{"product_id":"the-manly-masquerade-masculinity-paternity-and-castration-in-the-italian-renaissance-paperback","title":"The Manly Masquerade: Masculinity, Paternity, and Castration in the Italian Renaissance - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eValeria Finucci\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Manly Masquerade\u003c\/i\u003e unravels the complex ways men were defined as men in Renaissance Italy through readings of a vast array of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century evidence: medical and travel literature; theology; law; myth; conduct books; and plays, chivalric romances, and novellas by authors including Machiavelli, Tasso, and Ariosto. Valeria Finucci shows how ideas of masculinity were formed in the midst of acute anxiety about paternity by highlighting the beliefs--widely held at the time--that conception could occur without a paternal imprimatur or through a woman's encounter with an animal, or even that a pregnant woman's imagination could erase the father's \"signature\" from the fetus. Against these visions of reproduction gone awry, Finucci looks at how concepts of masculinity were tied to issues of paternity through social standing, legal matters, and inheritance practices.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHighlighting the fissures running through Italian Renaissance ideas of manliness, Finucci describes how, alongside pervasive images of the virile, sexually active man, early modern Italian culture recognized the existence of hermaphrodites and started to experiment with a new kind of sexuality by manufacturing a non-man: the castrato. Following the creation of\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003ecastrati, the Church forbade the marriage of all non-procreative men, and, in this move, Finucci identifies a powerful legitimation of the view that what makes men is not the possession of male organs or the ability to have sex, but the capability to father. Through analysis, anecdote, and rich cultural description, \u003ci\u003eThe Manly Masquerade\u003c\/i\u003e exposes the \"real\" early modern man: the paterfamilias.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eValeria Finucci's book questions the traditional concepts associated with the Italian Renaissance (harmony, spiritual perfection and beauty, etc.) and addresses much less 'luminous' aspects of sixteenth-century Italian culture.--Armando Maggi, author of \"Satan's Rhetoric: A Study of Renaissance Demonology\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eValeria Finucci is Associate Professor of Italian at Duke University. She is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Lady Vanishes: Subjectivity and Representation in Castiglione and Ariosto. \u003c\/i\u003eShe is editor of \u003ci\u003eRenaissance Transactions: Ariosto and Tasso\u003c\/i\u003e and coeditor of \u003ci\u003eGeneration and Degeneration: Tropes of Reproduction in Literature and History from Antiquity to Early Modern Europe\u003c\/i\u003e, both published by Duke University Press\u003ci\u003e.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 328\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.86 x 9.38 x 6.06 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e March 19, 2003\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52618719756595,"sku":"9780822330653","price":63.63,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0300\/5595\/6612\/files\/eWJKbldKQ1U2bEdyR1crNDZBS3ROQT09.webp?v=1761908240","url":"https:\/\/www.vysn.com\/products\/the-manly-masquerade-masculinity-paternity-and-castration-in-the-italian-renaissance-paperback","provider":"VYSN","version":"1.0","type":"link"}