Summary Of Gene Brucker's Court Case

Gene Brucker offers insight into the lives and minds of 15th century Italy through a court case about Giovanni and Lusanna’s involving the legality of their marriage. He utilized several primary sources to provide a descriptive narrative of this case. Even though Brucker used primary sources, primarily notarial sources, these show clear evidence of bias, and in turn these biases are reflected in his work. To begin with, Brucker’s primary material falls into the legal category, notarial sources, from Ser Filippo Mazzaei. Although these legal works supply the evidence and court battle that occurred, these don’t provide a clear voice to the defendant, Giovanni, nor the plaintiff, Lusanna. Fore example, in one of Ser Domenico da Figline’s rebuttals

Since the reader does not hear from Lusanna, many questions are left unanswered. For instance, we know that “the letter had been brought to the palace by Antonio di Benedetto” (Brucker, 13). This letter was the one to commence the long court case between Giovanni and Lusanna. Because Lusanna was not the one to initiate the case, firstly because women could only be represented by their legal guardians, and because we don’t hear her perspective on why it was initiated, it is unclear if Lusanna even wanted to appeal the marriage in the first place. From the accounts given by witnesses “nearly all eighteen witnesses called by Giovanni’s procurators reported, either as personal judgment or as public rumor, that Lusanna was a woman of low moral character” (Brucker 27). Brucker recognizes that these testimonies reveal personal bias against Lusanna. This can translate into the fact that Lusanna was an older woman who was near the end of her child bearing years, and without any children. During this time, a large part of women’s role pertained to the household and tending to children (Lecture, 9/4/14). Since Lusanna did not fit this mold this could have been the cause for the negative opinions about