Giovanni and Lusanna: Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence

“In the surviving records of one notary, Ser Filippo Mazzei, I read some pages of testimony by witnesses who had appeared before the Archbishop’s court to testify in a judicial process involving an alleged marriage. The shape and substance of the case emerged slowly and fitfully, since the records were scattered randomly through several volumes of Ser Filippo’s notarial corpus.”

Here, Brucker describes the process by which he discovers and reconstructs the history of the relationship between Giovanni and Lusanna. The entire story of the relationship is not recorded in full, but it exists in pieces throughout Mazzei’s notes of the many events taking place in the archbishop’s court. Brucker’s role as a historian is to sift through the archival record and piece together the fullest account of the relationship that he can—a difficult task that inevitably leaves gaps in the story. 

“Thus, the subjects of [microhistories] are frequently peasants, artisans, vagabonds, common soldiers, witches, prostitutes, nuns, friars, and parish priests form the lowest echelons of the social order.”

The story of Giovanni and Lusanna is a microhistory because it offers insight into a historical period through the lives of ordinary people. Microhistories stand in opposition to what Brucker calls “scientific history,” which focuses solely on the actions of governmental bodies—wars, laws, and other monumental events (viii). The primary advantage of a microhistory is that it can shed light on what it was like for ordinary people, such as those described in the quote above, to live in a certain society—in this case, fifteenth-century Florence. 

“Notaries played an important role in the legalistic and litigious society of Florence. They were employed by people from every social stratum to draw up wills, property transactions, dowry contracts, and settlements of disputes.”

Brucker describes Florence as a “legalistic” society, in which much of everyday life involves the court—from drafting wedding contracts to settling civil conflicts. These legal activities are obsessively recorded by notaries such as