Emphasizing on the 'middle ranks' of society in Renaissance Italy - artisans, merchants, and professionals such as bankers and lawyers, this book focuses on social subjects, documents and unusual objects. It demonstrates how a burgeoning market for erotica, along with a cultural tradition of allusion and innuendo.
'Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy is a wonderful book: original, engaging, well-written and well-researched. An interdisciplinary volume, it will appeal to a broad range of scholars not only in the field of Renaissance studies, but also in the history of sexuality.' Diane Wolfthal, Rice University, USA
'Ashgate, a press remarkable for the high seriousness of its scholarly publications, has with Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy and Sex Acts in early Modern Italy stormed the citadel of all who blindly refuse to acknowledge that the Italian Renaissance in its maturity was driven as much by sex as by religion and politics. Both should compulsorily be read by every intending student of art history.' Brian Sewell, London Evening Standard
'This is a book chockfull of stimulating tidbits, fascinating perspectives, innovative analogies, and smart cultural takes. Some of the essays, such as Cristellon's on shifting marriage conventions and civic laws in Venice or Matthews-Grieco's on the two-tiered markets for erotic paintings, are so brilliantly executed and finely argued that they should become required readings in any course on early modern social and material culture.' American Historical Review
'... this volume provides an engaging, interdisciplinary look at a hitherto all-too-concealed area of Renaissance Italian Culture.' Sixteenth Century Journal
'This collection of essays brings together new research on various aspects of sexuality in Italian Renaissance culture, including some fascinating, unexpected (and sometimes very funny) primary source material.' English Historical Review
