Sex and Toleration: New Perspectives of Research on Religious Radical Dissent in Early Modern Italy (2019)
This article examines the inquisitorial trials of a number of heretics whose ideas are reminiscent of the heresies of Domenico Scandella, known as Menocchio, the Friulian miller first studied by Carlo Ginzburg in his groundbreaking The Cheese and the Worms. However, all the defendants shared a transgressive belief that seems completely alien to Scandella’s intellectual horizon – namely, the heretical proposition that Adam and Eve committed sodomy in the Garden of Eden. At this stage of my research, I suggest that this curious reinterpretation of the myth of the fall from grace is an autonomous element that originated in ecclesiastical circles and was subsequently incorporated into a more complex corpus of heretical beliefs. In addition to taking a further step into the history of religious dissent in Italy, the current research allows us to shed new light on the history of religious toleration in the early modern period, investigating the influence of Islam in Christian heresies and analysing the possible connections between the quest for sexual freedom and criticism of institutionalized religions.
...MoreArticle Francesco Borghesi (2019) From the “Renaissance” to the “Enlightenment”. Intellectual History Review (pp. 1-10).
Similar Citations
Chapter
Carlo Gelmetti;
(2015)
La dermatologia e la venereologia dal Rinascimento al XVIII secolo
(/isis/citation/CBB383272190/)
Book
Cadden, Joan;
(2013)
Nothing Natural Is Shameful: Sodomy and Science in Late Medieval Europe
(/isis/citation/CBB001213645/)
Book
McLaren, Angus;
(2012)
Reproduction by Design: Sex, Robots, Trees, and Test-Tube Babies in Interwar Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB001212414/)
Book
Adams, Vincanne;
Pigg, Stacy Leigh;
(2005)
Sex in Development: Science, Sexuality, and Morality in Global Perspective
(/isis/citation/CBB000800015/)
Article
Antonio Rostagno;
(2019)
Salomania: "Perturbing Detour" or "New Mentality"?
(/isis/citation/CBB389033115/)
Book
McLaren, Angus;
(1999)
Twentieth-Century Sexuality: A History
(/isis/citation/CBB000503105/)
Book
Riddle, John M.;
(2010)
Goddesses, Elixirs, and Witches: Plants and Sexuality throughout Human History
(/isis/citation/CBB001033522/)
Book
James M. Bromley;
Will Stockton;
(2013)
Sex before Sex: Figuring the Act in Early Modern England
(/isis/citation/CBB064949696/)
Chapter
Carlo Gelmetti;
(2015)
La dermatologia e la venereologia nel Medioevo
(/isis/citation/CBB558309619/)
Chapter
Carlo Gelmetti;
(2015)
La sifilide: una storia intrigante
(/isis/citation/CBB036079552/)
Chapter
Carlo Gelmetti;
(2015)
La dermatologia e la venereologia nell'età classica
(/isis/citation/CBB716625014/)
Chapter
Roberto Davalli;
Giovanni Lo Scocco;
(2015)
Girolamo Fracastoro
(/isis/citation/CBB516328756/)
Article
Beccalossi, Chiara;
(2009)
The Origin of Italian Sexological Studies: Female Sexual Inversion, ca. 1870--1900
(/isis/citation/CBB001030579/)
Article
Sarah Toulalan;
(2016)
‘Elderly years cause a Total dispaire of Conception’: Old Age, Sex and Infertility in Early Modern England
(/isis/citation/CBB965755183/)
Chapter
Carlo Gelmetti;
(2015)
La dermatologia e la venereologia del secolo XVIII
(/isis/citation/CBB177441456/)
Chapter
Carlo Gelmetti;
(2015)
La dermatologia e la venereologia dal XIX al XX secolo
(/isis/citation/CBB922945850/)
Chapter
Carlo Gelmetti;
(2015)
Il Giornale Italiano di Dermatologia e Venereologia
(/isis/citation/CBB251878874/)
Book
Clorinda Donato;
(2020)
The Life and Legend of Catterina Vizzani: Sexual identity, science and sensationalism in Eighteenth-Century Italy and England
(/isis/citation/CBB748940854/)
Article
William Caferro;
(2020)
Premodern European Capitalism, Christianity, and Florence
(/isis/citation/CBB706768779/)
Book
Carlo Gelmetti;
(2015)
Storia della dermatologia e della venereologia in Italia
(/isis/citation/CBB368948533/)
Be the first to comment!