Table Of ContentThe historical anthropology of
early modern Italy
The historical
anthropology
of early
·modern Italy
Essays
on perception
and communication
PETER BURKE
Fellow of Emmanuel College
Cambridge
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© Cambridge University Press 1987
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the written permission ofCambridge University Press.
First published 1987
This digitally printed first paperback version 2005
A catalogue recordfor this publication is availablefrom the British Library
Library ofCongress Cataloguing in Publication data
Burke, Peter.
The historical anthropology of early modern Italy:
essays on perception and communication.
Bibliography.
l. Italy-Civilization-1268-1559.
2. Italy-Civilization-1559-1789.
J. Title.
DG455.B84 1987 945 86-18830
ISBN-13 978-0-521-32041-2 hardback
ISBN-lO 0-521-32041-0 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-02367-2 paperback
ISBN-lO 0-521-02367-X paperback
Contents
List of illustrations viii
Preface ix
Refere.nces x
I Introduction
1 The historical anthropology of early modern ltaly 3
s
2 The sources: outsiders and insiders 1
II Modes of perception
3 Oassifying the people: the census as collective representation 27
4 The bishop's questions and the people's religion 40
5 How to be a Counter-Reformation saint 48
6 Perceiving a counter-culture 63
III Modes of communication
7 Languages and anti-languages in early modern Italy 79
8 Insult and blasphemy in early modern ltaly 95
9 The uses of literacy in early modern Italy IIO
10 Conspicuous consumption in seventeenth-century Italy 132
so
1 1 The presentation of self in the Renaissance portrait 1
1 2 Sacred rulers, royal priests: rituals of the early modern popes 168
13 The carnival of Venice 183
14 The Virgin of the Carmine and the revolt of Masaniello 191
15 Rituals of healing in early modern Italy 207
IV Conclusion
16 The repudiation of ritual in early modern Europe 223
Notes 239
Bibliography 261
lndex 277
Vll
Illustrations Preface
I G. Ceruti, Beggar 64 The following sixteen essays deal with cultural history, mainly that of
2 G. Bellini, Doge Leonardo Loredan 152 Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 1 have written them in
3 Titian, Paul 111 and his nipoti 156 the hope that sorne at least will be read not only by historians but by
4 Titian, Cardinal Pietro Bembo 157 specialists in art and literature, sociology and anthropology, whether they
5 [ ?]Berruguete, Federigo of Urbino with his son 160 have a special interest in ltaly or not, and so 1 have tried to place ltaly
6 A. van Dyck, Elena Grima/di 162 in a comparative framework and to refer to other parts of Europe.
7 Morone, Tailor 166 Reference is also frequently made to works on social theory, not so much
to appeal to anthropologists and sociologists as beca use 1 believe that their
concepts, models and theories can illuminate the past as well as the
present. lt is for this reason that the essays are described as contributions
to 'historical anthropology ', a term which is discussed in chapter 1 below.
The research in ltaly on which they are based was made possible by a
five-year grant from the Social Science Research Council (as it then was),
and by a grant from the Research Fund of Emmanuel College. 1 am
extremely grateful for both.
A few of these essays ha ve already appeared in print, though they ha ve
been revised to include new ideas and new information as well as to make
the collection more unified. Chapter 4 appeared in ltalian in Quaderni
storici 41 (1979); chapter 5 in Religion and Society, ed. K. von Greyerz
(London, Allen and Unwin, 1984); chapter 7 in History Workshop
Journal, 1981; Ghapter 10 in Kwartalnik Historyczny Kultury Materialniej
a
1982; chapter 13, in French, in Lesjeux la Renaissance, ed. P. Aries and
]. C. Margolin (París, Vrin, 1982); chapter 14 in Past and Present 99
(1983). 1 should like to thank the respective publishers for permission to
reprint. 1 am also grateful for constructive comments to the different
audiences on which early versions of these papers were tried out, notably
those at Amsterdam (ch. 8); Budapest (chs. 12, 16); Cambridge (chs. 6, 8,
10, I I, 13, 15, 16); Melbourne (chs. 11, 13); Oxford (chs. 8, 16); París (ch.
