Rudolph M. Bell, "How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians"
English | 1999 | 389 Pages | ISBN: 0226042103, 0226042006 | PDF | 16 MB
English | 1999 | 389 Pages | ISBN: 0226042103, 0226042006 | PDF | 16 MB
How to Do It shows us sixteenth-century Italy from an entirely new perspective: through manuals which were staples in the households of middlebrow Italians merely trying to lead better lives. Addressing challenges such as how to conceive a boy, the manuals offered suggestions such as tying a tourniquet around your husband's left testicle. Or should you want to goad female desires, throw 90 grubs in a liter of olive oil, let steep in the sun for a week and apply liberally on the male anatomy. Bell's journey through booklets long dismissed by scholars as being of little literary value gives us a refreshing and surprisingly fun social history.