The culture of cleanliness in Renaissance Italy / Douglas Biow.

Main entry:

Biow, Douglas.

Title & Author:

The culture of cleanliness in Renaissance Italy / Douglas Biow.

Publication:

Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2006.

Description:

xix, 244 pages : illustrations

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 187-236) and index.
Households and cities -- Soap and washerwomen -- Latrines and latrine-cleaners.
Includes text in Italian and Latin with English translations.

Summary:

Concerned about sanitation during a severe bout of plague in Milan, Leonardo da Vinci designed an ideal, clean city. Leonardo was far from alone among his contemporaries in thinking about personal and public hygiene, as Douglas Biow shows in The Culture of Cleanliness in Renaissance Italy. A concern for cleanlines, he argues, was everywhere in the Renaissance. Anxieties about cleanliness were expressed in literature from humanist panegyrics to bawdy carnival songs, as well as in the visual arts. Biow surveys them all to explain why the topic so permeated Renaissance culture. At one level, cleanliness, he documents, was a matter of real concern in the Renaissance. At another, he finds, issues such as human dignity, self-respect, self-discipline, social distinction, and originality were rethought as a matter of artistic concern. This book moves from the clean to the unclean, from the lofty to the base. Biow first examines the socially elevated, who defined and distinguished themselves as clean, pure, and polite. He then turns to soap, an increasingly common commodity in this period, and the figure of the washerwoman. Finally he focuses on latrines, which were universally scorned yet functioned artistically as figures of baseness, creativity, and fun in the works of Dante and Boccaccio. Paralleling this social stratification is a hierarchy of literary and visual artifacts, from the discourse of high humanism to filthy curses and scatological songs. Deftly bringing together high and low--as well as literary and visual--cultures, this book provides a fresh perspective on the Italian Renaissance and its artistic legacy.--Book jacket flaps.

Resources:
Table of contents
Table of contents
Table of contents only

ISBN:

9780801444814 (cloth ; alk. paper)
0801444810 (cloth ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Hygiene Italy History 15th century.
Hygiene Italy History 16th century.
Hygiene in literature.
Hygiene history
Literature history
History, Early Modern 1451-1600
Hygiène Italie Histoire 15e siècle.
Hygiène Italie Histoire 16e siècle.
Hygiène dans la littérature.
Hygiene.
Hygiëne.
Culturele aspecten.
Italy
Italië.

Form/genre:

History.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 249402
Call No.: BIB 178987
Status: Available

Actions:

Add to folder

Request these items

Email this list to yourself (or someone else)

Your folder is empty.

Please complete this form to make a request for consultation. A copy of this list will also be forwarded to you.

Your contact information

First name:

Last name:

Email:

Phone number:

Notes (optional):

We will contact you to set up an appointment. Please keep in mind that your consultation date will be based on the type of material you wish to study. To prepare your visit, we'll need:

— At least 2 weeks for primary sources (prints and drawings, photographs, archival documents, etc.)
— At least 48 hours for secondary sources (books, periodicals, vertical files, etc.)

Back to list

Submit