Interpreting the Body in Early Modern Italy
Pregnancy, Abortion and Adulthood
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4953339 |
|---|---|
| Authors | P Renee Baernstein (Miami University), John Christopoulos (York University) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 223 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 41-75 |
| Publication date | 2014-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Past & Present (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-2746 • E-ISSN: 1477-464X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/pastj/gtu006 |
| OpenAlex | W2321065943 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
On the night of 13 November 1569 the nuns of San Paolo Converso in Milan witnessed an unfamiliar scene: a childbirth. A boarder in their convent, Costanza Colonna, delivered a dead male child after three days of hard labour. All the many people present professed profound surprise. The 13-year-old Costanza, her servants, her physicians and her husband had all insisted until that very night that she was a virgin, that her husband was impotent, and that her growing belly was a symptom of oppilation (an obstruction causing fluid retention) resulting in dropsy (swelling) of the abdomen. The delivery forced a dramatic volte-face in the efforts under way to annul Costanza’s marriage to Francesco Sforza, the marchese di Caravaggio. It also raised troubling questions of guilt and intent, and possible criminal charges, which drew the attention of the officials of the diocese of Milan. How could an avowed virgin give birth? How could expert physicians and experienced mothers miss a nearly full-term pregnancy? How could a young man who had sworn to his own impotence have fathered a child? For that matter, was it a child or a foetus, and who, if anyone, was responsible for its death? The next morning, the archbishop’s vicar general arrived to investigate. As episcopal investigators, family members and the young spouses themselves scrambled to make sense of an alarming situation, they drew on convenient but very real ambiguities regarding pregnancy and personhood.1 Costanza’s body, once constructed as virginal, would now have to be reimagined.
Abortion · Miami · Pregnancy · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,42 |
| Citation span | 2014 - 2021 (8) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |