The Lives of Renaissance Women . . .

. . . in the 1400's and the lives of early Western pioneer women in the late 1800's and early 1900's were not that different.  I realize that the more I learn about Tuscan housewives living in the small villages and towns, the more I began to recognize the similarities of their lives and the lives of my great-grandmothers, who were early pioneers in the West.  In Origo's "Merchant of Prato" there is a great deal of correspondence between Francesco, the merchant, and his much younger wife, Margherita.  They lived apart much of the time, he in Florence and she in Prato, and thus the need for frequent communication.  Letters were carried back and forth between husband and wife by courriers on horseback or mule.  Five hundred years later, in rural California, mail was still being delivered via horseback.