The essay aims to offer an overview of family history studies in Italy over the past twenty
years, exploring the following topics in particular: the role played by affections in modulating
family logic and the household’s flexibility to adapt in order to increase or optimize
economic resources; the forms of assistance that were given to the family and the ways to
obtain them, including by legal procedures; the attention paid to siblings and the role of the
elderly, which from a historiographical point of view we might define as ‘new’ relatives; and
non-biological parental relationships, which is to say the forms of foster care and adoption
practiced in modern times.
Keywords: Historiography, History of Family, Early Modern History, Italy.
Parole chiave: Storiografia, Storia della famiglia, Storia della prima età moderna, Italia.