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THE IMAGERY AND POLITICS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE
IN EARLY RENAISSANCE ITALY
This book is the first comprehensive study of images of rape in Italian

painting at the dawn of the Renaissance. Drawing on a wide range of
primary sources, Péter Bokody examines depictions of sexual violence in
religion, law, medicine, literature, politics, and history writing produced in
kingdoms (Sicily and Naples) and city-republics (Florence, Siena, Lucca,
Bologna, and Padua). While misogynistic endorsement characterized many
of these visual discourses, some urban communities condemned rape in
their propaganda against tyranny. Such representations of rape often link
gender and aggression to war, abduction, sodomy, prostitution, pregnancy,
and suicide. Bokody also traces how the new naturalism in painting,
introduced by Giotto, increased verisimilitude, but also fostered imagery
that coupled eroticism and violation. Exploring images and texts that have
long been overlooked, Bokody’s study provides new insights at the inter-
section of gender, policy, and visual culture, with evident relevance to our
contemporary condition.
Péter Bokody is Associate Professor of Art History in the School of

Society and Culture at the University of Plymouth. He is the author of
Images-within-Images in Italian Painting (1250–1350): Reality and Reflexivity
(Ashgate, 2015) and the co-editor of Renaissance Metapainting (Harvey
Miller Publishers, 2020).
Published online by Cambridge University Press

THE IMAGERY AND
POLITICS OF SEXUAL
VIOLENCE IN EARLY
RENAISSANCE ITALY
PÉTER BOKODY
University of Plymouth

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We share the University’s mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of education,
learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781009100687
doi: 10.1017/9781009122528
© Cambridge University Press & Assessment 2023
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions
of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place
without the written permission of Cambridge University Press & Assessment.
First published 2023
Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ Books Limited, Padstow Cornwall
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
names: Bokody, Péter, author.
title: The imagery and politics of sexual violence in early Renaissance Italy / Péter Bokody,
University of Plymouth.
description: Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
identifiers: lccn 2022041543 (print) | lccn 2022041544 (ebook) |
isbn 9781009100687 (hardback) | isbn 9781009113977 (paperback) |
isbn 9781009122528 (epub)
subjects: lcsh: Rape in art. | Sex crimes in art. | Painting, Italian–Themes, motives. |
Painting, Renaissance–Italy–Themes, motives. | Art–Political aspects–Italy–History–To
1500. | Art and society–Italy–History–To 1500.
classification: lcc n8237.8.r34 B65 2023 (print) | lcc n8237.8.r34 (ebook) |
DDC 701/.03–dc23/eng/20221011
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022041543
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isbn 978-1-009-10068-7 Hardback
Cambridge University Press & Assessment has no responsibility for the persistence
or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this
publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
..........................................................................................
The Association of Art Historians (AAH) has generously supported the publication of the book.

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments page vii
1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Propaganda and Rape 2
1.2 Sexuality 6
1.3 Politics 8
1.4 Painting 12
2 VICTIMS OF LUST 20
2.1 Sex Crimes in Gratian’s Decretum 31
2.2 Women in Last Judgement Scenes 46
3 ME D I C A L IZ E D MI S OG YN Y 68
3.1 Biopolitics of Pregnancy 76
3.2 Rape and Conception 83
4 RAPE AS A WEAPON OF WAR 101

4.1 Imperial Propaganda in Sicily 110
4.2 Self-Fashioning in Florence 119
4.3 Vicissitudes of Lucca, Arezzo, and Bologna 125
4.4 The Siege of Pisa (1406) 131
5 POLITICAL ALLEGORIES 146

5.1 Giotto di Bondone’s Injustice in Padua 149
5.2 Tyranny and the Rule of Ezzelino III
da Romano 156
5.3 Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s War in Siena 162
5.4 Wartime Sexual Violence in Sienese Chronicles 168

vi CONTENTS
6 ABDUCTION IN ILLUSTRATED ROMANCES 182

6.1 Hesione and Helen in the Matter of Troy 187
6.2 Robert of Anjou and Ancient History until Caesar 206
6.3 Christine de Pizan and Giovanni Boccaccio 218
7 LUCRETIA AND THE RENAISSANCE OF RAPE 228

7.1 Narratives of Desire and Liberty 234
7.2 Giovanni Vitelleschi and His Studiolo in Corneto 241
8 CONCLUSION 257
Bibliography 265
Index 293

