Love In Print In The Sixteenth Century: The Popularization Of Romance (early Modern Cultural Studies 1500-1700)

Preliminary research for the project was facilitated by a Huntington Library Fellowship in the summer of 2004, and I have spent many pleasant hours since that time sitting in the Ahmanson reading room working with their two editions of Equicola's De Natura d'amore. The community of scholars at the Huntington is a great resource in itself, and I'd like particularly to thank Heidi Brayman-Hackel for her friendship and hospitality on many trips to San Marino. Primary research for the volume was also conducted at the British Library, the Marciana Library in Venice, the Newberry Library in Chicago, and the Houghton Library at Harvard. My thanks to the librarians and support staff at each of these institutions. All are wonderful and inspiring places to work, but there's nothing like hearing the water lapping on worn stone steps while reading at the Marciana. Excerpts from the volume have been presented at numerous academic conferences, including meetings of the Shakespeare Association of America, the Renaissance Society of America, and the Canadian Society for Italian Studies. My special thanks to Stephanie Trigg for her invitation to speak at the University of Melbourne, and also to present a paper on lovesickness at the Australia and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies conference at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Thanks as well to Matthew Dimmock and Andrew Hadfield for inviting me to give a plenary address at the conference on Popular Culture in the Early Modern World organized by the Center for Early Modern Studies at the University of Sussex in 2007. It was that conference which first got me thinking seriously about the popular impact of the dissemination of printed books about love in the sixteenth century. And thanks to Laura Giannetti and Guido Ruggiero for inviting me to present an early overview of the question of "love" in the sixteenth century at the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Colloquium at the University of Miami in 2006. Sections of the book have previously appeared in print. The genesis of the chapter on Castiglione appeared as "Castiglione: Love, Power, and Masculinity" in The Poetics of Masculinity in Early Modern Italy of innovation in both research and pedagogy. It is a pleasure to work with such a diverse, energized, and engaged faculty. I would like to thank my dean, Frederick Corey, and my former department chair, Duane Roen, for their unfailing support and good humor through many years of institutional change and transformation. I am also grateful to Joni Adamson and Eva Brumberger for taking over the position of faculty head during the sabbatical semester in which I (finally!) completed the manuscript. Most of all, I would like to thank my wife, Wendy Williams, for her support, friendship, companionship, and love during the many years it took to bring this project to fruition. And finally, I'd like to thank my daughter, Sophia, just for being Sophia. "Beautifully written, and devoid of jargon, Love in Print in the Sixteenth Century: The Popularization of Romance is much more than a study of four specific books that treat love as either a philosophical, ideological, rhetorical or physical question. It is an erudite analysis of love as a broad cultural phenomenon with concrete and tangible effects in the sixteenth century, with Moulton's erudition manifesting in his extensive research, the complex tissue of ideas he has interwoven, and the many thoughtful questions he raises. This book will interest a host of readers in many disciplines.' - Margaret F. Rosenthal, Professor of Italian, University of Southern California, USA 'Love may be a many splendored thing today, but as Ian Frederick Moulton demonstrates in this fascinating book on the Renaissance it was a very troubled and often contested one. Disease, dangerous emotion, uplifting passion, the tie that bound for good and evil often all at once - Moulton brilliantly shows how Renaissance love was a powerful emotion that we have largely lost for better and worse.' - Guido Ruggiero, Professor of History, University of Miami, USA "In its philosophical ambitions, Moulton's Love in Print in the Sixteenth Century takes its place alongside classic books like Irving Singer's The Nature of Love. In its historical exactitude, Love in Print grounds philosophy in material realities - in this case, in four printed books that help to democratize romantic love in the sixteenth century."--Bruce R. Smith, Dean's Professor of English, University of Southern California, USA Love in Print in the Sixteenth Century explores the impact of print on conflicting cultural notions about romantic love in the sixteenth century. This popularization of romantic love led to profound transformations in the rhetoric, ideology, and social function of love - transformations that continue to shape cultural notions about love today. Examining the representation of love in conduct books, philosophical treatises, letter-writing manuals, and medical texts, Love in Print in the Sixteenth Century explores the impact of printing on conflicting cultural notions about romantic love in the sixteenth century. This popularization of romantic love through the book market led to profound transformations in the rhetoric, ideology, and social function of love - transformations that continue to shape cultural notions about love today Examining the representation of love in conduct books, philosophical treatises, letter-writing manuals, and medical texts, Love in Print in the Sixteenth Century explores the impact of printing on conflicting cultural notions about romantic love in the sixteenth century. This popularization of romantic love through the book market led to profound transformations in the rhetoric, ideology, and social function of love - transformations that continue to shape cultural notions about love today.-- Provided by Publisher Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction: Love, the Book Market, and the Popularization of Romance....Pages 1-26 Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier: Love and Ideal Conduct....Pages 27-60 Mario Equicola’s De Natura d’amore: Love and Knowledge....Pages 61-104 Antonio Tagliente’s Opera amorosa: Love and Letterwriting....Pages 105-143 Jacques Ferrand’s On Lovesickness: Love and Medicine....Pages 145-181 Conclusion: Romeo + Juliet....Pages 183-186 Back Matter....Pages 187-249