Infanticide, Secular Justice, and Religious Debate in Early Modern Europe
By (author) Adriano Prosperi
On 5 December 1709, in Bologna, Lucia Cremonini is accused of a terrible crime: the murder of her newborn son. This tragic episode, exhumed from the depths of time, is placed at the centre of an enthralling study by one of the leading scholars of modern history and the history of religious beliefs. During the course of a dramatic trial the crime is debated by representatives of religious, philosophical, moral, and scientific culture, all characteristic of the formative period of the modern world and all seeking a convincing answer to fundamental questions. When does life begin? When can a human being first be described as such, so that his or her killing is a crime punishable by the maximum penalty? What is the true role of baptism in the formation of the human person? These are all highly topical questions in an age like our own, where belief is subject to the powerful assaults of scientific research and new questions are being raised about the essence and the limits of human existence.
- By (author) Adriano Prosperi
Other Titles in this Series
Confraternity, Mendicant Orders, and Salvation in the Middle Ages
The Contribution of the Hungarian Sources (c.1270-c.1530)
Volume 23
The Sacred and the Secular in Renaissance Florence
Vallombrosan Exorcisms and the Rise of Observant Mendicancy
Volume 31
Orthodoxy and Controversy in Twelfth-Century Religious Discourse
Peter Lombard's 'Sentences' and the Development of Theology
Volume 8
Careers and Opportunities at the Roman Curia, 1300-1500
A Socio-Economic History of Papal Administration
Volume 29
Nature, Virtue, and the Boundaries of Encyclopaedic Knowledge
The Tropological Universe of Alexander Neckam (1157-1217)
Volume 13
Mulieres Religiosae
Shaping Female Spiritual Authority in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods
Volume 12
Gendered Identities in Bernard of Clairvaux’s ‘Sermons on the Song of Songs’
Performing the Bride
Volume 15
Communities of Learning
Networks and the Shaping of Intellectual Identity in Europe, 1100-1500
Volume 9
Witchcraft, Superstition, and Observant Franciscan Preachers
Pastoral Approach and Intellectual Debate in Renaissance Milan
Volume 18
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