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Initial work on this book dates back to the Iconology of Law and Order
conference at the University of Szeged (2008), a Medieval Art in Theory
workshop on framing at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London (2009)
and the Iconology at the Crossroads conference at the Center for Iconographic
Studies in Rijeka (2012). The support and hospitality of the respective organ-
izers – György Szőnyi, Laura Cleaver, Hanna Wimmer, Stuart Whatling,
Marina Vicelja, and Colum Hourihane – gave a formative early impetus to
the project. The contrast between the allegory of Justice and Injustice in the
Arena Chapel was first a pictorial question, with the absence and presence of
frames. However, the gendered social context of the frescoes was then already
evident. Only after I had started to examine the surviving fourteenth-century
visual and textual evidence on sexual violence did I begin to realize the
magnitude of the problem and the radical aspects of Giotto’s composition.
This study is about reconstructing the circumstances of its extraordinary
political proposition.
Our move to Plymouth in 2014 brought me to an institutional environment
open to implement this project. I thank my colleagues, Darren Aoki, Sandra
Barkhof, Annika Bautz, Gemma Blackshaw, Harry Bennett, Brian Campbell,
Rachel Christofides, Mary Costello, James Daybell, Claire Fitzpatrick, Jenny
Graham, James Gregory, Daniel Grey, Louis Halewood, Daniel Maudlin, Joel
Merriner, Ella S. Mills, Elaine Murphy, Simon Topping, Elizabeth Tingle,
Jameson Tucker, Jody Patterson, and Nicola Wakeham, for their advice and
support during these years while I have been trying to find a balance between
feminist, visual, and historical approaches.
In the UK, the community of Trecento scholars in Giotto’s Circle con-
vened by Joanna Cannon remained the place to discuss various stages of the
book. I am grateful to Federico Botana, Laura Jacobus, and John Renner for
their continuing interest in my work and the opportunities to present at
Queen Mary University and the Murray Seminar at Birkbeck. In the USA,
the same goes for the Trecento Forum convened by Judith Steinhoff, and I thank
her and the organizers of the Andrew Ladis Memorial conference for allowing
me to test some of the core arguments.
vii

viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Fellowships in the Istituto Universitario Olandese (Florence, 2016) and

BildEvidenz – Center for Advanced Studies (Berlin, 2018) made longer spells
of intensive research possible. Michael W. Kwakkelstein, Gert Jan van der
Sman, Klaus Krüger, and Friederike Wille have my gratitude for the invitations
and ensuing guidance. Similarly, the book could not have been completed
without several visits to the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, including
the Before Judgment: Critiquing Imagery and Style of Good and Evil conference
(2017). I thank Carolin Behrmann, Horst Bredekamp, Corinna Tania Gallori,
Hana Gründler, Alessandro Nova, and Gerhard Wolf for advising on the
directions of this study.
The anonymous reviewers of some early articles and the manuscript were
generous in sharing materials, and their constructive criticism shaped and
significantly improved the final version. I wholeheartedly thank them for their
time and expertise. I am grateful to the Association of Art Historians (AAH) for
supporting the publication of the book. And I am indebted to my editor,
Beatrice Rehl at Cambridge University Press, for her initial encouragements
and overseeing the production process.
My friends kindly followed the maturation of the book, and Ádám Mestyán
and Zsófi Pohl offered valuable logistical assistance. The research and writing
process coincided with our leave from Hungary, and my parents and sister
helped to accommodate the change and deal with the distance. My wife, Julia
Bokody, accepted the toll writing this book took on our life – I am not sure
whether I will ever be able to find the proper words to thank her for that. And
our son, Kilián, graciously waited two extra days after his due date so that
I could type up the bibliography for the submission of the original manuscript –
probably only to have our undivided attention for the first months of his life in
the midst of the pandemic.

ONE
INTRODUCTION
I mages of rape in late-medieval and early renaissance Italy belong to the

broader question of sexual violence and societal responses to it. Both aspects
are significant: These representations equally relate to the reality of rape and
collective ideological responses to it. On the one hand, what people do to each
other defines who they are. Collective behavioral norms and patterns establish
the boundaries of day-to-day interactions and organize life in a community.
They also turn people into particular versions of themselves. If they allow,
condone, or perform sexual violation of others, this makes them members of a
rape-prone society and potential rapists. Similarly, an ideal rape-free society
could be defined by the complete eradication of any sexual act under coercion.
This opposition seems to offer an unambiguous distinction between commu-
nities based on consensual and nonconsensual sexuality.
The issue with this definition is not only that most societies exist somewhere
amid its two poles, but also the oft-significant gap between the common
practices and their public perception. Who we are and who we pretend to
be are entirely different matters. There are a large variety of rape-prone
societies and only some would recognize themselves as such. The same is true
for their constituencies. The mechanisms of silence and mediated coercion can
gradually supersede the blunt use of force. In this sense, the sexual exploitation
of the weak and unprotected can continue under the cover of an apparently
rape-free community. By denying its existence, fabricated perceptions of
sexual violence can maintain its widespread practices. This intricate link
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

