Italy's Eighteenth Century
Gender and Culture in the Age of the Grand Tour
Published on 9. January 2009
Book
Hardback
504 pages
978-0-8047-5904-5 (ISBN)
Description
In the age of the Grand Tour, foreigners flocked to Italy to gawk at its ruins and paintings, enjoy its salons and cafes, attend the opera, and revel in their own discovery of its past. But they also marveled at the people they saw, both male and female. In an era in which castrati were "rock stars," men served women as cicisbei, and dandified Englishmen became macaroni, Italy was perceived to be a place where men became women. The great publicity surrounding female poets, journalists, artists, anatomists, and scientists, and the visible roles for such women in salons, academies, and universities in many Italian cities also made visitors wonder whether women had become men. Such images, of course, were stereotypes, but they were nonetheless grounded in a reality that was unique to the Italian peninsula. This volume illuminates the social and cultural landscape of eighteenth-century Italy by exploring how questions of gender in music, art, literature, science, and medicine shaped perceptions of Italy in the age of the Grand Tour.
Reviews / Votes
"[Italy's Eighteenth Century] moves us toward a more richly textured sense of the political, geographic, and cultural diversity that comprised the Italian peninsula in the eighteenth century. Filled with original work and suggestions for new avenues for future research, the book reminds us how much remains to be unearthed about this remarkable period."-Sarah Betzer, CAA Reviews "Women and men as agents of public and private sociability in a 'lost' century of Italian culture constitute the primary theme of Italy's Eighteenth Century: Gender and Culture in the Age of the Grand Tour. Findlen's introductory essay is required reading for enlightenment specialists as it raises and quashes about the Italian eighteenth century, by countering them with exemplary scholarship heretofore unknown outside of Italy."-Clorinda Donato, New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century "The perspective on and variety of the characters introduced in this volume are quite extraordinary"-Melissa Calaresu, Reviews in History "Dullards and prudes stay home: Italy's 18th Century: Gender and Culture During the Age of the Grand Tour is a seductive gondola-trip through the world of Casanova and Da Ponte, courtesans and castrati, painters, Popes, and learned ladies-the whole louche, lubricious, and luminous fantasia that was settecento Italy. Whether scholar, student, or armchair 'Grand Tourist,' the curious reader will find rich bounty here: both a superb general introduction to Italy in the Age of Enlightenment and a sleek, multifaceted analysis of its role-aesthetic, psychic, and erotic-in the eighteenth-century European imagination."-Terry Castle, Stanford University "This collection of essays presents a vast amount of new research that offers us a picture of the rich and varied culture of eighteenth-century Italy and its relation to Enlightenment Europe. Replete with interconnections, the essays fit together as neatly as a puzzle, and where they overlap, they often provide different perspectives on the same subject."-Carole Paul, University of California, Santa BarbaraMore details
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Palo Alto
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
New edition
Product notice
Cloth
Illustrations
51 illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 164 mm
Thickness: 40 mm
Weight
791 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8047-5904-5 (9780804759045)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Paula Findlen is Ubaldo Pierotti Professor in Italian History at Stanford University. Wendy Wassyng Roworth is Professor of Art History and Women's Studies at the University of Rhode Island. Catherine M. Sama is Associate Professor of Italian and Film Media at the University of Rhode Island.
Content
Contents @toc4:List of Illustrations xxx Acknowledgments xxx @toc2:Introduction: Gender and Culture in Eighteenth- Century Italy 1 @tocca:Paula Findlen @toc1:PART ONE GENDER AND PUBLIC LIFE @toc2:1. Cicisbei: Italian Morality and European Values in the Eighteenth Century 000 @tocca:Roberto Bizzocchi @toc2:2. The Temple of Female Glory: Female Self- Affirmation in the Roman Salon of the Grand Tour 000 @tocca:Maria Pia Donato @toc2:3. Giustina Renier Michiel and Conflicting Ideas of Gender in Late Eighteeenth-Century Venice 000 @tocca:Susan Dalton @toc1:PART TWO WOMEN AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS @toc2:4. Revisiting Arcadia: Women and Academies in Eighteenth-Century Italy 000 @tocca:Elisabetta Graziosi @toc2:5. "On the Canvas and on the Page": Women Shaping Culture in Eighteenth-Century Venice 000 @tocca:Catherine M. Sama @toc2:6. "The Residence of the Arts": Angelica Kauffman's Place in Rome 000 @tocca:Wendy Wassyng Roworth @toc1:PART THREE ENLIGHTENED SEXUALITIES @toc2:7. Strange Births and Surprising Kin: The Castrato's Tale 000 @tocca:Martha Feldman @toc2:8.Sex Without Sex: An Erotic Image of the Castrato Singer 000 @tocca:Roger Freitas @toc2:9. The Anatomy of a Lesbian: Medicine, Pornography, and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Italy 000 @tocca:Paula Findlen @toc2:10. As Who Dare Gaze the Sun: Anna Morandi Manzolini's Wax Anatomies of the Male Reproductive System and Genitalia 000 @tocca:Rebecca Messbarge @toc1:PART FOUR: THE SPECTACLE OF GENDER @toc2:11. Between Modesty and Spectacle: Women and Science in Eighteenth-Century Italy 000 @tocca:Marta Cavazza @toc2:12. "Monsters of Talent": Fame and Reputation of Women Improvisers in Arcadia 000 @tocca:Paola Giuli @toc2:13. Gender and Genre in the Religious Art of the Catholic Enlightenment 000 @tocca:Christopher M. S. Johns @toc4:Notes 000 Contributors 000 Index 000