Representing Infirmity

This volume is the first in-depth analysis of how infirm bodies were represented in Italy from c. 1400 to 1650. Through original contributions and methodologies, it addresses the fundamental yet undiscussed relationship between images and representations in medical, religious, and literary texts. Looking beyond the modern category of ‘disease’ and viewing infirmity in Galenic humoral terms, each chapter explores which infirmities were depicted in visual culture, in what context, why, and when. By exploring the works of artists such as Caravaggio, Leonardo, and Michelangelo, this study considers the idealized body altered by diseases, including leprosy, plague, goitre, and cancer. In doing so, the relationship between medical treatment and the depiction of infirmities through miracle cures is also revealed. The broad chronological approach demonstrates how and why such representations change, both over time and across different forms of media. Collectively, the chapters explain how the development of knowledge of the workings and structure of the body was reflected in changed ideas and representations of the metaphorical, allegorical, and symbolic meanings of infirmity and disease. The interdisciplinary approach makes this study the perfect resource for both students and specialists of the history of art, medicine and religion, and social and intellectual history across Renaissance Europe.

This volume is the first in-depth analysis of how infirm bodies were represented in Italy from c. 1400 to 1650. Through original contributions and methodologies, it addresses the fundamental yet undiscussed relationship between images and representations in medical, religious, and literary texts. Looking beyond the modern category of ‘disease’ and viewing infirmity in Galenic humoral terms, each chapter explores which infirmities were depicted in visual culture, in what context, why, and when. By exploring the works of artists such as Caravaggio, Leonardo, and Michelangelo, this study considers the idealized body altered by diseases, including leprosy, plague, goitre, and cancer. In doing so, the relationship between medical treatment and the depiction of infirmities through miracle cures is also revealed. The broad chronological approach demonstrates how and why such representations change, both over time and across different forms of media. Collectively, the chapters explain how the development of knowledge of the workings and structure of the body was reflected in changed ideas and representations of the metaphorical, allegorical, and symbolic meanings of infirmity and disease. The interdisciplinary approach makes this study the perfect resource for both students and specialists of the history of art, medicine and religion, and social and intellectual history across Renaissance Europe.

This Element examines the emergence of comprehensive plague management systems in early modern France. While the historiography on plague argues that the plague of Provence in the 1720s represented the development of a new and 'modern' form of public health care under the control of the absolutist monarchy, it shows that the key elements in this system were established centuries earlier because of the actions of urban governments. It moves away from taking a medical focus on plague to examine the institutions that managed disease control in early modern France. In doing so, it seeks to provide a wider context of French plague care to better understand the systems used at Provence in the 1720s. It shows that the French developed a polycentric system of plague care which drew on the input of numerous actors combat the disease.

Current research and theory from a range of disciplines on ageism, discussing issues from elder abuse to age discrimination against workers, revised and updated. People commonly use age to categorize and stereotype others–even though those who stereotype the elderly are eventually bound to become elderly themselves. Ageism is found cross-culturally, but it is especially prevalent in the United States, where most people regard growing older with depression, fear, and anxiety. Older people in the United States are stigmatized and marginalized, with often devastating consequences. This volume collects the latest theory and research on prejudice against older people, offering perspectives from psychology, nursing, medicine, social work, and other fields. The second edition has been completely updated, with new or extensively revised contributions. The contributors, all experts in their fields, consider issues that range from elder abuse to age discrimination against workers. There has been a relative dearth of research on ageism, perhaps because age prejudice is still considered socially acceptable. This book is still the only one that examines ageism in such detail, from such diverse scholarly perspectives. The contributors discuss the origins and effects of ageism and offer suggestions for how to reduce ageism as the wave of baby boomers heads for old age. Contributors Yoav S. Bergman, Ehud Bodner, Jennifer Barbour, Piers Bayl-Smith, Daphne Blunt Bugental, Maria Clara P. de Paula Couto, Susan T. Fiske, Jeff Greenberg, Barbara Griffin, Jessica A. Hehman, Peter Helm, Sarah H. Kagan, Molly Maxfield, Lynn McDonald, Mary Chase Mize, Joann M. Montepare, Todd D. Nelson, Michael S. North, Amanda Rumsey, Jeff Schimel, Laura Shannonhouse, Dirk Wentura, Susan Krauss Whitbourne

In this book, Diana Bullen Presciutti explores how images of miracles performed by mendicant saints-reviving dead children, redeeming the unjustly convicted, mending broken marriages, quelling factional violence, exorcising the demonically possessed-actively shaped Renaissance Italians' perceptions of pressing social problems related to gender, sexuality, and honor. She argues that depictions of these miracles by artists-both famous (Donatello, Titian) and anonymous-played a critical role in defining and conceptualizing threats to family honor and social stability. Drawing from art history, history, religious studies, gender studies, and sociology, Presciutti's interdisciplinary study reveals how miracle scenes-whether painted, sculpted, or printed-operated as active agents of 'lived religion' and social negotiation in the spaces of the Renaissance Italian city.

Juxtaposing and interlacing similarities and differences across and beyond the pre-modern Mediterranean world, Christian, Islamic and Jewish healing traditions, the collection highlights and nuances some of the recent critical advances in scholarship on death and disease.