2 THE IMAGERY AND POLITICS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE
precedes the binary opposition of rape-prone and rape-free, and the initial
question is how the constructed perception veils or exposes the underlying
violence and abuse.
To preempt some of the conclusions of this study: The early Renaissance
material is important since it indicates an attempt to shift the perception of rape
toward a critical register in some urban communities. Even if this attempt
ultimately failed, it remains an important landmark in the history of misogyny
and patriarchy.
1.1 PROPAGANDA AND RAPE
To capture this dichotomy, I propose differentiating between four general

attitudes: Endorsement, sanitization, denial, and condemnation. Endorsement
means that routine sexual violence is openly accepted and sometimes even
promoted without a negative stigma attached to it. It implies permanent
subordination and exploitation of the victims in the public and domestic
sphere without any legal protection whatsoever. Endorsement characterizes
rape-prone communities who identify themselves as such. Sanitization repre-
sents a more complex case since it admits some negative aspects of sexual
violence. However, it focuses on the desirable body of the victim, limits the
exposure to physical brutality, and ultimately insinuates the appeal of aggres-
sion for all involved parties. Denial moves away from explicitly or implicitly
endorsing these acts, but it also rejects their existence. The inferior status of the
victims remains unchallenged, but their violation is less systematic in public.
Both sanitization and denial mark rape-prone societies, who fashion them-
selves to be rape-free. On the contrary, condemnation acknowledges public
and domestic sexual aggression and opposes it. Because of this critical stance, it
offers potential defense to victims and perhaps points toward subsequent policy
changes. Condemnation usually typifies rape-prone communities who aspire
to be rape-free (or perhaps were fortunate enough to become so).
These categories do not represent four consequent phases of development,
they describe diverging public responses to sexual violence, which can even be
present simultaneously in the same community. They respond to the complex
symbiosis of violence and its shifting representation, which is ultimately the
only historical source at our disposal. From early modern times until 1975,
first-world societies mostly oscillated between endorsement, sanitization, and
denial: They were rape-prone and occasionally pretended to be rape-free. This
situation changed with the publication of a groundbreaking study by Susan
Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape.1 Brownmiller empha-
sized the continuous existence of essentially the same sexual violence from
antiquity to the present, and it is because of this unified vision that her book
became a key reference in the feminist movement and attracted significant

INTRODUCTION 3
public attention to the issue.2 It introduced a radical perception of rape in

liberal democracies, which prepared the ground for legislative transformations
in international and to some extent in domestic law. The crimes committed
against Muslim women in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1991–1993) and Tutsi women
in Rwanda (1994) were systematically documented at international criminal
tribunals for the first time in history, and these findings led to the universal
condemnation of sexual violence in new policies of the International Criminal
Court and the United Nations.3
The primary focus of these two institutions on wartime rape was not
accidental or solely dependent on their jurisdiction: Their scale and frequency
make these mass outbursts emblematic manifestations of any peacetime sexual
violence, regardless of their triviality. As Catharine A. MacKinnon put it:
“rapes in [. . .] war [. . .] are to everyday rape what the Holocaust was to
everyday anti-Semitism: both like it and not like it at all, both continuous
with it and a whole new departure, a unique atrocity yet also a pinnacle
moment in something that goes on all the time.”4 This link between the
incontestability of the mass crime and the banalization of the ordinary remains
essential for the integration of universal human right norms into domestic
criminal law.5 It creates impetus for questioning perceptions that are based on
rape myths, and therefore advocates actual policy change on an everyday level.
It also characterizes the Italian material, where public condemnation of sexual
violence was usually connected to its large-scale forms during armed conflicts –
an overlooked phenomenon that constitutes the subject of this book.
Although I will use the terms rape and sexual violence interchangeably
in the general sections of this study, it must be noted that they are
not equivalent. According to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC)
definition, formulated in 2002, sexual violence is a broader concept, it
encompasses sexual slavery, forced prostitution, pregnancy, sterilization,
and any other forms of sexual aggression.6 This comprehensive definition
not only covers a variety of physical aggressions but it recognizes the resem-
blances (for instance between rape and genital mutilation) and causality (for
instance between rape and forced pregnancy) connecting these different
forms of violence. The ICC’s definition of rape includes any form of non-
consensual penetration by or into a sexual organ, and thus comprises diverse
heterosexual and same-sex aggressions besides the entry of the penis into the
vagina. In this study I will adopt these terms in their current sense, since,
despite their potential anachronism, they do describe physical acts that are
detectable in the textual and visual sources.
There is no doubt that the medieval audience often had a different under-
standing of rape and would not have classified, for instance, forced pregnancy
as a form of sexual violence; and it is not my intention to disregard the
historical evidence here.7 The key challenge of this material is to trace how

