Deeds and Words in Renaissance Rome

Hardcover, white cloth, 1ST EDITION, 1993, issued without dust jacket. xx, 308pp. By Thomas V. Cohen and Elizabeth S. Cohen, published by University of Toronto Press. B/w illustrations, bibliography, index. Publisher’s “In this presentation of nine criminal trials of sixteenth-century Rome (1540-75), where magistrates kept verbatim records, Thomas and Elizabeth Cohen paint a lively portrait of a society, one that is reminiscent of Boccaccio. There stories, however, are true. Each trial transcript is followed by an essay that interprets the beliefs, codes, everyday speech, and personal transactions of a world that is radically different from our own. The people on trial include assassins, a spell-caster, an exorcist, an adulterous wife, several courtesans, and the peasant cast of a bawdy, sacriligeous play. Out of their often poignant troubles, and their machinations, comes a vivid revelation of not only the tumultous street life of Rome but also rituals of honour, the power and weakness of women, and the realities of social and economic hierarchies.”