6); Princeton (ch. 8); Tours (ch. 13); Venice (ch. 3); Warsaw (ch. 10);
Wellington (ch. 16); and York (ch. 11).
1 am indebted to many predecessors in the various fields invaded here,
and especially to a few individuals with whom 1 have regularly shared
problems and discoveries, notably to Anton Blok, Natalie Davis, Cario
Ginzburg, Gábor Klaniczay, Roy Porter, Simon Price, Bob Scribner, and
y~:'<etth-Thonias) (my mentor for more than twenty-five years.)
vm IX
References 1
Introduction
References to primary sources are given in the notes; secondary sources
are referred to by the author-date system in the text, with full details in
the bibliography. For the citation of manuscripts, the following abbrevia
tions are employed:
ACG Archivio del Comune, Genoa
ASF Archivio di Stato, Florence
ASG Archivio di Stato, Genoa
ASM Archivio di Stato, Milan
ASR Archivio di Stato, Rome
ASV Archivio di S tato, Ve nice
BN British Library
BN Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris
BNF Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence
TCG Tribunale Criminale del Governatore
X
1
The historical anthropology of
early modern ltaly
What is historical anthropology?
These essays on early modern Italy are offered as an example of
'historical anthropology '. The term has come into use in the last decade
or so to refer to the work of Cario Ginzburg, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie,
Keith Thomas and a number of others. Is it anything more than a
fashionable new term for social history? If so, what is distinctive about
it?
1 do not want to overemphasise the uniformity or the intellectual
coherence of a movement which has appealed to different historians for
different reasons. Sorne historical anthropologists are especially concerned
with symbolism, others with material life; sorne with theory and
comparison, others with local particulars. Despite the diversity of its
practitioners, however, the term 'historical anthropology' does describe
a distinctive approach to history. Five features in particular distinguish
it Vfrom other kinds of social history.
Much recent work in social history has attempted to describe
general trends on the basis of quantitative evidence; but historical
anthropology is deliberately qualitative and concentrates on specific cases.
2. Many works of social history describe the lives of millions of people.
Works of histor~_tb_r-ºP-QlQgY-, ___ h_o_w_ev:e_r, ___a r_e ºfterr __ <:l_eH_~~rately
niicroscopiCémdfocus 011 sp.1all ~9111ffil111ities, such a,s Le Roy Ladurie's
Montaillou, in order to_achiexe_greater-depth aswelLas.morecolour _and
life.
3.
Many social historians offer causal explanations of trends over time,
explanations which contemporaries would not have understood,
concerned with trends of which they were often unaware. By contrast,
historical anthropologists concentrate on what, following Clifford Geertz
(1973) is often called 'thick description ',in other words the interpretation
of social interaction in a given society in terms of that society's own norms
and categories.
4· The place of symbolism in everyday life has tended to be neglected
3
4 lntroduction
The historie al anthropology of early modern Ita/y 5
by both cultural historians (con cerned with 'works of art ') and social
Structuralists regard culture as a communication system, a language (with
historians (con cerned with social 'reality '). Historical anthropologists, on
its 'grammars' or rules for eating food, wearing clothes, and so on), or
the other hand, make it one of their central concerns, and try to show,
a 'system of signs ', which can be 'read' like a text. As a cultural historian
for example, how 'apparently trivial routines and rituals ha vean important
1 ha ve found sorne of these ideas stimulating and suggestive; the idea, for
role in maintaining or enforcing a certain world view' (Lofgren, 1981 ).
example that 'a sign or symbol only acquires meaning when it is
Hence they ha ve paid attention to the significance of the clothes people
discriminated from sorne other contrary sign or symbol' (Leach, 1976,
wear, the food they eat, the ways in which they address one another, and
p. 49), does help make sense of many phenomena in early modern Europe,
the manner in which they hold themselves, gesture, or walk.
from conspicuously splendid palaces to aggressively simple rituals.