the perception of these acts moved between endorsement, sanitization, denial,

and condemnation in the epoch. I think we can simultaneously categorize an
act based on our current set of norms and examine the characteristics of the
historical source indicating past stereotypes. The strength of the universal
perspective is that it disrupts the various misogynistic or rationalizing narratives
and gives voice to the victims instead of the aggressors.8 Yet, the exclusive
focus on the act itself deprives the analysis from the specific aspects of historical
perceptions that are not only the sole remaining traces from the period but
testify also to the conceptual frameworks, discourses, and procedures deter-
mining attitudes. Joanna Bourke, in Rape: A History from 1860 to the Present Day
(2007), argued that the primary objective of rape studies is to describe and
analyze these discursive practices instead of merely labeling occurrences of
sexual violence.9 This entangled approach posits sexual violence from a uni-
versal perspective, and at the same time reconstructs the stereotypical and
ideological elements of the historical context.
Historical evidence about rape cannot be taken at face value, for it is an
effective form of propaganda. Its most common form is based on the friend–
foe antagonism: Societies can often deny sexual violence within their own
confines while condemning others for allegedly committing such acts. It can
become an instrumental part of political advertising, especially during armed
conflict, where actual or unproven crimes are used to reinforce the distinction
between “us” and “them.” Rape was a political trope in theater following the
English Civil War (1642–1651); and it played a role in the formation of a Dutch
identity in the seventeenth century.10 The numerous German atrocities during
World War I were reshaped and to some extent weaponized in subsequent
French and British war propaganda.11 Comparable strategies have been noted
in Chinese cartoons during the war against Japan (1937–1945).12 Such ideo-
logically motivated condemnations can contribute to spiraling violence and
undermine the veracity of the aggression, even if independent supporting
evidence is available. It can also maintain the rape-free illusion of one’s
own community.
It is against this historical and methodological backdrop that I intend to
examine novel and condemnatory images of sexual violence in some Italian
city-republics. In many respects, the perception of rape in Italy was similar to
the rest of medieval Europe: Full, tacit, or compartmentalized endorsement of
sexual violence permeated everyday contexts, including law, medicine, and
religion (Chapters 2 and 3). Illustrated copies of Gratian’s Decretum offer
dynamic representations of consensual and nonconsensual intercourse. In some
Last Judgment scenes demonic violence is unleashed against lustful women and
sodomites. In manuscripts and wedding chest depicting Giovanni Boccaccio’s
The Nymph of Fiesole, distinction is made between rape and intercourse in the
context of pregnancy and the two-seed theory of conception.

INTRODUCTION 5
Emergence of critical perceptions can be detected in chronicles and public

political allegories (Chapters 4 and 5). Visual evidence indicates that some
political communities started to move away from the endorsement of rape
toward its condemnation. Many of the denunciations happened in self-
governed city-republics during the fourteenth century, and I believe that they
have something to do with the self-fashioning of these societies. In this respect,
condemnation was connected to the question of civic imagery and became
part of the communal visual propaganda against tyrannical (seigneurial)
regimes. Examples include contemporary representations of recent historical
events from the Nuova Cronica of Giovanni Villani, the first part of Giovanni
Sercambi’s Croniche and two panels from the Capponi family; and they depict
aggression, varying the degree of explicitness. Similar notions were also
expressed in allegorical imagery. This genre allowed the political contextual-
ization of rape in the framework of a universal visual discourse. The allegory of
Injustice in the Arena Chapel (Padua) by Giotto di Bondone and the allegory of
War in the Palazzo Pubblico (Siena) by Ambrogio Lorenzetti are public images
that offer condemnatory representations of rape without endorsing or sanitiz-
ing the act. An overarching claim of this study is that the politics of condem-
nation represents a genuine shift from the politics of endorsement, despite its
eventual defamatory or constructed components. Wherever possible, I will
examine a plurality of narrative sources to describe the process of transforming
historical events into signposts for communal memory and their reuse for
ideological purposes.
The decline of communal freedom and civic self-representation appears to
correlate with the disappearance of openly critical attitudes toward rape
(Chapters 6 and 7). Illustrated romances dealing with the Greek and Roman
past testify to this transition as early as in the fourteenth century. They relate to
the reception of French ideas on sanitized violence and the search for the
historical origins of Italian city-states. The depictions of the first sack of Troy
and the abduction of Helen in Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s and Guido delle
Colonne’s works could expose the consequences of armed conflicts to the
community, but they can equally downplay the absence of consent. Similar
tendencies may be witnessed in the illustrations of the early history of Rome in
the first and second redactions of the Ancient History until Caesar. Around
1400 the link between freedom and sexual violence once again became a
political issue in Florence, the artistic and social epicenter of this shift. Yet,
reflexes of sanitization and denial gradually superseded condemnation: Images
of rape turned out to be increasingly eroticized and integrated into the
decoration of the renaissance palace. Wedding chests with Lucretia’s suicide
are part of this change already during the tenure of Coluccio Salutati, and
images in the study of cardinal Giovanni Vitelleschi in Tarquinia capitalize on
the conflicting interpretations of freedom and vulnerability.

