artículo es el problema de la conversión de los esclavos y las esclavas y cómo influía respecto a sus condiciones de vida
Graffitari d’antan. A proposito dello scrivere sui muri in prospettiva storica
No full textAbstract
In this article the author focuses on graffiti on the walls, columns, door and window jambs in the Ducal Palace in Urbino, Italy. They represent an enormous collection of writings and drawings from the mid-15th century, when the palace in its current shape still had to be built (the palace has included some earlier buildings) up to today (in spite of alarm systems and strict surveillance). Writings and drawings are mainly carved, but some are made with charcoal, pencil or ballpoint pen... In the interior of the palace there are no writings made with spray cans. Scholars often differentiate inscriptions from graffiti: while inscriptions are official writings, graffiti are not and are often made without the permission of the owner of the building, or against his/her will. In the palace of Urbino this distinction is rather problematic: even the members of the duke's family almost certainly carved their names and other writings on the walls, as well as the representatives of the Pope, who replaced the duke's family as ruler of Urbino in 1631, when the della Rovere family died out. This probably testifies to the survival of an ancient custom by the elite of leaving signs of their presence in important places (for instance their coat of arms). Moreover, graffiti by important visitors and their entourage probably allowed the duke's family to show that they had had important guests. In this sense, the case of the Urbino palace may contribute to showing that in late medieval and early modern times the boundaries between official inscriptions and unofficial graffiti might still have been quite blurred, possibly becoming clearer in later times
Introduction
No full textThis special issue focuses on the notion of “open houses”. It aims at illustrating and comparing different interpretations and uses of such a notion by contemporary historians and, although less systematically, by other scholars and within other specialised languages. At the same time, it aims at giving examples of the use of such a notion in past languages, thus encompassing both emic and etic perspectives. The first level of analysis therefore refers to language, and shows different meanings and ideas associated with the expression “open house” in both the past and present. More precisely, on the one hand it will provide information on the use of the notion of “casa aperta” by early-modern and 19th-century Italians. On the other, it will mention the use of “open house” by English-speaking commoners and illustrate the use of that notion made today by scholars from different countries and specialisations, as well as that of “offenes Haus” by German-speaking historians. The meanings of such notions differ greatly, as will be explained in the following pages, and not simply because Casa, house and Haus have meanings which do not entirely overlap.
Furthermore, it focuses on the realities that historians label with such a notion, considering cultural, emotional, legal, socio-economic, material and architectural aspects. Thanks to this approach, the special issue will provide new insights into the opennesses and closures of early-modern (and occasionally 19th-century) European houses as material artifacts, of European homes as places charged with cultural, legal and emotional meanings, and of European households as communities of people living together. In this way, it will contribute to a more nuanced interpretation of the historical change affecting the
Lavoro in casa, lavoro fuori casa: riflessioni del tardo Ottocento e di inizio Novecento
No full textWith the beginning of industrialisation, concerns
over the negative effects of women’s work
outside the home multiplied. However, there
were also, particularly in the late 19th-early 20th
centuries, tangible efforts and proposals, in some
cases put forward by women themselves, to reconcile
work at home with work outside the home.
The first – quite widely known – laws for the protection
of female labour gave rise to lively debate
among women themselves, divided between
those who considered the protective laws an important
form of defence and those who denounced
the consequent weakening of the position
of women in the labour market. The proposals
regarding housework are perhaps less known.
They ranged from its virtual elimination thanks to
collective organisation or technical modernisation,
to rationalisation with application of Taylorist
efficiency principles and/or the re-structuring
of domestic spaces and furnishings. This paper
supplies, without any claim to completeness,
a brief anthology of texts representative of these
debates and proposals
From Slaves and Servants to Citizens? Regulating Dependency, Race, and Gender in Revolutionary France and the French West Indies
Full text linkA crucial aspect of the regulation of domestic service is the regulation of people's status. Because of its emphasis on freedom and equality, the French Revolution is particularly interesting. “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on considerations of the common good.” These principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (26 August 1789) did not seem to leave room for slavery and master/servant hierarchies. Yet, their impact on slaves and servants was ambivalent, as I shall show by focusing on France and its Caribbean colonies. Dependency, race, and gender are crucial in my analysis. After sketching the features of servants, serfs, slaves, and indentured servants at the end of the Ancien Régime, I will analyse how the Revolution affected them, focusing on serfs and servants in metropolitan France, on black colonial slaves, and on female slaves and servants. While I investigate the “French imperial nation-State”, I will also provide some comparison with the American case. The Revolution led to a feminization of dependence both in metropolitan France and in the French Caribbean, making dependence more gendered. It abolished serfdom and slavery, and enfranchised male domestiques. Thus, on the one hand, it was really revolutionary; on the other, colonial slavery was first replaced by bonded labour and then reintroduced. Male domestiques were enfranchised briefly and only on paper; they would be enfranchised when slavery in the French colonies was abolished (1848). Women were excluded: mistresses and maids had to wait until 1944 to become full citizens. This makes it impossible to establish clear-cut distinctions between pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary times, and in part challenges the difference between metropole and colonies
Legenden von der Heiligen Zita und Dienstbotengeschichte
No full textRaffaella Sarti, Zita’s legend and servants’ history
A Filipino TV series of the 1960s whose main characters were a good and a bad maid and an Italian
medieval mummy kept in Lucca (Italy): these apparently unrelated items are in fact related. The
mummy is that of Saint Zita, a 13th
-century holy maid. The Filipino programme (developed by a
Jesuit) was entitled “Santa Zita and Mary Rose” and may be seen as one of the numerous narratives
inspired by Zita’s story.
Thus, after showing consistencies and inconsistencies between the results of the study of the mummy
and the first medieval life of the saint, the article focuses on the manipulation of the medieval legend
(which reflects pauperistic values) over more than eight centuries. According to it, Zita often
neglected her domestic duties in order to pray or go on pilgrimages, and even gave alms, without
permission, from her master’s goods. Nevertheless, from the Counter-Reformation onwards, Zita
was increasingly used to provide maids with a model to follow, and she was increasingly represented
as an ideal servant, loyal and obedient. She was also increasingly presented as the patron of maids, to
the point that in 1955 the Pope proclaimed her as such.
This evolution had to do both with the feminisation of domestic service and the growing interests of
the Church in (lower class) women in order to guarantee social conservation or even restoration. On
the other hand, the fact that, in many countries, Catholic people such as the Filipinas/os were/are
well represented among the ‘new’ domestic workers may not be casual: the Catholic Church,
indeed, plays/ed an important role in facilitating the meeting of supply of, and demand for, domestic
labour on a global scale
- …