5· Social history is informed- directly or indirectly- by the theories The stumbling-block for historians who try to come to terms with the
of Karl Marx and Max Weber. Historical anthropologists tend to be ideas of the structuralists is their wilfullack of concern with change, local
interested in theory, but their 'great tradition' runs from Emile Durk
context and individual intentions. To historians it seems obvious that the
heim, through Arnold van Gennep ( 1 908) on 'rites of passage' and meaning of a sign changes in the course of time, varíes with the situation ,
Marcel Mauss (1923-4) on the meaning of gifts, to contemporary figures in which it is used, and may be manipulated by the individual using
such as Geertz, Víctor Turner and Pierre Bourdieu, and historical it - which is not to deny the possibility of the sign in sorne sense
analysis would benefit if it drew more heavily on this tradition.
manipulating the user. The essay on the art of insult (ch. 8 below) is an
These contrasts should not be exaggerated. Quantitative and qualita attempt to show both processes at work.
tive, microsocial and macrosocial approaches to the pastare, or at any rate
If they had not reacted against common-sense views, the structuralists
should be, complementary not contradictory, for case-studies are needed would not have achieved their new insights. AH the same, it is worth
to show how major trends affected the lives of individuals, while statistical asking whether they may not have over-reacted, or, more constructively,,
analysis is required to show that the cases discussed are really typical, and whether it may be possible to domesticate the structuralist mind, to write
of what. Was Montaillou, for example, a typical medieval village? A the history of the 'grammar' of a culture and relate it to the messages
typical Mediterranean village? A typical Languedoc village? Or was it not emitted by individuals using this grammar, and the perception and.
typical at all?
interpretation of these messages by their recipients. This approach to
The contrast which has just been drawn between sociology and social culture as a communication system has the advantage of allowing
anthropology was never all that clear and it has become increasingly historians to discuss the relation between specific texts or artifacts and
blurred. Durkheim can be claimed for both disciplines. The ·chicago the society in which they were produced without assuming that culture
school of symbolic interactionism was a movement within sociology is sorne kind of 'superstructure', as the Marxists used to say, which
which emphasised small groups, symbolism, and the importance of the simply reflects the 'real' changes taking place below.
participants' ( or 'actors ') own definitions of the situation. Erving Anthropologists have much to say about both perception and com
Goffman, who owed a good deal to this tradition, is another figure who munication. On the perception side, they have suggested that what we
can equally well be claimed for anthropology or sociology. In any case rather too easily call 'social reality' should be regarded as no more than
in calling this volume of essays a study in historical anthropology, I hav~ a shared image, what Durkheim used to call a 'collective representation '.
no intention of rejecting either the global (macroscopic) view or Gender, for example, or illness-however natural they appear
quantitative methods (where these are appropriate). The point ofthe title everywhere - are cultural 'constructions' in the sense that the character
is essentially that the historical problems discussed in the essays, on the istics attributed to sickness and health, males and females, vary from one
border between traditional 'social' and traditional 'cultural' history, are culture to another. Hence 'man' and 'woman ', 'healer' and 'sufferer' are
ones which yield with least difficulty to a microscopic, qualitative social roles which have to be learned (Ortner and Whitehead, 1981;
approach.
Kapferer, 1983). Again, it has been argued by a sociologist ofthe symbolic
. As for perception and communication, these themes are central to any interaction school that 'social groups crea te deviance by making the rules
tdea of culture, vague or precise, wide or narrow, high or low. whose infraction constitutes deviance and by applying those rules to
6 lntroduction The historical anthropology of early modern Ita/y 7
particular people and labelling them as outsiders' (Becker, 1963). The 'social drama' will recur in these pages. However, 1 shall try to integra te
outsiders may be madmen (Foucault, 1961), witches (Cohn, 1975) or this approacr with a cultural historian's concern with changes in
beggars (below, ch. 6). The 'thick description' ofthe anthropologists may symbolism over time, over sorne three or four hundred years (the essays
be redefined as a form of translation, a making explicit, for the benefit focus on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but move earlier or later
of non-members, of the rules implicit in a given culture. as the subject requires).
These 'rules', it should be pointed out, do not determine behaviour.
They may be broken (at the price of giving offence). In practice they are The urban mosaic
applied flexibly rather than mechanically. There may not be a complete
consensus in a given society asto what these rules are. The idea of rules These essays are not concerned with the whole of early modern Italy {ten
remains a useful one, and so does the attempt to tell the modern reader million or more people at any one time, 90% of them living in the
how he or she would ha ve been expected to behave in another century; countryside), but with a few of the largest cities: with Milan, Genoa,
how to be polite, for example, or how to be insulting, how to be a thief, Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples. A historical anthropology of Italian
how to be a saint (below, chs. s-8). This approach is not unlike a literary peasant society would be well worth attempting, but the attempt will not
and art-historical tradition of studying the making, survival and breaking be made here (for further information, see Doria, 1968; McArdle, 1978).
of stereotypes, a tradition associated with the Warburg Institute (War To study these cities, the concepts developed by urban sociologists and
burg, 1893; Gombrich, 196o; Baxandall, 1972). Perception has a history. anthropologists have proved to be particularly useful.
Forms of communication such as rituals are a long-standing interest In the 192os, the leader of the so-called 'Chicago School' of urban
of anthropologists, but communication became a centre of attention when sociology, Robert Park , recommended 'fieldwork' in the streets. 'The
they broke with the tradition of functionalism, in other words the study same patient methods of observation ', he wrote,
of the manner in which ideas and institutions are related to one another which anthropologists like Boas and Lowie have expended on the
within a social (o r cultural) system. This approach seemed to discourage study of the life and manners of the American Indian might be even
any awareness of conflict or change, and it has been replaced by one which more fruitfully employed in the investigation of the customs,
stresses process and views society in terms of interaction or 'transaction' beliefs, social practices and general conceptions of life prevalent in
(Barth, 1967, Kapferer, 1976). lt was at the time of this debate and in Little ltaly or the Lower North Side in Chicago, or in recording
. ' the more sophisticated folkways of the inhabitants of Greenwich
tht~ context, that a group of American scholars established the discipline
Village and the neighbourhood ofWashington Square, New York.
vanously known as the sociology of language or the ethnography of
(Park, 1916).
communication, defined as the study of messages (o r 'communicative
events '), their channels and codes, senders and receivers, occasions and Over the last quarter-century or so, as the Third World has become
settings (Hymes 1964), or, more briefly, 'Who speaks what language to hyper-urbanised, Park's advice has been taken more seriously. Social
whom and when?' (Fishman, 1965). A classic example of obvious anthropologists have been turning their attention to the city, and a
relevance to historians ofltaly-is an essay with the intriguing title, 'How considerable body of work now exists dealing with the life of migrants
to ask for a drink in Subanu n', which is in fact a discussion of the whole and with their urban 'villages '. Sorne of it is of great interest to anyone
complex of conventions surrounding drinking in that culture (Frake, concerned with perception and communication.
1964). The crucial point was made by Park when he described the city, in a
lt is from this ethnographical perspective that 1 wish to look at various memorable phrase, as 'a mosaic of little worlds which touch but do not
kinds of communicative event in early modern Italy, including speech and penetrate '. 'Space speaks' as one anthropologist puts it (Hall, 1959, ch.
writing, politeness and insult, texts and images, official rituals and 10), and territoriality is particularly audible, or visible, in the city. All the
unofficial ones. M y vocabulary of analysis will draw on this tradition as ltalian cities which will be discussed below were divided into social zones.
on that of symbolic interactionism, and terms such as 'transaction ', In Florence, the parish of San Frediano was a low-rent area inhabited
'negotiation ', 'definition of the situation ', 'presentation of self' and by the lowest-paid workers in the cloth industry (readers of the novels
