Medieval and Renaissance Lactations: Images, Rhetorics, Practices

336 Pages·2013·4.35 MB·English

by  Jutta Gisela Sperling

Medieval and Renaissance
Lactations
Images, Rhetorics, Practices
Jutta Gisela Sperling
Medieval and Renaissance
lactations
Women and Gender in the
early Modern World
Series Editors:
allyson Poska, the University of Mary Washington, Usa
abby Zanger
the study of women and gender offers some of the most vital and innovative
challenges to current scholarship on the early modern period. For more than a
decade now, “Women and Gender in the early Modern World” has served
as a forum for presenting fresh ideas and original approaches to the field.
interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary in scope, this ashgate book series
strives to reach beyond geographical limitations to explore the experiences of
early modern women and the nature of gender in europe, the americas, asia,
and africa. We welcome proposals for both single-author volumes and edited
collections which expand and develop this continually evolving field of study.
Titles in the series
the Mother’s legacy in early Modern england
Jennifer Heller
Birthing Bodies in early Modern France:
stories of Gender and Reproduction
Kirk D. Read
childbirth and the display of authority in early Modern France
Lianne McTavish
Midwiving subjects in shakespeare’s england
Caroline Bicks
Maternal Measures:
Figuring caregiving in the early Modern Period
Edited by Naomi J. Miller and Naomi Yavneh
Medieval and Renaissance
lactations
images, Rhetorics, Practices
edited by
JUtta Gisela sPeRlinG
Hampshire College, USA
© Jutta Gisela sperling and the contributors 2013
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Jutta Gisela sperling has asserted her right under the copyright, designs and Patents act,
1988, to be identified as the editor of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing limited ashgate Publishing company
Wey court east 110 cherry street
Union Road suite 3-1
Farnham Burlington, vt 05401-3818
surrey, GU9 7Pt Usa
england
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Medieval and Renaissance lactations: images, rhetorics, practices. –(Women and gender in
the early modern world)
1. Breastfeeding in art. 2. Breastfeeding in literature. 3. lactation in art. 4. lactation
in literature. 5. arts, Medieval. 6. literature, Medieval – History and criticism. 7. arts,
Renaissance. 8. european literature – Renaissance, 1450–1600 – History and criticism.
i. series ii. sperling, Jutta Gisela.
700.4’561’0903-dc23
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Medieval and Renaissance lactations : images, rhetorics, practices / edited by Jutta Gisela
sperling.
pages cm. — (Women and Gender in the early Modern World)
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-1-4094-4860-0 (hardcover: alk. paper) — isBn 978-1-4094-4861-7 (ebook)
— isBn 978-1-4094-6988-9 (epub)
1. Mother and child in literature. 2. Breastfeeding in literature. 3. Breastfeeding in art. 4.
Women and religion—History. 5. Wet nurses in literature. 6. Breastfeeding—History.
i. sperling, Jutta Gisela, editor of compilation.
Pn56.5.M67M43 2013
809’.933520431—dc23
2013007749
isBn 9781409448600 (hbk)
isBn 9781409448617 (ebk - PdF)
isBn 9781409469889 (ebk - ePUB)
V
Für Olivia Principina und Lucia Angelina
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Contents
List of Figures ix
Notes on Contributors xiii
Introduction 1
Jutta Gisela Sperling
1 “The Milk of the Male”: Kinship, Maternity and Breastfeeding in
, 21
Medieval Islam
Mohammed Hocine Benkheira
2 Why Could Early Modern Men Lactate? Gender Identity and
Metabolic Narrations in Humoral Medicine 37
Barbara Orland
3 The Mother and the Dida [Nanny]: Female Employers and Wet Nurses
in Fourteenth-Century Barcelona 55
Rebecca Lynn Winer
4 Peasants at the Palace: Wet Nurses and Aristocratic Mothers in Early
Modern Rome 79
Caroline Castiglione
5 “With My Daughter’s Milk”: Wet Nurses and the Rhetoric of Lactation
in Valencian Court Records 101
Debra Blumenthal
6 Popular Balladry and the Terrible Wet Nurse: “La nodriza del rey” 115
Emilie L. Bergmann
7 Picturing Institutional Wet-Nursing in Medicean Siena 129
Diana Bullen Presciutti
8 Mother London and the Madonna Lactans in England’s Plague Epic 147
Rebecca Totaro
9 Nicolas Poussin’s Allegories of Charity in The Plague at Ashdod and
The Gathering of the Manna and Their Influence on Late
Seventeenth-Century French Art 165
Alexandra Woolley
10 The Economics of Milk and Blood in Alberti’s Libri della famiglia:
Maternal versus Wet-Nursing 187
Julia L. Hairston
viii Medieval and Renaissance Lactations
11 The Social and Religious Context of Iconographic Oddity:
Breastfeeding in Ghirlandaio’s Birth of the Baptist 213
Patricia Simons
12 Wet Nurses, Midwives, and the Virgin Mary in Tintoretto’s Birth of
Saint John the Baptist (1563) 235
Jutta Gisela Sperling
13 Full of Grace: Lactation, Expression and “Colorito” Painting in Some
Early Works by Rubens 255
J. Vanessa Lyon
Bibliography 279
Index 311
List of Figures
4.1 Villa Aurora, detail, “The Donkey Room.” Photo Credit:
© Marco Mancini. 80
4.2 Artemisia Gentileschi, Madonna Feeding the Christ Child,
1610–1611, Spada Gallery, Rome. Photo Credit: Archivio
Fotografico, Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico,
Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città
di Roma. 85
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4.3 Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Il Guercino), Christian Charity,
c. 1625–26; oil on canvas (93.3 x 109.9 cm), The Dayton Art
Institute, Museum purchase with funds provided by Miss Anne
Chapman and the Junior League of Dayton, Ohio, Inc. 1958.99.
Photo Credit: The Dayton Art Institute. 86
7.1 Pietro d’Achille Crogi and Raffaele Navesi (attr.), Assignment
and Payment of Wet Nurses, ca. 1575–77, Sala Pellegrinaio,
Ospedale di S. Maria della Scala, Siena. Photo Credit: Alinari/Art
Resource, NY. 130
7.2 Pietro d’Achille Crogi and Raffaele Navesi (attr.), Distribution of
Grain, ca. 1575–77, Sala Pellegrinaio, Ospedale di S. Maria della
Scala, Siena. Photo Credit: Alinari/ Art Resource, NY. 131
7.3 South Wall, Sala Pellegrinaio, Ospedale di S. Maria della Scala,
Siena. Photo Credit: Alinari/ Art Resource, NY. 135
7.4 Domenico di Bartolo, Distribution of Alms, 1443; detail of
woman and lame man, Sala Pellegrinaio, Ospedale di S. Maria
della Scala, Siena. Photo Credit: Alfredo Dagli Orti/ The Art
Archive at Art Resource, NY. 136
7.5 Domenico di Bartolo, Care and Marriage of Foundlings, 1443,
Sala Pellegrinaio, Ospedale di S. Maria della Scala, Siena.
Photo Credit: Alfredo Dagli Orti/ The Art Archive at Art
Resource, NY. 139
7.6 Paolo di Giovanni Fei, The Public Treasurer (Camerlengo) and
the Scribe in their Office, 1394, Archivio di Stato, Siena. Photo
Credit: Alinari/ Art Resource, NY. 142