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

392 Pages·1999·15.95 MB·English
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Preview How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians

\\owtoDo/t 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 \\owtoDo/ t 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,

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