Humanist Educational and Emotional Expectations of Teenagers in Late Fifteenth-Century Italy

Abstract

The dual meaning of humanitas, as the study of the humanities and of the emotional humanity of the fifteenth-century humanist, were concepts dear to Marcantonio Sabellico (14367–1506).¹ This chapter discusses the relationships within Sabellico’s extended Venetian household, with his extended family in his hometown of Vicovaro in Lazio, as well as within the households that hosted his son during the boy’s education in Ferrara and Padua. The household was comprised of the family and all those contributing to or benefiting from the unit of the household, which in this case extended to amanuenses, tutors, foster-carers, students and, somewhat silently, servants. It was from its start in Venice a one-parent household, as the shadowy figure of the mother had disappeared before Marcantonio and his son Mario moved there. The father, in any case, was accustomed to take over a son’s upbringing when the boy reached the age of seven so the discussion that follows emphasises the model of the male-oriented household. It was the household of a scholar who himself taught both publicly and privately, and took in residential students in his own household. Marcantonio Sabellico managed the household according to his own priorities, with education as a focal point within the domestic setting. His authority extended to the households where he sent his son to board; these, like his own, were geared towards the education of adolescents.