Table of Contents

Introduction: How to Peel an Orange

1. Bread and oranges
2. How to Peel an Orange
3. Of Beauty and Citrons
4. Boy Peeling Fruit
5. One Thousand Orange Shirts
6. The Golden Fruit

Chapter One: Fruit of the Spirit
1. Divine Oranges
2. One Pope’s Melons…
3. … And Another Pope’s Oranges
4. Rome’s First Orange Tree
5. Catherine’s Orange Letter
6. Bitter Fruit
7. Candied Oranges
8. A Recipe for Conversion

Chapter Two: The Fruit of Love
1. Two Men and an Orange
2. Fairy Fruit
3. Basile’s Citrons
4. Citrus Confusion
5. The Fruit of Love
6. Local Fruit
7. The Color of Citrus
8. Fruitful Fairy Tales

Chapter Three: Fruit of the Womb
1. Pregnant Citrus
2. Fruitful Metamorphoses
3. Ferrari’s Citrus
4. Fruits of the Womb
5. Sexy fruit
6. Botanical Monsters
7. Citrus Metamorphoses
8. Citrus Mothers

Chapter Four: Strange Fruit
1. Damned Oranges
2. Fruit Fit for a King
3. Immigrant Fruit
4. Citrus and Folklore
5. Golden Oranges
6. Fruit Fetish
7. Heavenly Citrus
8. Fruit from the Sea

Conclusion: Golden Fruit

About the Author

Cristina Mazzoni is Professor of Romance Languages and Linguistics and Director of the Italian Studies Program at the University of Vermont.

Reviews

"Golden Fruit presents a learned, engaging, and readable excursus through several fascinating Italian literary texts. Cristina Mazzoni brings to the fore the symbolic meanings of oranges in Italian culture, from the middle ages to contemporary times."--Armando Maggi, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago
"Cristina Mazzoni compellingly demonstrates how attention to the historically specific and evolving connotations of oranges (as bitter, as a luxury item, etc.) reveals fascinating nuances in a range of texts that have hitherto been overlooked."--Maria Truglio, Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, Pennsylvania State University