Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy

ISBN-13: 9781138265578 / Angielski / Miękka / 2017 / 330 str.

Sara F. Matthews-Grieco

Opis

Concentrating largely on the 'middle ranks' of Renaissance society this book addresses lacunae in current scholarship on the social and visual dimensions of sexuality in early modern Italy. Looking at neglected archival resources, amateur pornography and material artefacts often dismissed by historians of art and society, contributors here expose the existence of a pervasive erotic culture in which sexually explicit images, gestures and objects were considered essential to a variety of rituals and social occasions.

Spis treści

Contents: Introduction: hunting for birds in the Italian Renaissance, Guido Ruggiero; Part I Visual Testimony and Verbal Games; Satyrs and sausages: erotic strategies and the print market in cinquecento Italy, Sara F. Matthews-Grieco; The erotic fantasies of a model clerk: amateur pornography at the beginning of the cinquecento, Guido A. Guerzoni; From roosters to cocks: Italian Renaissance fowl and sexuality, Allen J. Grieco; The spirit is ready but the flesh is tired: erotic objects and marriage in early modern Italy, Marta Ajmar-Wollheim. Part II Ritual Eroticism and Sociability: Public display of affection: the making of marriage in the Venetian courts before the Council of Trent (1420-1545), Cecilia Cristellon; Mail humour and male sociability: sexual innuendo in the epistolary domain of Francesco II Gonzaga, Molly Bourne; Unlocking the gates of chastity: music and the erotic in the domestic sphere in 15th- and 16th-century Italy, Flora Dennis; Coutesan culture: manhood, honour and sociability, Tessa Storey; Index.

O autorze

Sara F. Matthews-Grieco is Professor of History and Co-ordinator of Women's & Gender Studies at Syracuse University in Florence, Italy.