Inclusione, esclusione, affezione: le disposizioni testamentarie femminili nel contesto ligure dei secoli XII e XIII

The article opens with a brief consideration on how wills constitute a project that does not necessarily transform into concrete reality, and a survey of past scholarship on Genoa which has already noticed the tendency to follow the male line in patrimonial transmission. The methodological issues in tackling this type of documents when considering Ligurian cartularia of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are then addressed, including the need not to take gender differences for granted. The conditions in which last wills and testaments were dictated are then discussed: costs and reasons, patrimonial arrangements prior to the will, family pressures or detachment from one’s family, are aspects common to both male and female wills. After a brief analysis of the reasons that may guide the inclusion of substitution clauses with respect to heirs and beneficiaries, four cases in which husband and wife draw up a will simultaneously are considered as well as three cases of multiple female wills, the most striking of which is Adalasia de Guidone’s testament.