Perilous Chastity: Women and Illness in Pre-Enlightenment Art and Medicine

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating documentation of the gendering of medicine.
Review: Perilous Chastity is an exhaustive analysis of the genre paintings of "Lovesick Maidens" during the Renaissance. In her study of these and related paintings Laurinda Dixon clarifies their meaning within the culture of their creation. Drawing on contemporary sources she identifies elements within the paintings which relate to widely published vernacular medical texts of the day. She makes valuable observations about the way these texts were received used. These texts are further examined and their sources identified. Anyone interested in women's history, the history of medicine, as well as the art of the Renaissance or the development of western culture will find this work of immense interest. The scholarship is rigorous, the book's sources are valuable and the prose style is both readable and enjoyable