"In 1434, the new medici government exiled Matteo Strozzi as an enemy of the regime. Soon afterward, Matteo and three of his eight children died of the plague. His young widow, Alessandra, struggled to make arrangements for her five remaining children, preparing her sons for merchant careers and finding husbands for her daughters. Her three sons left Florence in the 1440s to enter relatives' merchant banking firms. Their absence, prolonged by a sentence of exile imposed on them in 1458s, gave rise to the family correspondence that informs this rich study."

"The Strozzi of Florence correspondence tells the story of the decline and recovery of one Florentine patrician family. Eventually, the Strozzi brothers earned the greatest fortune of their era, and, after the repeal of their exile, Filippo, the eldest, most successful, and longest lived, spent his final years as one of Florence's foremost citizens. Set in the context of other documentary evidence and of modern historical and anthropological studies, Crabb's study illuminates the roles of women, kinship, solidarity, honor, and profit. The family letters provide nuanced insights into values and practices that more impersonal sources cannot rival."

"This book will appeal to those with a general interest in social history as well as those with particular interests in the Renaissance, Florence, and Italy. It confronts issues of Renaissance florentine historiography by presenting a more positive view of the role of women than does current orthodoxy, by providing evidence of the impact of extended kinship ties (a controversial issue), and by illuminating further the value placed on honor and profit."--Jacket.