Books by Valeria Finucci

A Stanford University Press classic.

Using four notorious moments in the life of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua, Valeria Finucci explores changing early modern concepts of sexuality, reproduction, beauty, and aging. She deftly marries salacious tales with historical analysis to tell a broader story of Italian Renaissance cultural adjustments and obsessions.

Intends to unravels the complex ways men were defined as men in Renaissance Italy through readings of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century evidence - medical and travel literature; theology; law; myth; conduct books; and, plays, chivalric romances, and novellas by authors including Machiavelli, Tasso and Ariosto.