Per il bene della famiglia. La tradizione familiare tra Paolo e Giambattista Ramusio

Abstract

This essay draws inspiration from the family memoir known as Cronaca Ramusia. At the beginning of the XVIIth century, it proclaimed the great cultural merits, acquired in the previous centuries, by the most illustrious representatives of the Ramusio family. Starting from this, an attempt is made to go beyond the celebratory and encomiastic guise of the Cronaca. The chosen path is, in the first part of the text, the reconstruction of the biography of Paolo Ramusio sr. (1443-1506), «giudice assessore», known in his time as a poet in Latin, trying to focus on the strategies of social affirmation he followed. In the second part, thanks to an unpublished document, namely a will of Paolo’s son (1549), the Secretary of the Senate and then of the Council of Ten Giovanni Battista, a complex period of his life is reconstructed, also in this case attempting to analyze his ideas and beliefs relating to wedding and family life.