How to Do It : Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians

Rudolph M. Bell

ISBN 10: 0226042006 / ISBN 13: 9780226042008

Published by The University Of Chicago Press Okt 2000, 2000

About this Item

Neuware - 'How to Do It' shows us sixteenth-century Italy from an entirely new perspective: through manuals that were staples in the households of middlebrow Italians merely trying to lead better lives. Addressing various challenges such as how to conceive a boy, or what to do should you want to goad female (or male) desires, these booklets give us a refreshing and fun social history.

Seller Inventory # 9780226042008

Bibliographic Details

• Title: How to Do It : Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians
• Publisher: The University Of Chicago Press Okt 2000
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226042006
• ISBN 13: 9780226042008
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 23W x 17H x 2D millimeters 23 millimeters width by 17 millimeters height by 2 millimeters depth
• Weight: 624 grams

About this title

Synopsis

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

About the Author

Rudolph M. Bell is a professor of history at Rutgers University. His previous books include Saints and Society: The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000-1700 and Holy Anorexia, both published by the University of Chicago Press.