Capi e corpi mostruosi. Una immagine della crisi del potere agli inizi dell'età moderna (2012)
Niccoli, Ottavia (Author)
Micrologus: Natura, Scienze e Società Medievali
Volume: 20
Pages: 381--400
Publication date: 2012
Language: Italian
Edition Details: Article in a special issue, “Estremità e escrescenze dei corpi / Extremities and Excrescences of the Body”
During the Renaissance and early modern period monstrous births were carefully observed and analysed as a part of a network of `signs' of divine ire and omens of imminent catastrophe. This cultural pattern looses its power and influence during the second part of 16th century but it is still working if we consider the popular pamphlets and broadsheets written and printed until the 17th century. The typology of monsters is various but a strong attention is stressed when the malformation is related to the head. Texts and images showing this particular kind of monstrous shape were linked to the traditional image of society as a body. According to this metaphor, the head had the function of governing the physical body as the king had the role of ruling the political body. If the relationship between the head and the body was abnormal, that was read and explained as a prognostication of political disorder and social crisis.
...MoreArticle Pastoureau, Michel (2012) Les cornes, les poils, les oreilles et la queue. Se déguiser en animal dans l'Occident médiéval. Micrologus: Natura, Scienze e Società Medievali (p. 3).
Similar Citations
Book
Magnanini, Suzanne;
(2008)
Fairy-Tale Science: Monstrous Generation in the Tales of Straparola and Basile
Article
Francisco Malta Romeiras;
(2020)
Putting the Indices into Practice: Censoring Science in Early Modern Portugal
Article
Bates, Alan W.;
(2005)
Good, Common, Regular, and Orderly: Early Modern Classifications of Monstrous Births
Article
Ghadessi, Touba;
(2011)
Inventoried Monsters: Dwarves and Hirsutes at Court
Chapter
Vermeir, Koen;
(2011)
Circulating Knowledge or Superstition? The Dutch Debate on Divination
Article
Carreto, Carlos F. Clamote;
(2012)
Anatomie de la différence. Le corps déréglé et les outrances de l'écriture épique (XIIe-XIIIe siècles)
Book
Knoppers, Laura Lunger;
Landes, Joan B.;
(2004)
Monstrous Bodies/Political Monstrosities in Early Modern Europe
Article
Savy, Pierre;
(2012)
Les attributs chimériques de peuples réels. Queue des Anglais et queue des Juifs au Moyen Âge et à l'époque moderne
Thesis
Zoë Mirra Misiewicz;
(2019)
John Lydus and Mesopotamian Celestial Omens in Late Antiquity
Article
Stephan N. Kory;
(2020)
Omen Watching, Mantic Observation, Aeromancy, and Learning to ‘See’: The Rise and Messy Multiplicity of Zhanhou 占候 in Late Han and Medieval China
Chapter
Grasshoff, Gerd;
(2012)
Globalization of Ancient Knowledge: From Babylonian Observations to Scientific Regularities
Article
Brown, David;
(2006)
Astral Divination in the Context of Mesopotamian Divination, Medicine, Religion, Magic, Society, and Scholarship
Article
Roos, Anna Marie;
(2008)
Lodestones and Gallstones: The Magnetic Iatrochemistry of Martin Lister (1639--1712)
Chapter
Pinet, Simone;
(2010)
The Animal Within: Chivalry, Monstrosity and Gender in Renaissance Spain
Book
Long, Kathleen P.;
(2010)
Gender and Scientific Discourse in Early Modern Culture
Thesis
Wolford, Kathryn;
(2012)
Infective Discourse: Printed Debates Concerning the Spread of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England
Book
Cregan, Kate;
(2009)
The Theatre of the Body: Staging Death and Embodying Life in Early-Modern London
Article
Stolberg, Michael;
(2012)
“Abhorreas Pinguedinem”: Fat and Obesity in Early Modern Medicine (c. 1500--1750)
Thesis
Heidi Hausse;
(2016)
Life and Limb: Technology, Surgery, and Bodily Loss in Early Modern Germany, 1500-1700
Article
Chaplin, Joyce E.;
(2012)
Earthsickness: Circumnavigation and the Terrestrial Human Body, 1520--1800
Be the first to comment!