Lasciti femminili. Le ultime volontà delle donne torinesi a fine Settecento

Abstract

I took a sample of two hundred testaments written by women living in Turin in the end of the eighth century. These women had different characteristics, as regards status, civil status, age, education and health. Firstly, I examined the structure of each testament through the analysis of its tipology, of people involved in its drafting and, especially, of its author. Secondly, I examined some elements that seem to recur in the objects of my analysis, for instance the fact that women stick to traditions.
The religious aspect seems fundamental in each testament, even if several decisions about the authors’ burials were left to their heirs. Some elements, such as the presence of religious invocations, requests for Masses in order to save the author’s soul and instructions concerning the funeral, are very recurrent.
As regards their patrimony, women tended to divide it between several people and, very often, they chose other women as beneficiaries of their testaments. On the contrary, masculine testaments had usually one beneficiary: the patrimony was transmitted intact to the chief heir, who would keep the family’s surname. By leaving their patrimony to heiresses, women wanted to re-establish a sort of balance in a society in which men had always excluded women from their testaments. Women tended to favour relationships based on love, whereas in masculine testaments there was the tendency to favour blood ties. The authors of the testaments I analyzed wanted to reward those people who had been present in their life and had shown love toward them. It is possible to say that, compared with men, women had more ties with people not belonging to their families. The decisions they made in their testaments had a symbolic value more than an economic one: often women left certain object to a specific person.
Through the analysis of feminine testaments it is possible to discover a new idea of woman, more independent in comparison with the traditional historiographical vision. This unexpected freedom allow us to understand feelings and desires of women as, through their testaments, they are telling us who they have really been in their life.

Keywords: feminine testaments, traditions, patrimony, popular beliefs
Parole chiave: testamenti femminili, tradizioni, patrimonio, credenze popolari