Le libertà delle donne: le vedove tutrici e la gestione patrimoniale nella prassi notarile genovese dei secoli XII-XIII

In addition to verifying the extent to which norms, doctrine and practice match while considering widows as guardians in communal Genoa, this essay explains how and in what ways many widows took on and exercised the role of legal guardians of their children. Through a broad sample of published and unpublished notarial documents dating from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, this research confirms how the position of legal guardian (or curator) endowed a significant number of women who decided to remain widows with much more ‘freedom’ than others, i.e. they were able, albeit with certain restrictions imposed by law and custom, to influence the future of their descendants (children and grandchildren who were still minors) by taking important decisions in the management of the family estate destined for them.