Guido Ruggiero

This is compelling history. Not only does it do an exemplary job of making social history accessible and relevant, it employs a storytelling technique rarely seen among serious historians. Just as important is the bigger picture this volume presents, the shifting morals and values of the period and attempts to enforce them through the offices of the Church. Splendidly researched, the endnotes themselves make for vital reading. Many of the cliches and stereotypes associated with late show more renaissance Italy, or Venice, disappear as Ruggiero reveals a much more intricate and evolving culture relating to magic, systems of honor, the law, and even communal gossip than heretofore had been presented to the wider public. A terrifically good and important work. show less

Binding Passions is a fascinating microhistory that is both serious scholarship, and also might have been substantially more interesting in the hands of a narrative non-fiction writer rather than a historian.

The subject is Venice in the late 16th century, as revealed by the archives of the Venetian Inquisition, and relating to matters of marriage, sex, and magic. Of these, marriage in a society defined by Catholicism and aristocratic lineages is a big deal. The wrong marriage can cause a show more spiral of ruin, wrecking not just the lives of the people involved, but also the fortunes of their families. Matters of class, promised engagement, and willing consent all were tested in these times. One of my favorite cases involved a claimed marriage between two young people, where the man was found in bed with the woman by her father and brothers, was hastily married that night, and took off for the hinterlands with a "uh, sike!"

While marriage is bound by time and place, horniness is a human universal. Another area that gets covered is how people have sex, and in particular female sexuality in a deeply patrichal era. At the top are courtesans, who can choose their suitors, relying on looks and good culture. The best venetian courtesans had a different man for every night of the week in a long term stable arrangement, and absolute freedom in their days. The book opens where one of them was accused of bewitching a young noble into marrying her, a sudden social catapult that threatened the peace of the Most Serene Republic.

Which leads to magic. In the pre-scientific 16th century, there is a blurring between esoteric real knowledge, prayer, and sorcery. People made figures of wax, wrote up contracts selling their soul to the devil, and used enchanted oils as love potions. And as a quote goes, 60% of the time, it works every time.

This book is dense, a fascinating exploration through the archives, but it fails to give a real sense of what it was like to live in these times. I wanted to know why a young woman might turn to magic to resolve difficulties in her love life, or how a pater familias might worry about his wife's strange friends. And the book was a little too scattered and objective to give me that sense show less

This book was not what I expected. It uses records of criminal activity to spot sexual goings on. It is quite repetitive and I became bored with it quite easily but pushed through to the end. I had been hoping for a little more scandal and debauchery. I can't say I would recommend it as a good read, but it would be useful as a research tool to avoid locating the original data, which I imagine took a long time.