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
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Bell relates, in lively detail, just how obsessed Renaissance Italians were with the same kind of advice literature that proliferates today. How to Do It makes clear how timeless many societal concerns are, and how little the solutions to them have changed over the centuries. He focuses his study on advice concerning interactions among men, women, and their children--beginning by examining advice books on conception--and continues sequentially forward in the life of the parent, addressing issues of pregnancy and childbirth, raising children, adolescence (considered in the 16th century to extend until age 28), and, finally, marital relations. Two secondary themes add depth to his already engaging examination: the confusion of "authorities" resulting from the large number of printing presses that simultaneously emerged in so many places, and the ways in which the printed word allowed these self-appointed experts to enter the intimate recesses of private life.
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Book Description Softcover. Condition: new. First Edition. How to Do It shows us sixteenthcentury 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 husbands 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 Bells journey through booklets long dismissed by scholars as being of little literary value gives us a refreshing and surprisingly fun social historyLively and curious reading particularly in its cascade of anecdote offered in a breezy cozy journalistic style Lauro Martines Times Literary SupplementBells 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 IndependentAn extraordinary work which blends the learned with the frankly bizarre The EconomistProfessor 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. Seller Inventory # DADAX0226042006
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