Hurry - Only 2 left in stock!
|
Valeria Finucci is Professor of Italian and Theater Studies and Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Duke University.
A complex and nuanced interpretation of the rise of medical science
in late Renaissance Italy. Finucci uses the life and experiences of
Vincenzo Gonzaga as a connecting thread to allow her to weave
together histories of early modern medicine, sexuality, and
culture. In four elegantly written chapters, she explores how the
drive toward pleasure, beauty, and perfection, as well as the
desire for collecting and understanding the new and the ‘exotic,’
inspired both famous and lesser-known doctors, academics,
pharmacists, and nobles to explore the body and search for new
knowledge.
*Giovanna Benadusi, author of A Provincial Elite in Early Modern
Tuscany*
It is no longer news that the body has a history. What Finucci
offers, however, in this fascinating account of one prince’s body
and its diseases, is a revealing microhistory of the noted early
modern Italian would-be warrior, lover, and obsessive collector
Vincenzo Gonzaga. Chronicling his exploits and his suffering, his
illnesses and his diseases, Finucci opens a window on a physical
and mental world that is both almost forgotten and yet somehow
still with us. Informed by theory, not driven by it, this is a book
than swings from the arcane to the profound and to the quotidian
with the sure hand of a master storyteller and scholar.
*Guido Ruggiero, author of The Renaissance in Italy*
![]() |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
![]() |