Sex, Gender and Sexuality in Renaissance Italy

Sex, Gender and Sexuality in Renaissance Italy explores the new directions being taken in the study of sex and gender in Italy from 1300 to 1700 and highlights the impact that recent scholarship has had in revealing innovative ways of approaching this subject.

In this interdisciplinary volume, twelve scholars of history, literature, art history, and philosophy use a variety of both textual and visual sources to examine themes such as gender identities and dynamics, sexual transgression and sexual identities in leading Renaissance cities. It is divided into three sections, which work together to provide an overview of the influence of sex and gender in all aspects of Renaissance society from politics and religion to literature and art. Part I: Sex, Order, and Disorder deals with issues of law, religion, and violence in marital relationships; Part II: Sense and Sensuality in Sex and Gender considers gender in relation to the senses and emotions; and Part III: Visualizing Sexuality in Word and Image investigates gender, sexuality, and erotica in art and literature.

Bringing to life this increasingly prominent area of historical study, Sex, Gender and Sexuality in Renaissance Italy is ideal for students of Renaissance Italy and early modern gender and sexuality.

Chapter 1: Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Renaissance Italy: Themes and Approaches in Recent Scholarship; Part I: Sex, Order, and Disorder; Chapter 2: The Lord Who Rejected Love, or the Griselda Story (X, 10) Reconsidered Yet Again; Chapter 3: Sexual Violence in the Sienese State Before and After the Fall of the Republic; Chapter 4: In the Neighbourhood: Residence, Community, and the Sex Trade in Early Modern Bologna; Chapter 5: Though Popes Said Don’t, Some People Did: Adulteresses in Catholic Reformation Rome; Part II: Sense and Sensuality in Sex and Gender; Chapter 6: "Bodily Things" and Brides of Christ: The Case of the Early Seventeenth-century "Lesbian Nun" Benedetta Carlini; Chapter 7: In Bed with Ludovico Santa Croce (1557); Chapter 8; Aesthetics, Dress, and Militant Masculinity in Castiglione's Courtier; Chapter 9:The Sausage Wars: Or How the Sausage and Carne Battled for Gastronomic and Social Prestige in Renaissance Literature and Culture; Part III: Visualizing Sexuality in Word and Image; Chapter 10: Gianantonio Bazzi, Called "Il Sodoma": Homosexuality in Art, Life, and History; Chapter 11: Vagina Dialogues: Piccolomini’s Raffaella and Aretino’s Ragionamenti; Chapter 12:Giovan Battista della Porta's Erotomanic Art of Recollection; Chapter 13: "O mie arti fallaci": Tasso's Saintly Women in the Liberata and Conquistata

Jacqueline Murray is Professor of History at the University of Guelph. Her research focuses on premodern sexuality, at the intersections of ecclesiastical and popular lay culture, and she is currently examining the premodern experience of masculinity and male embodiment.

Nicholas Terpstra is Professor of History at the University of Toronto, working at the intersections of gender, politics, charity, and religion in early modern Italy, with a focus on civil and uncivil society, religious refugees, and the digital mapping of early modern social realities and relations.