In her pioneering monograph Images of Rape – The “Heroic’” Tradition and its
Alternatives (1999), Diane Wolfthal examined the medieval and early modern
representations of sexual violence in European art.13 Wolfthal convincingly
showed that some representations in the period can oscillate between mis-
ogynistic and sporadic critical attitudes. The main reason for reopening the
discussion about this material is that, in her study, Italian works were touched
upon only in passing, since most examples came from German, French, and
Netherlandish contexts. No comprehensive monograph has been dedicated to
the subject in the context of late-medieval and early renaissance Italy, and thus
the radicality and public political nature of this imagery remains unexplored.
The few specialist studies on the Italian Renaissance rightly note the com-
modification of sexual violence, but the absence of systematic engagement
with the earlier examples limits the scope of their conclusions: They describe
only the afterlife of a civic ideal without analyzing its origins.14 In this sense,
the book aspires to fill an important lacuna in medieval and renaissance visual
history, political iconography, and gender studies.
1.2 SEXUALITY
Considering the general views on human sexuality in the Middle Ages, this
novel understanding of rape is even more intriguing. Apart from procreation
within marriage, medieval Christians considered any sexual activity sinful, a
form of lust, and penetration without consent was branded with other non-
violent wrongdoings like adultery or sodomy.15 This assessment underlined the
common sexual ground of these acts and downplayed the use of force. With
simplification, it can be said that sexual violence was not regarded as a repulsive
transgression, because most forms of sexuality were banned. Furthermore, the
gravity of rape was weakened also through omnipresent gender inequality:
Medieval societies penalized men who deviated from legal and societal norms
less than women. In most historical reconstructions of sexuality, the emphasis is
therefore put on the repressive nature of medieval views, being damaging and
often reactionary. However, for rape, it appears that, instead of too much
control, repression, or criminalization, the condemnation was too relaxed and
worked in favor of male aggressors. Therefore, any interpretation must
acknowledge the determining impact of restrictive structures on everyday
sexuality in general and at the same time criticize the insufficiency of said
constructs to protect a significant part of the population – women and girls.
This double bind also haunts Michel Foucault’s volumes on The History of
Sexuality, where medieval limits on corporeal pleasures are a form of control
over and an obstacle to ecstatic (male) sexuality without fully considering that
in the case of rape this boundary is ultimately rooted in another (female)
person’s will and bodily integrity.16

INTRODUCTION 7
The majority of the cases to be examined here relate to heterosexual

violence by men against women and girls. Although this correlates with the
mainstream understanding of rape in the period, it was not exclusive. Whereas
canon law only recognized heterosexual rape, secular law acknowledged
victims of male rape in some cities and cleared them of charges of sodomy.
This was a minor concession in the medieval economy of lust and gender.
Sodomy was part of a negative semantic field, it denoted corrupt or effeminate
behavior, and in corporeal terms it could ban anal intercourse also between
heterosexual partners.17 Nevertheless, queer sensitivities were part of late-
medieval imagery.18 Representations included references to male–male aggres-
sion in the context of the Last Judgment, where the branding of sodomites as
sinners justified their torture. They paralleled and foregrounded comparable
misogynistic torment of lustful women. In the Christian normative frame-
work, the partial rehabilitation of sexuality covered only vaginal intercourse,
aiming at procreation in wedlock. The relative shift in the perception of
heterosexual rape depended on this distinction, since it allowed the condem-
nation of certain coerced acts by men against women, but not the ones
between same-sex partners.
In fact, the condemnatory visual discourse on rape performed a double role.
On the one hand, it challenged to some extent the sexual subordination of
women to men. On the other hand, it reinforced the binary understanding of
gender by consolidating these categories in the public sphere. Lesbian, gay,
trans, or queer identities were excluded from this limited realm of critical
visibility. Furthermore, it also conformed to a binary understanding of sex,
since it signaled out the harm of heterosexual violence, which left little room
for considering, for instance, institutionalized medical harm against intersex
bodies.19 Thus, men raping women was the political issue that crystallized
concerns and opinions around violent and nonconsensual sexuality.
The focus of this study on violence does not aim to discredit the erotic
culture of the Middle Ages. Michael Camille has shown that, despite the
repressive stance of Latin Christianity, there existed a refined visual and
material language of the medieval art of love.20 Camille even suggested that
this secular imagery drew on religious representations blurring to some extent
the boundaries between these two realms. During the Renaissance, this
language of love became increasingly physical, which included a potential
corporeal impact on the viewer.21 In Italy, representations of male nudes were
more widespread after 1470, and similar changes can be observed for the
female nude around 1500.22 When medieval negative attitudes toward nudity
dissipated, explicit (and to a large extent sanitized) representations of sexual
violence emerged in the sixteenth century, part of the post-Reformation
artistic landscape.23 James Grantham Turner described the period between
1500 and the Counter-Reformation “sex-positive,” where arousal was

