A Lady's Man: The Cicisbei, Private Morals and National Identity in Italy

ISBN-13: 9781137450920 / Angielski / Twarda / 2014

Roberto Bizzocchi

Opis

Three people in a marriage: a woman and two men. This was the eighteenth-century Italian aristocratic model of marriage, characterised by the presence of the cicisbeo, the official escort of another man's wife. Did this delineate a clear and brazen sexual depravity or rather a complex and refined social institution, revealing many aspects of Italian civilization in the Age of the Enlightenment? Not only was the presence of a cicisbeo part of a matrimonial, family model; it was also an important factor socially and politically. In a period in which the presence of women at parties was sought - at the theatre and in salons - the lady's escort played an essential part in promoting a couple's social life. Indeed, the company and friendship (and perhaps love) which bound a lady and her escort occurred with the knowledge and under the control of the families of the interested parties. Of course, this 'triangular' arrangement was not unproblematic. The existence of a third party posed a threat to conjugal fidelity and the legitimacy of offspring and, towards the early nineteenth century, when the ideals of Romanticism and the French Revolution were popular there was a rapid decline in the practice. For as Italy reconstructed its national identity alongside other modern European countries the image of private immorality associated with cicisbeism constituted an intolerable blemish.

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Recenzje

"Roberto Bizzocchi's book, first published in Italian in 2008, is a welcome, first serious study of this most distinctive and puzzling feature of Enlightenment Italy. ... reader will be rewarded with a rich, insightful, and beautifully documented treatment of a fascinating phenomenon, long noted but little formally studied." (P. Renée Baernstein, Journal of Modern History, Vol. 89 (2), June, 2017)

Spis treści

1. Introduction: Who were the Cicisbei? 2. In the World of Enlightenment 3. In the Eighteenth-Century Society 4. The Geopolitics of Cicisbeism 5. The Erotic Implications of Cicisbeism 6. The Cicisbei Banned

O autorze

Roberto Bizzocchi teaches Early Modern History at the University of Pisa, Italy. Among others, he has written In famiglia. Interessi e affetti nell'Italia moderna (Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2001), and Genealogie incredibili. Scritti di Storia nell'Europa moderna (Bologna, il Mulino, 2009 2nd. ed., French translation: Paris, Editions Rue d'Ulm 2010).