The Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina: Art, Iconography and Patronage in Fourteenth-Century Naples (review)
tery by a man was normally not pursued in civil court, but might form part of a pattern of disregard or desertion of a wife seeking separation presented to ecclesiastical authorities. Adultery by a woman was viewed as a crime, for it threatened to defraud the male householder. Not only was the guilty wife viewed as “stealing” the clothing and food he provided for her maintenance, but as “stealing” his wealth as well, if an illegitimate child wrongfully inherited. The judicial records Hacke studies allow us to view the behavior and concerns of men and women from ranks below the stratum of the elite, whose experience alone is reflected in literary texts. From these records we hear the famed “subaltern voice,” in narratives, carefully recorded by notaries, that adumbrate commonly held expectations of marriage and social responsibility by neighbors, kinfolk, and counselors. Interspersing her analysis with brief microhistorical case studies, Hacke brings this remote era before our eyes. Her work overlaps to some extent with Joanne Ferraro’s earlier Marriage Wars in Late Renaissance Venice (2001). In looking at church and state institutions in parallel, Hacke provides context for Ferraro’s work, which looked only at cases brought before the Patriarchal Court. In addition, Hacke avoids Ferraro’s foregrounding of female agency, preferring to anatomize the experience of both men and women in situations of marital process. While she falls short of Ferraro’s eloquent depictions of women’s personal lives, Hacke’s more comprehensive study in the end supports Ferraro’s thesis. Both authors depict Venetian institutions as surprisingly flexible and accommodating to women’s needs. They describe a mitigated patriarchy, even as pressure mounted for a more disciplined sexuality in Venice, as elsewhere in Europe in this era. One small complaint: the evidentiary framework could have been presented more clearly — which courts, what years, how many cases, what charges, by and against whom, and what verdicts rendered. The reader must labor valorously to extract this information; even the six tables in chapter 3, which offer keys to the cipher, are not fully explanatory. When Hacke moves on to her next project, I hope she will more closely imitate her mentor, Peter Burke, a master of the lucid and elegant presentation of such evidence. Just check out, among others (not neglecting the tables and appendices) The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy (1986) and The Fortunes of the Courtier: The European Reception of Castiglione’s Cortegiano (1996). MARGARET L. KING Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York