Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy

Concentrating largely on the ''middle ranks'' of Renaissance society this book addresses lacunae in current scholarship on the social and visual dimensions of sexuality in early modern Italy. Looking at neglected archival resources, amateur pornography and material artefacts often dismissed by historians of art and society, contributors here expose the existence of a pervasive erotic culture in which sexually explicit images, gestures and objects were considered essential to a variety of rituals and social occasions.

Concentrating largely on the ''middle ranks'' of society in Renaissance Italy - artisans, merchants, and professionals such as bankers and lawyers - this book focuses on new social subjects, new documents and unusual objects. Using innovative methods of inquiry and interdisciplinary analytical tools, contributors explore a little-known but pervasive erotic culture in which sexually explicit artefacts, games and gestures were considered essential to a number of rituals and social occasions. At the same time, they demonstrate how a burgeoning market for erotica, along with a cultural tradition of allusion and innuendo, played an increasingly important role in the Italian peninsula between the fifteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This volume fills some pervasive lacunae in both Renaissance studies and the history of sexuality through a series of critical engagements with material culture and social custom. It reflects recent scholarly interest in interdisciplinary areas such as the material Renaissance, visual communications, urban sociability in the domestic context, and court records regarding marital disputes.