• ISBN13: 9780754667483
• Binding: Hardcover
• Subject: N/A
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Publisher Imprint: Routledge
• Publication Date: July 2, 2010
• Pages: 302
• Original Price: GBP 150.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 916 grams
• BISAC Subject(s): General

Emphasizing the peculiar, the perverse, the clandestine and the scandalous, this volume opens up a critical discourse on sexuality and visual culture in early modern Italy. Contributors consider not just painted (conventional) representations of sexual activities and eroticized bodies, but also images from print media, drawings, sculpted objects and painted ceramic jars. In this way, the volume presents an entirely new picture of Renaissance sexuality, stripping away layers of misconceptions and manipulations to reveal an often-misunderstood world. 'Sex acts' is interpreted broadly, from the acting out, or performing, of one's (or another's) sex to sexual activity, including what might be considered, now or then, peculiar practices and preferences and a variety of possibly scandalous scenarios. While the contributors come from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, this collection foregrounds the visual culture of early modern sexuality, from representations of sex and sexualized bodies to material objects associated with sexual activities. The picture presented here nuances our understanding of Renaissance sexuality as well as our own.

Allison Levy is an art historian concerned with representations of the early modern body. She is author of Re-membering Masculinity in Early Modern Florence: Widowed Bodies, Mourning and Portraiture and editor of Widowhood and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe.