Page 101 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Poor Agriculture for Rich People?

Figure 3.1 Two portraits of the Crosilla Toscano family from Mione, Carnia: Giovanni
Toscano (1681–1789) and Maria Crosilla Toscano (1711–1780); in his hands,
a pen and paper with which to write a letter; in hers, a rosary with which to
pray (Ermacora 1939).

the position achieved and, in fact, amplified the inequality between them
and other families in the community (Lorenzini 2020).
The economic role of women in these accounts and in the context of
modern Carnia, where male emigration also had a heavy impact on the
organization of agricultural work (Lorenzetti 2017), is undoubtedly very
important. However, while the presence of women should be emphasized,
it is necessary to note the simultaneous presence of many men engaged
in agricultural and pastoral activities, despite an agriculture considered by
definition poor and unproductive (Mathieu 2009, 47–82).
Finally, we can also focus on a cultural aspect of the presence of women
and their role in the home. In Carnia, there was a widespread tradition of
portraiture, especially in the social groups to which the Billiani belonged.
In the portraits known from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
there are never families in their entirety as it would be during the nine-
teenth century shortly before the establishment of photography. For the
times we examined, the portraits of the spouses were distinct: the husband

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