Tolerance, regulation and rescue: Dishonoured women and abandoned children in Italy, 1300-1800

Looking at Catholic charity and social policy in past times, this book focuses on 'unrespectable' women and children in Italy, and their treatment at the hands of charities and the law. It looks at prostitutes and women engaged in sexual relationships outside formal marriage, and foundlings, many of whom were abandoned because they were born out of wedlock.

A wide-ranging synoptic survey, this study considers the practical complications and consequences of communities' decisions to accommod...