Massimo Ciavolella

Valeria Finucci

Megan Tomlinson

The essays examine how the study of facial features or expressions as indicative of character or ethnicity, has evolved from the crossroad of magic, religion and primitive medicine to present-day cultural concern for wellness and beauty. In this context, the discoveries of cranio-facial neurophysiology and psychology and the practice of cosmetic and reconstructive surgery have a centuries-old relationship with physiognomy. As the study of outward appearances evolved from its classical roots and self-representations through 18th- and 19th-century adaptations in fiction and travelogues, it gradually became a scientific discipline. Along the way, physiognomy was associated with phrenology and craniology and promoted eugenic policies. Tainted with racial bigotry and biological determinism, it was trapped within questions of delinquency, monstrosity and posthumanism. Throughout its history, physiognomy played both positive and negative roles in the evolution of significant aspects of the socio-cultural order in the West that merit update and in-depth study. The contributions follow a chronological and intertwining sequence to encompass physiognomic expressions in art, literature, spirituality, science, philosophy and cultural studies.

Physiognomy at the Crossroad of Magic, Science, and the Arts

Professor of French Patrick Coleman

Patrick Coleman

Culture and Authority in the Baroque explores the baroque across a wide range of disciplines, from poetics to politics, to the rituals of musical, dramatic, and religious performance.

Culture and Authority in the Baroque

Rinaldo Fernando Canalis

Andreas Vesalius's fame derive from his writing of what is perhaps the most famous book in the history of medical science, De humanis corporis fabrica (1543), a treatise that within a few years transformed the imperfect art of anatomy into a modern science. This extraordinary work, however, came into being not just because of its author's genius and industry, but for other reasons that remain (despite a vast body of scholarship) inadequately explored. These questions, the historical moment from which they stem, and the setting in which Vesalius produced the Fabrica, form the core of this volume. Some of these significant factors include the short time during which De fabrica was produced, the debated authorship of its illustrations, and its immediate and subsequent impact on the teaching of anatomy. The book's significance within the context of present day views of its historical value, and the ever increasing fascination it evokes among scholars and collectors alike, are also examined.

Art, Anatomy, and Printing in the Italian Renaissance

Andreas Vesalius and The 'Fabrica'

Donald Beecher

Jacques Ferrand

Going from the philosophical definition of love to chemical remedies, this work is an encyclopedia of love in the Renaissance viewed from a medical point of view.

De la maladie d'amour ou mélancolie érotique

Amilcare A. Iannucci

Italian Studies in North America

The Medical Traditions of Love in the Renaissance

Eros and Anteros

Rinaldo F. Canalis †

Medical Humanities may be broadly conceptualized as a discipline wherein medicine and its specialties intersect with those of the humanities and social sciences. As such it is a hybrid area of study where the impact of disease and healing science on culture is assessed and expressed in the particular language of the disciplines concerned with the human experience. However, as much as at first sight this definition appears to be clear, it does not reflect how the interaction of medicine with the humanities has evolved to become a separate field of study. In this publication we have explored, through the analysis of a group of selected multidisciplinary essays, the dynamics of this process. The essays predominantly address the interaction of literature, philosophy, art, art history, ethics, and education with medicine and its specialties from the classical period to the present. Particular attention has been given to the Medieval, Early Modern, and Enlightenment periods. To avoid a rigid compartmentalization of the book based on individual fields of study we opted for a fluid division into multidisciplinary sections, reflective of the complex interactions of the included works with medicine.

Perspectives from the Arts and the Social Sciences

Rethinking Medical Humanities

Rocco Capozzi

Scrittori, tendenze letterarie e conflitto delle poetiche in Italia (1960-1990)

David N. Myers

David H. Myers

Peter Reill

Geoffrey Symcox

Exploring the fascinating cross-cultural influences between Jews and Christians in Italy from the Renaissance to the twentieth century, Acculturation and Its Discontents assembles essays by leading historians, literary scholars, and musicologists to present a well-rounded history of Italian Jewry. The contributors offer rich portraits of the many vibrant forms of cultural and artistic expression that Italian Jews contributed to, but this volume also pays close attention to the ways in which Italian Jews - both freely and under pressure - creatively adapted to the social, cultural, and legal norms of the surrounding society. Tracing both the triumphs and tragedies of Jewish communities within Italy over a broad span of time, Acculturation and Its Discontents challenges conventional assumptions about assimilation and state intervention and, in the process, charts the complex process of cultural exchange that left such a distinctive imprint not only on Italian Jewry, but also on Italian society itself. This collection of rigorous and thought-provoking essays makes a major contribution to both the history of Italian culture and the cultural influence and significance of European Jews.

The Italian Jewish Experience Between Exclusion and Inclusion

Acculturation and Its Discontents

Roberto Fedi

This collection of essays brings together twelve noted Italian and American scholars to provide a complete picture of Ariosto and all his works as an integration of tradition and invention.

Contemporary Perspectives

Ariosto Today

Massimo Ciavolella

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