The Manly Masquerade: Masculinity, Paternity, and Castration in the Italian Renaissance (review)

What makes a man manly? Is it that he possesses a penis? Is it his rough, sometimes insensitive demeanor? Is it his object choice? Is it perhaps the unadorned, rugged manner with which he presents himself to the world? In the twentieth century, perceptions of masculinity were greatly informed by Sigmund Freud's focus on (or perhaps obsession with) the phallus, that organ of the human body which, according to Freud's theories, guarantees a male power. In her innovative study The Manly Masquerade: Masculinity, Paternity, and Castration in the Italian Renaissance, Valeria Finucci sustains that in the past (specifically, in Early Modern Italy) manliness required not just what we would now consider virile characteristics associated with the possession of a penis, but also and more specifically a man's visualization of that power through the procreation and generation of a new life. In support of her thesis, Finucci brings together material from numerous literary sources such as plays, novellas, chivalric romances, and poems, since "literature, being a reflection of the culture to which it belongs, has always displayed an interest in sexuality and organization of gendered identities" (2). Furthermore, she weaves into her analysis citations from conduct manuals, medical treatises, theological pronouncements, and legal and juridical documents.

Finucci begins by examining theories of engendering in the Renaissance. She traces Early Modern medical ideas on generation from the Hippocratic corpus to the medieval interpretations of Aristotle (especially the medical interpretations by Avicenna), and to Galen of Pergamum, who united Hippocratic and Aristotelian traditions. For Aristotle, a woman's role in engendering was completely passive; her body was a vessel that received the male seed, cultivated it until it was fully developed, and expelled it in the form of a child. Thus, a woman provided only a matrix in which life was incubated, whereas a man gave everything else to his offspring. The Hippocratics, unlike Aristotle, believed that women held an active role in the generation of life, for both men and women produced sperm; however, because of her relative lack of body heat, a woman's sperm was weaker than a man's. Galen's ideas were similar to those of the Hippocratics, although he assigned less importance to the woman regarding her participation in the generative process because of her lack of heat.

Throughout her study, Finucci considers how these medical/anatomical ideas influenced Early Modern Italian society. According to Aristotle and Galen, a man was potent and virile because his contribution to his progeny was greater than that of a woman. Finucci instead challenges the widely diffused ideas stemming from these thinkers by examining the numerous popular theories that life could be generated without a man's input, either through a woman's encounter with an animal, through the imagination, or simply life was generated from putrefying or fermenting matter. Finucci reminds us that in the Early Modern period it was believed that women could engender and give birth, not only to human beings, but also to animals and inanimate objects. A woman's imagination was thought to have the power to change the form of a fetus before its birth, often resulting in monstrous offspring, or simply the birth of a child that did not resemble its genitors. Some even believed that it was possible for a man to experience pregnancy. These are just a few of the cultural anxieties surrounding paternity to which Finucci attributes relevance in defining masculinity in the Renaissance.

Chapters two through five offer original, fascinating readings of four Renaissance literary masterpieces, noting how gender roles are represented in these works, as well as how they may have been interpreted by their contemporary readers/audience. In her analysis of the Mandragola, Finucci confronts traditional constructions of paternity. She sustains that Messer Nicia is the true Machiavellian character in this play, not the more obviously cunning Callimaco, or Ligurio. Nicia feels that the only way he will confirm his challenged manhood is by producing an heir...