Comparative Critical Approaches to Renaissance Comedy

Abstract

Renaissance et Réforme / 135of Christ Can such a series of complementary experiences be coincidental?Surely the literate Benedetta had read a life of Saint Catherine.Carlo Ginzburg has indicated the extent to which an inquiring mind was able to translate, re-interprret, and internalize the written word and also how far the historian can go in reconstructing this process.Did the life of Catherine of Siena impress the young girl to such an extent that the disturbed adult con- sciously tried to emulate it?Or did she indeed develop an alternate persona based on Saint Catherine?This is a problem that warrants further considera- tion.Immodest Acts is well written and is organized in a manner that appeals to both the scholar and the popular reader.Selected documents of the reports of the investigations are provided in translation.These are particularly use- ful in illuminating the problems the investigators encountered in examining a phenomenon so far outside society's understanding.Two typographical errors are minor (p.85, surrundings and n.41, p.189, 1969 for 1619).More troublesome is the repetition of the lengthy phrase in a quotation from the Canons of the Council of Trent (n.l, pp.174 -5).The endnotes provide useful commentary and context or indicate sources for further study.Judith Brown has presented a remarkable study of an hitherto unexplored area.Many questions remain unanswered and unanswerable, not the least being the complex and enigmatic personalities of Benedetta Carlini and Bartolomea Crivelli.This work stands at the forefront of the rediscovery of the history of women and of sexuality.And it clearly indicates the importanceand usefulness of a biographical approach for the historian of pre-modern Europe.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 11 citations exist upstream.