Dissertation Research: Madness in Late Renaissance Italy

项目概要文艺复兴标志着医学和治疗的关键时期，意大利在这一创新中处于领先地位。这个时代见证了世界上第一批精神病院的建立，其中许多精神病院都在意大利。然而，由于精神疾病还没有形成任何一个单一的参照系，也没有任何一个群体享有对精神疾病的诊断和治疗的垄断，因此，对文艺复兴时期的疯狂行为的研究必须从三个不同的话语中对这个概念进行三角分析：科学和医学、宗教和法律的。因此，我的研究将比较罗马宗教裁判所和威尼斯及罗马主教法庭的记录与意大利首批收容所的记录。这将使我能够探索在16和17世纪意大利流行文化中对疯狂的分类、治疗和修辞，以便不仅掌握疯子是如何被对待和分类的，而且还掌握他们在自己的社区中是如何被看待的。智力上的优点鉴于，正如大多数历史学家所认为的那样，精神疾病并不存在，直到一个社会通过感知它、命名它而同意它存在，作为回应，疯狂可以作为一个窗口，观察文艺复兴后期整个社会不断变化的价值观。一项关于社会如何以及为什么开始越来越多地将它认为有显著差异的个人分开的研究将使我能够通过观察那些超越他们的人来收集关于早期现代文化定义和监控其社会和心理界限的方式的关键信息。更广泛的影响研究精神病院创建的历史时刻可以为我们提供一些线索，了解我们现代对理智和理性的一些假设的根源。.通过研究社会如何定义和区分某些人，该项目将引起人类学，社会学和社会科学学者的兴趣。通过研究如何以及为什么某些人被定义为疯子，该提案提出了关于文艺复兴作为现代理性世俗思想开端的重要问题。 通过研究女性和疯狂的角色，该项目将吸引那些从事性别研究的人。 更广泛地说，该项目可能会引起残疾研究人员的兴趣。

PROJECT SUMMARYThe Renaissance marks a pivotal period in medicine and healing, with Italy leading the way in this innovation. For the mentally ill, this era witnessed the creation of some of the world's first mental asylums, many of which were in Italy. Because mental illness had not yet become entrenched in any single frame of reference and no single group enjoyed a monopoly over its diagnosis and treatment, however, a study of Renaissance madness must triangulate on the concept from three disparate discourses: scientific and medical,religious, and legal. My research, therefore, will compare evidence from the records ofthe Roman Inquisition and the episcopal courts in Venice and Rome to institutional recordsfrom some of Italy's first asylums. This will allow me to explore the classification,treatment, and rhetoric of madness within Italian popular culture during the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries in order to grasp not only how the mad were treated and categorized,but also how they were regarded within their own communities.Intellectual MeritsGiven that, as most historians agree, mental illness does not exist until a society hasagreed that it does by perceiving it, naming it, and responding it, madness can serve as awindow onto the changing values of late Renaissance society as a whole. A study of howand why society began increasingly to separate off individuals it deemed to besignificantly different will allow me to glean critical information about the ways inwhich early-modern culture defined and monitored its social and mental boundaries bylooking at those who stepped beyond them. Broader ImpactsResearching the historical moment of the creation of insane asylums can give us clues about the roots of some of our modern assumptions about sanity and reason. . By examining how societies define and separate off certain people, the project will interest scholars in anthropology, sociology, and the social sciences generally. By examining how and why certain people were defined as mad, the proposal raises important questions about the Renaissance as the beginning of modern rational, secular thought. By examining the roles of women and madness, the project will interest those who work in gender studies. More generally the project may interest those in disability studies.