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Sodomy in Renaissance Bologna
Author(s) -
Dean Trevor
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
renaissance studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1477-4658
pISSN - 0269-1213
DOI - 10.1111/rest.12225
Subject(s) - sodomy , torture , punishment (psychology) , the renaissance , criminology , period (music) , law , sexual assault , government (linguistics) , political science , history , sociology , psychology , art , homosexuality , human rights , social psychology , medicine , philosophy , poison control , art history , linguistics , aesthetics , environmental health , injury prevention
Sodomy has been well studied in Renaissance Florence and Venice. This article for the first time examines this sexual crime in another major Italian city, home of an important university, seat of papal government, and venue of an emergent lordship of the Bentivoglio family. The article starts with a full discussion of the thirty‐nine trials in the Bolognese criminal court across the period 1350–1499, focusing on the evolution of the penalized behaviour, of the character of the suspects and victims (age, provenance), and of the penalty (from death by burning to corporal punishment and incarceration) Two exceptional cases are then discussed at length, in order to focus on two particular issues in these trials, namely the use of torture and the probative quality of ill‐repute.