Elena Brizio

Elena Brizio completed her Ph.D in Medieval History at the University of Florence in 1993 with a thesis on the political and prosopographical analysis of the Sienese government in years 1355-1399; she also completed a Masters in Gender Studies in 2003, working on the role of the dowry in the fourteenth century. She has published on the political, institutional and legal history of the Trecento, on consilia by the most important Italian jurist of the fourteenth century, Bartolo da Sassoferrato, on the consilia of the Florentine jurist Otto di Lapo Niccolini and on the seventeenth century legal repetitiones. Her current research focuses on the cultural, economic, and social power of women in the Renaissance. Another topic she works on is the use of the law in favor of, or against women, and the modifications of local laws (statutes or consuetudines) through the use of the so called ius commune, that is the former civil and canon laws. Her forthcoming book, provisionally entitled “Sienese Women in Troubled Times” will analyze the role of Sienese women in the last century of the Republic, before the war and following annexation of Siena by the Duchy of Florence.
 

Selected Publications:

“All’ombra del Campo. Protagonismi femminili alla fine della Repubblica,” in Siena al femminile. Protagonismo e impegno di donne dal medioevo ad oggi, ed. A. Savelli e Laura Vigni. Siena: Nuova Immagine, 2011

“Marrying the Enemy during the Siege of Siena: The Case of Maddalena Agazzari and Luis de Carvajal,” in Medicea. Rivista interdisciplinare di studi medicei 8, Feb. 2011. Firenze: Centro Di, pp. 14-21

“ ‘The Country is Large, and Beautiful, and Happy’. Lelio Pecci’s Travel Journal of His 1549 Mission to Flanders,” in Quaderni di Italianistica. Official Journal of the Canadian Society for Italian Studies, XXXI, no. 2 (Fall 2010), pp. 49-87

“In the Shadow of the ‘Campo’: Sienese Women and Their Families (14th-16th centuries),” in Gender, Kinship and Property in the Wider Mediterranean: Centers and Peripheries (ca. 1200-1800), eds. J. Sperling and S. Wray. New York: Routledge 2010, pp. 122-136

“Una raccolta manoscritta di consilia di Otto di Lapo Niccolini de Sirigatti,” in Rivista Internazionale di Diritto Comune 19 (2008), pp. 281-292

Selected Conferences & Lectures:

“Far and Beyond. News of Other Worlds from the Netherlands in the Medici Archives”, Renaissance Society of America Conference, Washington, 22-24 March 2012

“La legge e le donne. Santa Caterina e la società del Trecento italiano,” ‘Virgo digna coelo’ Caterina e la sua eredità. Conference for the 550 anniversary of the canonization of Saint Catherine of Siena, Rome, 27-29 October 2011

“Bartolus da Sassoferrato and his consilia on women,” Renaissance Society of America Conference, Montreal, Canada, 24-26 March 2011

“The she-wolf and the lion. Siena and the enemy Cosimo I,” Renaissance Society of America Conference, Venice, Italy, 8-10 April 2010
 

“Sienese Women in the Florentine Archives: 1545-1565,” Renaissance Society of America Conference, Chicago, 4-6 April 2008