How to Do It : Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians - Rudolph M. Bell

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How to Do It

Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians

By: Rudolph M. Bell

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Paperback | 1 October 2000 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
389 Pages

Edition Type
New edition

Dimensions(cm)
23.14 x 16.56 x 2.31

Paperback

$86.75

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How to Do It shows us sixteenth-century Italy from an entirely new perspective: through manuals which were staples in the households of middlebrow Italians merely trying to lead better lives. Addressing challenges such as how to conceive a boy, the manuals offered suggestions such as tying a tourniquet around your husband's left testicle. Or should you want to goad female desires, throw 90 grubs in a liter of olive oil, let steep in the sun for a week and apply liberally on the male anatomy. Bell's journey through booklets long dismissed by scholars as being of little literary value gives us a refreshing and surprisingly fun social history.

"Lively and curious reading, particularly in its cascade of anecdote, offered in a breezy, cozy, journalistic style." -Lauro Martines, Times Literary Supplement

"[Bell's] fascinating book is a window on a lost world far nearer to our own than we might imagine. . . . How pleasant to read his delightful, informative and often hilarious book." -Kate Saunders, The Independent

"An extraordinary work which blends the learned with the frankly bizarre." -The Economist

"Professor Bell has a sly sense of humor and an enviably strong stomach. . . . He wants to know how people actually behaved, not how the Church or philosophers or earnest humanists thought they should behave. I loved this book." -Christopher Stace, Daily Telegraph

Industry Reviews

This cornucopia of information, most of it surprisingly sensible, some of it hilarious, and only parts of it outright quackery, has been culled from 16th century Italian advice manuals intended for middle class readers about how men and women should behave towards on another. From the tricky moment of conception through pregnancy and birth, (no proper medication, anaesthetics, no forceps until the early 18th century) down the rocky road of adolescence and into the broad thoroughfare of marital relaitons, Professor Bell confidently guides us. Via the mass of detail and the insights into the workings of the Renaissance household, a picture of an entire society gradually emerges, showing us that, dspite the march of the centuries, human nature does not change very much. The great divide lies in the inequality of the sexes, It was the duty of men to rule and of women to obey, theoretically at least. Women were mothers and companions, no more. But the unevenness of this relationship doesn't necessarily mean unhappiness. One had to rule and one had to knuckle under, just as in a ship, a recurring metaphor in advice literature. There are numerous examples of satirical literature at the expense of women. Don't listen to women, writes Giuseppe Passi. There are plenty of men who did and they ended up dead. Think again if you believe Renaissance manuals must be primitive and out of date. The irresistable force of human nature battles it out with morality and etiquette. (Kirkus UK)

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction History General & World History Specific Events & Topics in History Social & Cultural History Society & Culture Social Groups Gender Studies Earliest Times to Present Day Early History from 500 to 1500 Early Modern History from 1450 to 1700 Regional & National History

European History

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Readers
Conception
Boy or Girl
Frequency of Intercourse
Positions during Intercourse
Setting
Male Impotence
Infertility in Women
Menstruation
Are You Pregnant?
Pregnancy and Childbirth
Boy or Girl?
Maybe Twins?
Due Date
Miscarriage
Diet and Daily Activity
Midwives
Anatomy
Labor
Postpartum Care
Raising Your Child
Nursing: Who Should Do It?
Nursing: How to Do It
Child Rearing: Physical Health
Child Rearing: Good Character
Children's Books
Adolescence
Who Was an Adolescent?
The Sins of Adolescence
Making Fun
Choosing a Spouse
Marital Relations
From the Humanists
From the Church
From the Gentlemen
Widows
Then and Now
Female Authorship
The Internet
Notes
Index
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

How to Do It

Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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