Description
The article discusses the concept of inheritance in Renaissance Florence and challenges the idea that it was a passive and automatic process. Based on a study of Florentine repudiations of inheritance, it reveals that heirs had options and could reject or manipulate their inheritance. This practice was influenced by Roman law and was used as a strategy to achieve family goals and maintain continuity across generations.
Visions of modernity rest in part on a distinction between inherited status (past) and achievement (present). Inheritance is taken as automatic, if not axiomatic; the recipients are passive, if grateful. This study, based on a singular source (Florentine repudiations of inheritance), reveals that inheritance was in fact a process, that heirs had options: at the least, to reject a burdensome patrimony, but also to maneuver property to others and to avoid (at times deceptively, if not fraudulently) the claims of others to portions of the estate. Repudiation was a vestige of Roman law that became once again a viable legal institution with the revival of Roman law in the Middle Ages. Florentines incorporated repudiation into their strategies of adjustment after death, showing that they were not merely passive recipients of what came their way. These strategies fostered family goals, including continuity across the generations.
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