considered a key phenomenon, facilitated by images.24 The I modi, Giulio

Romano’s visual experiments with sexual positions and Marcantonio
Raimondi’s engravings in 1524, were the highpoint of this development,
whereas the subsequent imprisonment of Raimondi and the destruction of
the prints signals the institutional rejection of the subject.25 Scholarly com-
mentaries of nude, erotic, and pornographic representations tend to be sym-
pathetic of the newly-acquired sexual liberties. Rape and coercion figure rarely
in these discussions, and the sanitization of nonconsensual intercourse is only
routinely acknowledged. It is true, the images soften violent aspects and target
male preferences. In this semi-private erotic discourse, the public and political
stance against rape in the visual propaganda of some city-republics around
1300 appears to be entirely forgotten.
1.3 POLITI CS
The overwhelming part of the historical evidence available to us was written

(or painted) by men about women. Because of this, the gender difference
between victim and aggressor or between narrator and narrative subject cannot
be disregarded. The stereotypes and political attitudes that can be discerned in
Italy remain within a masculine and to a large extent patriarchal framework. In
line with the religious and secular legal contexts, the denunciation of sexual
violence often focused on its undesired familial and political consequences
instead of the pain and suffering of women. Virtually nothing survives from the
period about how women themselves perceived these acts. Christine de Pizan,
in The Book of Cities of the Ladies (1405), a response to Giovanni Boccaccio’s
Famous Women (c. 1361–1375), did state without ambiguity that women “find
no pleasure in being raped; on the contrary, they think that it is the worst thing
that could possibly happen to them.”26 Pizan in this section not only rejected a
persisting rape myth (women want sexual aggression) but expressed the need
for a feminine framework in the discussion of sexual violence. Such a radical
female voice is missing from Italy, since the orations and letters of humanist
women writers in the fifteenth century are less explicit in their treatment of the
subject.27 Like Pizan, Laura Cereta listed the Galatian Queen, Judith, and
Lucretia, as heroines of chastity (c. 1488–1492), and she focused on the import-
ance of the matrimonial bond.28 Cassandra Fedele, in 1495, politely wrote to
the Queen of Spain that she could travel to her only if “there is peace,
tranquility, and serenity in Italy (for in these turbulent times and particularly
with Italy preparing to go to war it is not advisable for me, a young maiden, to
take so much as a stroll, nor could even you, most prudent one, persuade me to
do so)” without formulating directly the threat of wartime sexual violence.29
Based on the court case of Artemisia Gentileschi and early seventeenth-
century trial records from Rome, Elizabeth S. Cohen persuasively suggested

INTRODUCTION 9
that even women regarded rape a social harm because of the reduced marriage
prospects.30 This perspective can plausibly be extended to the period before
1500. It does not mean that physiological constants such as pain and suffering
were absent and therefore can be ignored, but in the end sexual violence was
framed, narrated, and rationalized in light of its social dimension. Women had
little agency over these stories, and men were anyhow more concerned with
public consequences. And they politicized and condemned rape first by
transforming the physical injury of the victim into a domestic harm to the
honor and wellbeing of the family, and subsequently converting it into a
collective harm to the honor and wellbeing of the city. The patriarchy of
condemnation replaced the misogyny of endorsement.
The collective condemnation of rape had its roots in the Italian political
system of city-republics, rather different from the rest of Europe. For Norbert
Elias, societies in Europe underwent a significant transformation between
medieval and early modern times, which was marked by the gradual expansion
of social constraints and their interiorization on behalf of the individual,
especially through the mechanism of shame.31 The transition from warrior to
courtier describes how the open use of power in a politically fragmented
landscape was replaced by civilized conduct at the centralized court, which
enforced a behavioral model of “manners” through a web of social and
economic interdependences.32 This reconstruction implies that sexual violence
was submitted to the same moderation (comparable to farting): The frequency
and scale of mass rape was reduced as the center was able to impose its values
on the rest of the realm. This tendency concluded with the elimination of
sexuality from the viable topics of public discussion in the sixteenth century.33
One may have the impression that by confining sexuality, the “civilizing”
process solved in fact the issue of rape in Europe, and it now belonged only to
the “barbaric” past of the Middle Ages.
However, the fading of sexuality (and sexual violence) from public discourse
does not necessarily mean its removal from everyday life.34 Rape continued to
be a part of domestic and wartime contexts, sometimes documented and
occasionally prosecuted. For instance, even the sporadic records of the
Gonzaga court in Mantua (1490–1700) reveal a wide variety of violent sex
crimes.35 Cases include rape of a woman on pilgrimage and a nun in the
convent, an attempt on a seven-year-old girl, nonconsensual defloration of a
virgin (and a subsequent attack on her mother), a girl raped while tied to the
bed, and gang violence by an armed group of four.36 Nicholas Terpstra’s
investigative work about the House of Compassion in Florence reconstructed
a complex and telling case in the sixteenth century. The orphanage for young
girls facilitated their systematic sexual exploitation by the city’s elite, resulting
in diseases, abortions, and deaths.37 But it is also true that, during this change of
conduct, discourses and images of rape were sanitized, and the indications of

