In recent decades, European historiography has actively dealt with the history of the body, thus giving depth and awareness to powerful stimuli coming from the dominant culture in the affluent society. Therefore, not only the 'beautiful' body has been the object of research, but also the body of the common man, mutilated, deformed and imperfect. The volume, through surveys in legal-regulatory, personal, iconographic, literary sources and in medical and physiognomic treatises and the participation of some of the major international specialists in the field, intends to deepen these issues especially for the geographical, cultural and documentary space of Italy of the late Middle Ages and the early modern age remained until now quite at the margins of this line of studies. |