"A Mattress Maker's Daughter "richly illuminates the narrative
of two people whose mutual affection shaped their own lives and in
some ways their times. According to the Renaissance legend told and
retold across the centuries, a woman of questionable reputation
bamboozles a middle-aged warrior-prince into marrying her, and the
family takes revenge. He is Don Giovanni de' Medici, son of the
Florentine grand duke; she is Livia Vernazza, daughter of a Genoese
artisan. They live in luxury for a while, far from Florence, and
have a child. Then, Giovanni dies, the family pounces upon the
inheritance, and Livia is forced to return from riches to rags.
Documents, including long-lost love letters, reveal another story
behind the legend, suppressed by the family and forgotten. Brendan
Dooley investigates this largely untold story among the various
settings where episodes occurred, including Florence, Genoa, and
Venice.
In the course of explaining their improbable liaison and its
consequences, "A Mattress Maker's Daughter "explores early modern
emotions, material culture, heredity, absolutism, and religious
tensions at the crux of one of the great transformations in
European culture, society, and statecraft. Giovanni and Livia
exemplify changing concepts of love and romance, new standards of
public and private conduct, and emerging attitudes toward property
and legitimacy just as the age of Renaissance humanism gave way to
the culture of Counter-Reformation and early modern Europe.
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