In Renaissance and early modern Europe, various constellations of phenomena-ranging from sex scandals to legal debates to flurries of satirical prints-collectively demonstrate, at different times and places, an increased concern with cuckoldry, impotence and adultery. This concern emerges in unusual events (such as scatological rituals of house-scorning), appears in neglected sources (such as drawings by Swiss mercenary soldier-artists), and engages innovative areas of inquiry (such as the intersection between medical theory and Renaissance comedy). Interdisciplinary analytical tools are here deployed to scrutinize court scandals and decipher archival documents. Household recipes, popular literary works and a variety of visual media are examined in the light of contemporary sexual culture and contextualized with reference to current social and political issues. The essays in this volume reveal the central importance of sexuality and sexual metaphor for our understanding of European history, politics and culture, and emphasize the extent to which erotic presuppositions underpinned the early modern world.

This book raises awareness about gender perspective in political and legal theories and historical analysis. The impacts of feminist political and legal theories, as well as critical legal studies, have been embedded in all the papers in different ways and degrees. Differences among feminist political and legal ideas are visible in the different approaches. The ongoing issue of defining gender, for example, is a recurring theme in the texts. Some papers question the binary basis of the gender issue and the notion of gender as such, while others start from the binary dichotomy and attempt to expand the consideration towards a multi-dimensional understanding of gender identities. The main focus is on a feminist reconsideration of all relevant fields of legal knowledge. The primary aim is to demystify the seemingly neutral character of legal norms and legal knowledge and highlight the power relations at different layers, beginning with male and female legal subjects of Western heredity (in terms of culture, ethnicity, and race), then moving on to different needs and power relations among female persons of different races and classes, and finally addressing differentiating gender relations and identities beyond the framework of the women-men binary codification, i.e., also taking into consideration the multiple options of intersex, transgender, queering, etc. Taking seriously the issue of the “maleness” of political and legal theories is indeed a challenging and relevant endeavor for legal scholars. The male bias is present not only throughout history but also in the present, given that our “universal” categories of political and legal thought are still overburdened by unequal power relations. It is also important to open our minds and knowledge production for a gender-sensitive and gender-competent intersectional approach, which would also include various queer-, race- and class-based considerations. These tasks should be of interest not only to critical legal scholars but also all those belonging to mainstream legal and political thought.

A vivid history of the lives and times of the aristocratic elite whose patronage created the art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was an era of dramatic political, religious, and cultural change in the Italian peninsula, witnessing major innovations in the visual arts, literature, music, and science. Princes of the Renaissance charts these developments in a sequence of eleven chapters, each of which is devoted to two or three princely characters with a cast of minor ones—from Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, to Cosimo I de' Medici, Duke of Florence, and from Isabella d'Este of Mantua to Lucrezia Borgia. Many of these princes were related by blood or marriage, creating a web of alliances that held Renaissance society together—but whose tensions could spark feuds that threatened to tear it apart. A vivid depiction of the lives and times of the aristocratic elite whose patronage created the art and architecture of the Renaissance, Princes of the Renaissance is a narrative that is as rigorous and definitively researched as it is accessible and entertaining. Perhaps most importantly, Mary Hollingsworth sets the aesthetic achievements of these aristocratic patrons in the context of the volatile, ever-shifting politics of an age of change and innovation.

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.

Now in its fourth edition, Sexuality in Medieval Europe provides a lively account of a society whose attitudes toward sexuality both were ancestral to, and differed from, contemporary ones. The volume is structured not by types of sexual interactions or deviance, but to reflect the difference in gendered experiences when sex is seen as an act one person does to another. Sexual activity, within and outside of marriage, as well as sexual inactivity, had different meanings based on gender, social status, religious affiliation, and more. This book considers these iterations of medieval sexuality in its effort to show there was no single medieval attitude towards sexuality. With an emphasis on Christian Western Europe over the entire course of the Middle Ages, it also includes comparative material on neighboring cultures at the time. Alongside being reworked for further clarity and readability, the fourth edition offers substantial new material on trans scholarship and methodological attempts to recoup a trans past; changes in the treatment of sex work and its terminology; and new material on Byzantine and Muslim culture. Sexuality in Medieval Europe is an essential resource for all those who study medieval history, medieval culture, and the history of sexuality in Europe.

In this book, Diana Bullen Presciutti explores how images of miracles performed by mendicant saints-reviving dead children, redeeming the unjustly convicted, mending broken marriages, quelling factional violence, exorcising the demonically possessed-actively shaped Renaissance Italians' perceptions of pressing social problems related to gender, sexuality, and honor. She argues that depictions of these miracles by artists-both famous (Donatello, Titian) and anonymous-played a critical role in defining and conceptualizing threats to family honor and social stability. Drawing from art history, history, religious studies, gender studies, and sociology, Presciutti's interdisciplinary study reveals how miracle scenes-whether painted, sculpted, or printed-operated as active agents of 'lived religion' and social negotiation in the spaces of the Renaissance Italian city.

Jewish Love Magic: From Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages is the first monograph dedicated to the supernatural methods employed by Jews in order to generate love, grace or hate. Examining hundreds of manuscripts, often unpublished, Ortal-Paz Saar skillfully illuminates a major aspect of the Jewish magical tradition. The book explores rituals, spells and important motifs of Jewish love magic, repeatedly comparing them to the Graeco-Roman and Christian traditions. In addition to recipes and amulets in Hebrew, Aramaic and Judaeo-Arabic, primarily originating in the Cairo Genizah, also rabbinic sources and responsa are analysed, resulting in a comprehensive and fascinating picture. “Due to the general neglect of the topic in previous scholarship, the richness of the research corpus and the scientific precision of the author, Saar’s Jewish Love Magic is an important volume that should be on the shelf of every scholar focusing on ancient Jewish magic, but also on Jewish culture and cultural history in general. Furthermore, the book is an enjoyable read also for a non-specialist audience thanks to its clarity and fluency.” - Alessia Belusci, Yale University, in: Journal of Semitic Studies 64.2 (2019) “This is a valuable foray into the relationship between institutionalised religion and magic and the complex question of ‘legitimacy’. Overall, the book presents a compelling case for the existence of Jewish ‘love magic’.” -Ann Jeffers, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 43.5 (2019)