Manchester University Press Artisans of the Body in Early Modern Italy: Identities, Families and Masculinities (Gender in History)

In Baroque Europe, new fashions, the expansion of court life and the emergence of a genteel style of living called for new services for the body. This groundbreaking study explores the role of those involved in various aspects of the care, comfort and appearance of the body in seventeenth and early eighteenth century Italy, bringing to light the strong cultural affinities and social ties between barber-surgeons and the apparently unconnected trades of jeweller, tailor, wigmaker and upholsterer. Drawing on contemporary understandings of the body, the author shows that shared concerns about health and well-being permeated the professional cultures of these medical and non-medical occupations. At the same time the detailed analysis of the life-course, career patterns and family experience of artisans of the body offers unprecedented insight into the world of the urban middling sorts . Adopting a biographical perspective seldom employed in studies of ordinary people, the book reveals the limits of paternal authority and the significance of horizontal and lateral kinship ties in artisanal families; it highlights the key role of women and neighbours, and of the master-pupil relationship in artisans lives, and gives special attention to the experience of bachelors, identifying patterns of masculinity specific to Southern-European, Catholic milieus. The book represents essential reading for scholars and students of gender and of family and urban history in the early modern age, and is of great relevance to historians of the body and of the medical professions. Review "This is an important book that fundamentally recasts our ideas about early modern artisanal life and the relative importance of the various medical practitioners of the time. It is deeply researched and well argued." - Anita Guerrini, Oregon State University, "Technology and Culture Review" From the Inside Flap This groundbreaking study explores the role of those involved in various aspects of the care, comfort and appearance of the body in seventeenth and early eighteenth-century Italy, bringing to light the strong cultural affinities and social ties between barber-surgeons and the apparently distant trades of jeweller, tailor, wigmaker and upholsterer. Drawing on contemporary understandings of the body, the author shows that shared concerns about health and well-being permeated the professional cultures of these medical and non-medical occupations. At the same time the detailed analysis of the life-course, career patterns and family experience of artisans of the body offers unprecedented insight into the world of the urban middling sorts. The book will represent essential reading for scholars and students of gender, family and urban history in the early modern age, and will equally appeal to historians of the body and of the medical occupations. From the Back Cover This groundbreaking study explores the role of those involved in various aspects of the care, comfort and appearance of the body in seventeenth and early eighteenth-century Italy, bringing to light the strong cultural affinities and social ties between barber-surgeons and the apparently distant trades of jeweller, tailor, wigmaker and upholsterer. Drawing on contemporary understandings of the body, the author shows that shared concerns about health and well-being permeated the professional cultures of these medical and non-medical occupations. At the same time the detailed analysis of the life-course, career patterns and family experience of 'artisans of the body' offers unprecedented insight into the world of the urban middling sorts. The book will represent essential reading for scholars and students of gender, family and urban history in the early modern age, and will equally appeal to historians of the body and of the medical occupations. About the Author Sandra Cavallo is Reader in Early Modern History at Royal Holloway, University of London