History from Crime: Selections from Quaderni Storici (Selections from Quaderni Storici) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080184732X ISBN 13: 9780801847325

Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994

Synopsis

History from Crime demonstrates how a sophisticated analysis of documents once thought beneath scholarly notice--criminal records--can offer stunning new insights into the past.

About this title

Review:

""Social historical themes recoverable from criminal behavior or court testimony... How the courts actually operated and what transgressors meant by criminal behavior, ranging from magic and witchcraft to clerical concubinage, feuds, and counterfeiting." -- Sixteenth-Century Journal

Synopsis:

How were popular attitudes toward death and life revealed in the illegal 17th-century practice of re-baptizing dead babies? What can be learned about the nature of government and economy in early modern Genoa by studying the methods of Renaissance counterfeiters? Why were certain forms of magic and witchcraft redefined by the Enlightenment as murder? In the latest volume of "Selections from 'Quaderni Storici'", Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero bring together groups of scholars to explore the social and political history of early modern Italy through the study of criminal records. Like other volumes in the series, "History from Crime" demonstrates how an analysis of documents once thought beneath scholarly notice can offer new insights into the past. The authors show, for example, how the practice of keeping concubines by priests in early modern Sienna reveals the contours of religious and social perceptions of the time. An analysis of the dynamics of rural feuds helps redefine the structures of power in the 17th and 18th centuries. And a new look at the political values and norms of Renaissance Florence is provided by an examination of selected cases of political corruption.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 080184732X
• ISBN 13: 9780801847325
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Muir PhD Professor Edward, Ruggiero Professor Guido