Did early modern people care about their health? And what did it mean to lead a healthy life in Italy and England? Through a range of textual evidence, images and material artefacts Conserving health in early modern culture documents the profound impact which ideas about healthy living had on daily practices as well as on intellectual life and the material world in this period. In both countries staying healthy was understood as depending on the careful management of the six 'Non-Naturals': the air one breathed, food and drink, excretions, sleep, exercise and repose, and the 'passions of the soul'. To a close scrutiny, however, models of prevention differed considerably in Italy and England, reflecting country-specific cultural, political and medical contexts and different confessional backgrounds. The following two chapters are available open access on a CC-BY-NC-ND license here: http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=633180 3 'Ordering the infant': caring for newborns in early modern England - Leah Astbury 4 'She sleeps well and eats an egg': convalescent care in early modern England - Hannah Newton -- .

Healthy Living in Late Renaissance Italy explores in detail the efforts made by men and women in late Renaissance Italy to stay healthy and prolong their lives. Drawing on a wide variety of sources - ranging from cheap healthy living guides in the vernacular to personal letters, conduct literature, household inventories, and surviving images and objects - this volume demonstrates that a sophisticated culture of prevention was being developed in sixteenth-century Italian cities. This culture sought to regulate the factors thought to influence health, and centred particularly on the home and domestic routines such as sleep patterns, food and drink consumption, forms of exercise, hygiene, control of emotions, and monitoring the air quality to which the body was exposed. Concerns about healthy living also had a substantial impact on the design of homes and the dissemination of a range of household objects. This study thus reveals the forgotten role of medical concerns in shaping everyday life and domestic material culture. However, medicine was not the sole factor responsible for these changes. The surge of interest in preventive medicine received new impetus from the development of the print industry. Moreover, it was fuelled by classical notions of wellbeing, re-proposed by humanist culture and by the new interest in geography and climates. Broader social and religious trends also played a key role; most significantly, the nexus between attention to one's health and spiritual and moral worth promoted both by new ideas of what constituted nobility and by the Counter-Reformation. Six key areas were thought to influence the balance of 'humours' within the body and Healthy Living in Late Renaissance Italy is organised into six main chapters which reflect these concerns: Air, Exercise, Sleep, Food and Drink, Managing the Emotions, and Bodily Hygiene. The volume is richly illustrated, and offers an accessible but fascinating glimpse into both the domestic lives and health preoccupations of the early modern Italians.

Focusing on the period 1566-1656, this original and lively study sheds light on the daily lives and material culture of ordinary prostitutes and their clients in Rome after the Counter-Reformation. Tessa Storey uses a range of archival sources, including criminal records, letters, courtroom testimonies, images and popular and elite literature, to reveal issues of especial concern to contemporaries. In particular, she explores how and why women became prostitutes, the relationships between prostitutes and clients, and the wealth which potentially could be accumulated. Notarial documents provide a unique perspective on the economics and material culture of prostitution, showing what could be earned and how prostitutes dressed and furnished their homes. The book challenges traditional assumptions about the success of post-Tridentine reforms on Roman prostitution, revealing that despite energetic attempts at social disciplining by the Counter-Reformation Popes, prostitution continued to flourish, and to provide a lucrative living for many women.

Focusing on the period 1566-1656, this original and lively study sheds new light on the daily lives and material culture of ordinary prostitutes and their clients in Rome after the Counter-Reformation. Tessa Storey uses a range of archival sources, including criminal records, letters, courtroom testimonies, images and popular and elite literature, to reveal issues of especial concern to contemporaries. In particular, she explores how and why women became prostitutes, the relationships between prostitutes and clients, and the wealth which potentially could be accumulated. Notarial documents provide a unique perspective on the economics and material culture of prostitution, showing what could be earned and how prostitutes dressed and furnished their homes. The book challenges traditional assumptions about the success of post-Tridentine reforms on Roman prostitution, revealing that despite energetic attempts at social disciplining by the Counter-Reformation Popes, prostitution continued to flourish, and to provide a lucrative living for many women.