violence and suffering were moderated. The creation of these filtered repre-
sentations, where sexual violence is implied without being fully formulated
and criticized, was a way to balance behavioral expectations with prevalent
practices. In our current understanding, the “civilizing” process shifted the
perception of sexual violence in the public sphere: Denial and sanitization
replaced open endorsement.
Italy is a case apart and complicates this developmental scheme. Instead of a
binary model where misogynistic endorsement is substituted by complicit and
erotized silence, it offers us a more intricate story. In Italy, the true challenge to the
endorsement of sexual violence were the condemnatory political opinions in the
early fourteenth century. The sanitization of rape from the fifteenth century
was not a result of “civilizing” violent behaviors, but a diluted version of the
republican ideology. This had its parallels in the transformation of the political
environment. While Elias focused on the transformation of feudal kingdoms
where the move from chaotic territorialism to monarchial order was straightfor-
ward, the development of Italian city-states led to an alternative urban model. In
the feudal system warriors were turned into courtiers under the beneficial and
strict influence of the sovereign; and as long as European royal and princely courts
tolerated the sanitization of rape, there was no strong incentive to change this
perception. In this courtly context adultery was considered a more likely threat to
the purity of the bloodline and could lead to the execution of the female consort.
Agnese Visconti, wife of Francesco Gonzaga, was beheaded in 1391, Beatrice
Tenda, wife of Filippo Maria Visconti, had the same fate in 1418, and so did
Parisina Malatesta, wife of Niccolò III d’Este, in 1425.38
Female rulers nuance this pattern, even if their attempts might have fostered
sanitizing tendencies: The appearance of fine love in France can be connected to
Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122–1204), whereas Isabella d’Este (1474–1539) had her
fair share in the dissemination of eroticized mythology at noble Italian courts.39
Women-led artistic commissions deviated little from customary subject matter.40
Fina Buzzacarini (d. 1378), consort of lord Francesco da Carrara, exerted
considerable influence over the fresco decoration of the Baptistery in Padua.
Her interventions reflected on female agency in biblical contexts but, in the end,
they emphasized the successful delivery of a male heir.41 Some male rulers appear
to be more inclusive than others, such as Frederick II in his Liber Augustalis (1231).
The status of rape survivors in English literature became an issue in the fourteenth
century: Geoffrey Chaucer, in The Wife of Bath’s Tale (c. 1388–1396), pondered
about the social costs of sexual violence, whereas the anonymous author of Sir
Orfeo (c. 1300) and John Gower in his Confessio Amantis (c. 1386–1390) described
its implications for political power and sovereignty.42 In the court of Philip the
Good of Burgundy (1419–1467), the illuminated manuscripts by the Wavrin
master addressed rape in the context of justice and reparation.43 These examples
show the topicality of the issue in Europe.

INTRODUCTION 11
In Italy these trends manifested on the highest level of political ideology.

The communes developed their own version of propaganda against tyr-
anny.44 Stephen Greenblatt’s observations about the self-fashioning of the
renaissance individual are also applicable here: The common good of the
city-republic was idealized, while principalities were demonized.45 This
propaganda promoted the importance of the common good, justice, free-
dom, and the ordered rule of many, as opposed to the despotism of one.46
Sexual violence was included among the markers of despotism. Even
Niccolò Machiavelli, in The Prince, advised that the ruler should be feared
without incurring hatred, and therefore he should refrain “from laying hands
on the property of his citizens and subjects, and on their womenfolk.”47
Francesco Guicciardini, in the Dialogue on the Government of Florence,
described the Medici rule as tyrannical, but emphasized that “their tyranny
was by the standards of others very mild; for they were not cruel or bloody,
they were not rapacious, they did not violate women or other people’s honor
[violatori di donne o dello onore di altri].”48 Renewed interest in the republican
past of Rome and chiefly the story of Lucretia reinforced this connection,
especially in Florence, but it does not account for all its aspects. Guelfs and
Ghibellines regularly accused each other of committing such war crimes.
Regarding chronicles, the question whether these perceptions might have
been entirely fabricated is legitimate, and I will examine the same atrocities
from parallel viewpoints to prevent the naïve repetition of propagandistic
claims. It is also clear that there are several instances where rape-prone
political leaders admit and glorify the deployment of sexual violence as a
weapon of war.
Besides recycling the trope of the rapacious tyrant, this republican ideology
may have correlated with the relative openness of the political system. In the
communes a larger number of citizens had access to power. This created a less
hierarchical social structure and eventually allowed civic views of the collective
to be visualized. Not all of them condemned rape, but some did, and many of
those had relatives, for whom being violated could have been an actual
experience or a possible scenario. This perspective of the victim generated
different attitudes, which rejected sexual violence and prioritized its condem-
nation. The realization of these civic dimensions varied and had propagandistic
goals. The flourishing of this communal model dates to the thirteenth century,
and by the mid-fourteenth century it was already in decline.49 Discord,
factionalism, surviving feudal privileges, and oligarchical groups all under-
mined the efficacy of communal governance, which led to the formation
(sometimes by force) of seigneurial regimes.50 The democratization of the
political system decreased, and authoritarian states emerged under the rule of
sovereigns. Consequently, the political reality in Italy became comparable to
the rest of early modern Europe.

