Gene Brucker Has Argued That the В‘family’ Constituted the Basic Nucleus of Florentine Social Life Throughout the Renaissanceв...’how Important Was the Family in the Social Relationships of Renaissance Florence?

The family was very important in renaissance Florence as it constituted the primary unit of association. Within renaissance Italy there can be seen to be three distinct ideas as to what constituted a family, the nuclear or immediate family, the extended family including aunts, cousins, grandparent and the bloodline or linage which included all ancestors who shared the family name. The Florentine concept of the family or famigilia was, as theorized by Goldthwaite, the nuclear unit, not the extended family of cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents the Kents implied. The family was important as it was a close social, emotional, economic and political unit, while there were other important social and political relationships that existed within renaissance Florence, it is only the renaissance family that can be seen as the heart of those social and political relationships.

The family was important as it was a measure of security in the unstable competitive society of Florence. The family was the single most stable unit, in a constantly changing politically charged environment; it was as colleen Byrne stated "a measure of security in a dangerous world". Therefore relationships with family members were vital for personal security and the accretion of political and social power. Weissman