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

392 Pages·1999·15.95 MB·English

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Lovemaking in accord with advice from popular Renaissance how-to manuals on the best way to con-
ceive a boy: heads are covered to keep essential fluids hot for their voyage to the genital area; he is on
top to maximize sperm retention; the couple gaze lovingly into each other's eyes, thereby bringing their
bodily humors into calm balance.
RUDOLPH M. BELL
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Guides to Good Living for
Renaissance Italians
THE
UNIVERSITY OF
CHICAGO
PRESS
Chicago & London
Rudolph M. Bell is professor of history at Rutgers University. He is the author
of Fate and Honor, Family and Village: Demographic and Cultural Change in Rural
Italy since 1800; Holy Anorexia; and, with Donald Weinstein, Saints and Society:
The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1 000-1700-all published by the Univer-
sity of Chicago Press.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 1999 by Rudolph M. Bell
All rights reserved. Published 1999
08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN: 0-226-04210-3 (cloth)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bell, Rudolph M.
How to do it : guides to good living for Renaissance Italians / Rudolph M.
Bell.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-226-04210-3 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Family-Italy-History-16th century. 2. Mamage-Italy-
History-16th century. 3. Conduct oflife-Early works to 1800. 4. Life
skills-Italy-Handbooks, manuals, etc. 5. Life skills-Italy-Early works
to 1800. I. Title.
HQ629.B45 1999
646.7'00945'09031-dc21 98-35105
CIP
For Gabriela and Luca Giovannetti,
joyful grandchildren
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
CHAPTER ONE
Readers 1
CHAPTER TWO
Conception 17
Boy or Girl • Frequency of Intercourse • Positions during
Intercourse • Setting • Male Impotence • Infertility in
Women • Menstruation • Are You Pregnant?
CHAPTER THREE
Pregnancy and Childbirth 73
Boy or Girl? • Maybe Twins? • Due Date • Miscarriage •
Diet and Daily Activity • Midwives • Anatomy •
Labor • Postpartum Care
CHAPTER FOUR
Raising Your Child 124
Nursing: Who Should Do It? • Nursing: How to Do It •
Child Rearing: Physical Health • Child Rearing:
Good Character· Children's Books
CHAPTER FIVE
Adolescence 175
Who Was an Adolescent? • The Sins of Adolescence.
Making Fun • Choosing a Spouse
CHAPTER SIX
Marital Relations 220
From the Humanists • From the Church • From the
Gentlemen • Widows
CHAPTER SEVEN
Then and Now 279
Female Authorship • The Internet
Notes 293
Index 363
ILLUSTRATIONS
Frontispiece. Couple in bed
2.1 Vaginal pessary 64
2.2 Uterine fumigator 65
3.1 The single uterus 79
3.2 Instruments for the midwife 87
3.3 Instruments for dismembering a dead fetus 88
3.4 Female abdominal organs 103
3.5 Female genitalia 104
3.6 Fetal position in the uterus 107
3.7 Fetal position during normal birth 109
3.8 Recommended position for difficult parturition 113
3.9 Recommended position for parturition
by obese women 116
The above illustrations were obtained with the assistance of Charles
Greifenstein, curator of archives and manuscripts, from the Historical
Services Division of the Library of the College of Physicians of Philadel-
phia. Figure 3.1, originally found in Jacopo Berengario's 1521 treatise,