Description
Book SynopsisIntends to unravels the complex ways men were defined as men in Renaissance Italy through readings of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century evidence - medical and travel literature; theology; law; myth; conduct books; and, plays, chivalric romances, and novellas by authors including Machiavelli, Tasso and Ariosto.
Trade Review"Valeria Finucci’s book questions the traditional concepts associated with the Italian Renaissance (harmony, spiritual perfection and beauty, etc.) and addresses much less ‘luminous’ aspects of sixteenth-century Italian culture."—Armando Maggi, author of
Satan's Rhetoric: A Study of Renaissance Demonology”Valeria Finucci is at it again, patrolling and illuminating the unstable boundaries of sex and gender in early modern Italian culture and literature. Relating canonical literary texts to the medical and legal culture of their times, she explores the fascination that spontaneous generation, cuckoldry, the maternal imagination, androgyny, and the deliberate manufacture of castrati held for early modern Italians—and still hold for us.”—Walter Stephens, author of
Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of BeliefTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction: Body and Generation in the Early Modern Period 1
1. The Useless Genitor: Fantasies of Putrefaction and Nongenealogical Births 37
2. The Masquerade of Paternity: Cuckoldry and Baby M[ale] in Machiavelli's
La mandragola 79
3. Performing Maternity: Female Imagination, Paternal Erasure, and Monstrous Birth in Tasso's
Gerusalemme liberata 119
4. The Masquerade of Masculinity: Erotomania in Ariosto's
Orlando furioso 159
5. Androgynous Doubling and Hermaphroditic Anxieties: Bibbiena's
La calandria 189
6. The Masquerade of Manhood: The Paradox of the Castrato 225
Selected Bibliography 281
Index 307
