Matrimonio y estructura de la élite en la Florencia Renacentista, 1282-1500

Este texto, derivado de una ponencia en una conferencia, es un informe preliminar de un proyecto a larga escala para trazar las transformaciones en las estructuras de las redes de la élite florentina a lo largo de dos siglos. En este artículo me limito únicamente a la descripción de tendencias anteriores, desconocidas en modelos amplios, de los matrimonios cruzados florentinos. Los lectores informados verán inmediatamente que dichas tendencias tienen implicaciones importantes para los debates en la historiografía florentina (que desarrollaré más adelante). En último término, estoy interesado en las implicaciones políticas de las tendencias aquí descritas. Pero por ahora no entro en una interpretación, explicación o argumentación. Trataré únicamente de mostrar hechos nuevos.This conference paper is an interim report from a large-scale project to trace transformations in Florentine elite network structures over two centuries. In this paper, I confine myself solely to a description of previously unknown trends in broad patterns of Florentine inter-marriage. Knowledgeable readers will immediately see that these trends have important implications for debates in Florentine historiography (which I will develop in the future). Ultimately, I am primarily interested in the political implications of the trends I herein describe. But for now I do not engage in interpretation, explanation, or argumentation. I intend simply to lay out some new facts

Introducción a "Matrimonio y Estructura de Élite en la Florencia Renacentista, 1282-1500"

El siguiente texto, salido de una ponencia de conferencia y escrito en 1994 es el primer borrador de un artículo publicado en 2010 en Renaissance Quarterly y llamado "Open Elite? Social Mobility, Marriage, and Family in Florence, 1282-1494." Esta introducción debate las justificaciones metodológicas para publicar un primer borrador, escrito seis años antes del artículo final, más sofisticado. Al descubrir algunos de los pasos del proceso de investigación permite examinar la relación entre los dos estilos de "interpretación" en la historia y el "test de hipótesis" en ciencias sociales.The following conference paper, written in 1994, is the first draft of an article eventually published in 2010 in Renaissance Quarterly, entitled "Open Elite? Social Mobility, Marriage, and Family in Florence, 1282-1494." This introduction discusses the methodological justifications for publishing a first draft, written sixteen years before the final, more sophisticated article. By unveiling some steps of the actual process of research, it allows a discussion of the relationships between the two styles of "interpretation" in history and "testing hypotheses" in social science

Introduction to "Marriage and Elite Structure in Renaissance Florence, 1282-1500"

El siguiente texto, salido de una ponencia de conferencia y escrito en 1994 es el primer borrador de un artículo publicado en el 2010 en Renaissance Quarterly y llamado "Open Elite? Social Mobility, Marriage, and Family in Florence, 1282-1494." Esta introducción debate las justificaciones metodológicas para publicar un primer borrador, escrito seis años antes del artículo final más sofisticado. Al descubrir algunos de los pasos del proceso de investigación permite examinar la relación entre los dos estilos de "interpretación" en la historia y el "test de hipótesis" en ciencias sociales.The following conference paper, written in 1994, is the first draft of an article eventually published in 2010 in Renaissance Quarterly, entitled "Open Elite? Social Mobility, Marriage, and Family in Florence, 1282-1494." This introduction discusses the methodological justifications for publishing a first draft, written sixteen years before the final, more sophisticated article. By unveiling some steps of the actual process of research, it allows a discussion of the relationships between the two styles of "interpretation" in history and "testing hypotheses" in social science

Open Elite? Social Mobility, Marriage and Family in Florence, 1282-1494

Despite the wealth of quantifiable material in the Florentine archives, historians have not in large numbers followed the path-breaking lead of Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber in analyzing these archival materials from a statistical point of view. Exceptions include Cohn, Weissman, Molho, Litchfield, Barbagli, Padgett, McLean, Emigh, and Botticini. Statistical methods remain invaluable tools, however, for answering a variety of historiographical questions, including the social-history ones in which Herlihy was interested. What were the family structures in Renaissance Florence, for various categories of people? What were the logics of intermarriage among these families? How much social mobility was there in Renaissance Florence? Did any of these change during the Trecento and Quattrocento? Statistical methods are not the only procedures through which questions such as these can be answered, but they provide a useful perspective, especially on aggregate patterns and trends. Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, along with the follow-up by Barbagli, posed their questions and answers about family structure at the level of the household. In contrast, this article poses its similar questions and answers at the level of the lineage. The best current point of departure for this level of analysis is the study of Florentine marriage by Molho. In addition to providing a statistical overview of Florentine marriage patterns, Molho’s study usefully linked the two related topics of lineage intermarriage and political elite structure. Molho argued that stability both in Florentine lineages and in Florentine “ruling class” composition were caused by endogamous intermarriage, which recycled substantial dowries among a relatively closed set of elite lineages, thereby buffering them against the high elite-family extinction rates common in other countries in Europe. The statistical results herein will support Molho’s conclusion about the importance of marriage for sustaining the resilience of Florentine lineages over perilous demographic time. But they will not support Molho’s conclusion about elite stability and closure, at least for the two-century time period of this study. I shall document high rates of relative social mobility among lineages on the dimensions of wealth and political office, and high rates of social mobility during the Albizzi regime on the dimension of marriage itself

Causality in Political Networks

As the study of political networks becomes more common in political science, greater attention to questions of causality is warranted. This essay explores competing visions of causality in political networks. Independent essays address issues of statistical model specification, identification of multi-step personal influence, measurement error, causality in historical perspective, and the insights of field experiments. These essays do not agree entirely on the nature of causality in political networks, though they commonly take seriously concerns regarding homophily, time- consistency, and the uniqueness of political network data. Serious consideration of these methodological issues promises to enhance the value-added of network analysis in the study of politics

Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems: Placing Our Solar System in Context with Spitzer

We summarize the progress to date of our Legacy Science Program entitled "The Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems" (FEPS) based on observations obtained with the Spitzer Space Telescope during its first year of operation. In addition to results obtained from our ground-based preparatory program and our early validation program, we describe new results from a survey for near-infrared excess emission from the youngest stars in our sample as well as a search for cold debris disks around sun-like stars. We discuss the implications of our findings with respect to current understanding of the formation and evolution of our own solar system.Comment: 8 postscript pages including 3 figures. To appear in "Spitzer New Views of the Cosmos" ASP Conference Series, eds. L. Armus et al. FEPS website at http://feps.as.arizona.ed

New debris disk candidates: 24 micron stellar excesses at 100 Myr

Sixty three members of the 100 Myr old open cluster M47 (NGC 2422) have been detected at 24 micron with Spitzer. The Be star V 378 Pup shows an excess both in the near-infrared and at 24 micron (K-[24] = 2.4 mag), probably due to free-free emission from the gaseous envelope. Seven other early-type stars show smaller excesses, K-[24] = 0.6-0.9. Among late-type stars, two show large excesses: P922 - a K1V star with K-[24] = 1.08 pm 0.11 and P1121 - an F9V star with K-[24] = 3.72 pm 0.02. P1121 is the first known main-sequence star showing an excess comparable to that of beta Pic, which may indicate the presence of an exceptionally massive debris disk. It is possible that a major planetesimal collision has occurred in this system, consistent with the few hundred Myr time scales estimated for the clearing of the Solar System.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, accepted to the special Spitzer issue of the ApJ