VENUSTI, Antonio Maria

by Antonio Maria Venusti

£1,950 · Offered by Sokol Books

First edition of Venusti's work about generation, birth and brevity of life. There are two lists of contents: the first lists the headings of the 139 chapters into which the text is divided, the second lists the most interesting topics. Included are abortion, why the good die young and teeth can't be destroyed by fire; the definition of the hermaphrodite, famous dwarfs of that time in Milan, Turkish men having more wives and why lust is especially characteristic of the hairy and the lame. The author starts from the viewpoint of the dignity of marriage, describing the relationship of husband and wife and the treatment of moral, social and sexual behaviour. He moves on to pregnancy - medical prescriptions and superstitions -, birth and children - how to cure, care and educate them-, often referring to the opinions of Avicenna, Aristotle, Averroes, Cicero, Plato, Homer and to the Bible. The result is a mixture of medicine and philosophy. The last section is about natural and unnatural ways of dying and time, its division into years, days and hours, the origins of this division and some philosophical speculations on it. Oratius Luccesinus was a member of a family prominent in Lucca in the first half of eighteenth century belonging to the noblesse de la robe of the city. The decoration of the binding is unusual combining the Renaissance and the beginnings of Neoclassicism. Antonio Maria Venusti (1529 - 1585) was a doctor from Grosio, a village near the city of Sondrio. He descende

• Binding: Hardcover

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