Introduction1. Practicing Motherhood When the Definition of 'Family' is Ambiguous: Anna Colonna and the Barberini Dynasty, 1627-1647 2. The Interests Common to Us All: Olimpia Giustiniani on the Governing of the Roman Aristocratic Family 3. At the Nexus of Impossibility: The Medical and the Maternal in Seventeenth-Century Rome 4. Ippolita's Wager: Letting Daughters Decide in the Early Eighteenth Century 5. Extravagant Pretensions: The Triumph of Maternal Love in the World of Rome Conclusion Appendices Bibliography

Accounting for Affection examines the multifaceted nature of early modern motherhood by focusing on the ideas and strategies of Roman aristocratic mothers during familial conflict. Illuminating new approaches to the maternal and the familial employed by such women, it demonstrates how interventions gained increasing favor in early modern Rome.

Caroline Castiglione is Associate Professor of Italian Studies and History at Brown University, USA. She is the author of Patrons and Adversaries: Nobles and Villagers in Italian Politics, 1640-1760 (2005), winner of the Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies in 2006.