Finucci, Valeria. The prince's body : Vincenzo Gonzaga and Renaissance medicine

Folger bibliographic ID: 340243
Folger call number: DG975.M32 F46 2015
Folger holdings ID: 492265

"This book is part of the current debate among historians of medicine, cultural studies theorists, gender and sexuality scholars, and literary critics regarding key interrelated preoccupations of the early modern period (or indeed of any period): sexuality, reproduction, beauty, and aging. The author uses as her guide four notorious moments in the life of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua (1562-1612), a well-known patron of arts and music in Renaissance Italy. By examining documents in the Gonzaga and Medici archives--letters, doctors' advice, reports, receipts, travelogues--together with (and against) medical, herbal, theological, even legal publications of the period, she fleshes out an early modern cultural history of the pathology of human reproduction, the physiology of aging, and the science of rejuvenation as they impacted a prince with a large ego and an even larger purse. The questions addressed are wide-ranging: How did the discovery of new body parts translate into political empowerment? What specific physiological issues impacted couples' reproductive agendas? When did the worshipping of beauty motivate radical experimentations with aesthetic surgery?"--Provided by publisher

General notes

Includes bibliographical references and index

Contents

Introduction : Staging the body -- The virgin cure : manual exams and early modern surgeons -- The aesthetic cure : skin disease, noses, and the invention of plastic surgery -- The comfort cure : managing pain and catarrh at the spa -- The sexual cure : searching for a Viagra in the New World -- Epilogue: Unwrapping the body

Extended title: The prince's body : Vincenzo Gonzaga and Renaissance medicine / Valeria Finucci

Vincenzo I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, 1562-1612 Medicine, Medieval Renaissance Medicine Human body Aging Beauty, Personal Human reproduction Rejuvenation

author: Finucci, Valeria
subject: Vincenzo I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, 1562-1612