Article ID: CBB001422559

Francesco Casoni and the Rhetorical Forensics of the Body (2015)

unapi

Martin, John Jeffries (Author)


Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Volume: 45, no. 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 103-130


Publication Date: 2015
Edition Details: Article in a special issue: “Thinking through Death: The Politics of the Corpse”
Language: English

In early modern Europe, judges read the bodies of victims and suspects through a variety of lenses shaped by popular beliefs, Renaissance notions of physiognomy, and by the study of medicine, classical rhetoric, and natural law theory. This article explores the writings of Francesco Casoni (1500--1564) on these themes. Casoni emerges as critical of certain traditional assumptions and was deliberate in his rethinking about how judges might read the body, basing his ideas on the careful study of Cicero and Quintilian. Casoni became skeptical about the use of torture as part of the judicial process, eventually adopting the view that it was possible to convict an individual on the basis of indicia indubitata (compelling circumstantial evidence) alone. Attitudes about the body and torture in the sixteenth century must be examined in relation to a broad range of medical, theological, and judicial beliefs, which were far from consistent. But judges by necessity were forced to read the bodies of the accused for hints of guilt or innocence in the difficult process of carrying out their trials.

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Article Finucci, Valeria (2015) Thinking through Death: The Politics of the Corpse. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (pp. 1-6). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001422559/

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Authors & Contributors
Kieval, Hillel J.
De Ceglia, Francesco Paolo
Berveling, Jaco
Degerman, Dan
Stephanie O'Rourke
David Clark
Concepts
Forensic medicine
Death
Medicine and law
Trials (law)
Human body
Anatomy
Time Periods
19th century
Early modern
20th century, early
16th century
Renaissance
Medieval
Places
Europe
England
Boston (Massachusetts, U.S.)
Scotland
United States
Russia
Institutions
Harvard University
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