Upper Class Women In Renaissance Italy

During the Renaissance in Italy, women of all different classes were viewed as less than men and were forced to fit the mold of subjugation, functioning only as “ornaments” to their husbands. In marriage, a double standard existed: Where sexual chastity was essential for women of nobility, chastity was not expected for men. In Renaissance Italy, most women from the upper classes only had two options in life: to marry or to join a cloister of nuns. Women needed a dowry whether they were marrying a man or devoting their life to Jesus. Since upper class women did not work, their dowry balanced out the cost of keeping a wife and family. The husband used the capital to invest tin property or business, but when he died, the money was returned to his wife. The expense of a dowry led some families to marry off only one daughter, sending the others to a convent to become nuns because a nun’s dowry was much less than that of a woman who was getting married. Nuns needed to bring dowries to ensure that

The daughter of Pope Alexander VI, Lucrezia Borgia, was one woman who did just that. Her father, Alexander VI tried to use Lucrezia as a pawn in his game of political power. To advance his political ambitions, he arranged her marriage to Giovanni Sforza of Milan when she was thirteen years old, in 1493. Four years later, when Pope Alexander Vi no longer needed Milan’s political support, he spread false charges of Sforza’s ineffectiveness and then annulled the marriage. Alexander Vi then married Lucrezia to the illegitimate son of the King of Naples. In 1502, at the age of 22, Lucrezia was again divorces and remarried, this time to the duke of Ferrara, Alfonso d’Este. She stayed in Ferrara, where she became a devoted wife and mother, an influence in Ferrara politics, which was rare for a woman, and social life, and a noted patron of the