1.4 PAINTING
Painting, the primary form of visual expression, followed its own trajectory in
the period, which transformed the nature of communal propaganda. Shortly
before 1300, a novel naturalistic style was developed in Rome and Assisi,
which allowed detailed depictions of the human environment.51 It spread to
other parts of the Italian peninsula and the rest of Europe. Besides religious
entities (particularly the papacy and the Franciscan order), many of the com-
munes relied on this new and effective style to broadcast their understanding of
a political community.52 The importance of the first half of the fourteenth
century for civic imagery resided in the coming together of political and visual
factors: Despite the decline of city-republics, some still flourished, and at the
same time a sophisticated and effective pictorial language was finally at their
disposal to serve their communications.53 Many of the painters responsible for
these works were citizens of self-governed communities, which blurs the line
between patron and craftsman and suggests their interest and involvement in
civic iconography. Although they did not reject aristocratic patrons, they
showed less reliance on such commissions compared to their fifteenth century
successors, who would consider a court employment their primary goal and
had no issues with lending their brush to sanitized representation of sexual
violence for the satisfaction of their clients.54
This study is about images of rape, which has some consequences for its
scope and methodology. Although I will rely extensively on contemporary
legal and narrative sources, my aim is not to write an empirical history of sexual
violence in Italy. I assume that the difficulty if not the impossibility of such an
undertaking will gradually transpire: The type of documentation required by
such a forensic historical investigation does not exist. The sources available to
us are of a different nature. They indicate how contemporaries perceived and
regulated sexual violence. Instead of reporting what happened, they allow us
to trace how the question of rape became a public concern in the period. This
political understanding was not an isolated phenomenon, but it emerged from
the interaction of several contexts. Rape was discussed and represented in
medicine, law, religion, literature, ancient and contemporary history writing,
and in political thought. It was not a unified concept, its vocabulary and
comprehension differed between these areas. Therefore, the contemporary
perceptions of rape were not in unison, and they varied between endorsement,
sanitization, and condemnation.
Images are exceptional sources to investigate perceptions, since they offer
condensed visual statements as opposed to the sequential nature of textual
arguments. To depict something indicates an interest in and commitment to
the subject matter, and it focalizes opinions. This concentration has nothing to
do with the alleged immediate relation between image and reality: Similarly

INTRODUCTION 13
to their textual counterparts, visual signs are cultural constructs and not direct
imprints of the real.55 Furthermore, the vast majority of the representations do
not depict factual events, and in the handful of examples where this is the case,
compositional and iconographic considerations can still overwrite the photo-
graphic documentation of incidents. In painting, naturalistic representation
does not equal direct representation of an empirical reality. This independence
of the image should not be considered a deficiency; on the contrary, it is this
freedom that allows the visual to formulate different ideas and expresses similar
ideas differently.
In the period texts were the primary sources of the imagery. In this respect
legal, literary, or historical content, just to name a few, do control several
components of the image. I will build on this dependence but, instead of
establishing and prioritizing such derivations, I believe the symbiotic relation
between the textual and the visual to be the key here. Texts do not fully
regulate images; they generate a complex hermeneutical link to them. The
image transposes a narrative etude, discursive argument, or poetic metaphor
into the visual realm. In this process, aspects of the text are retained or
eliminated, and some new elements are added. By default, the image develops
a new commentary of the text and, at the same time, the text remains present
to reinterpret the image as a particular statement about itself. This general
characteristic of visual sources can be particularly important for the question of
sexual violence. If the text endorses or condemns rape but the image does not
show the assault, then the representation becomes a form of denial. In such
images, absence could be more significant than any representational content.
Similarly, sanitized images can soften the endorsement or weaken the con-
demnation of sexual violence, which may otherwise dominate the text.
A condemnatory image may challenge the misogynistic focus of its source
and document radical perceptions absent in writing. Even if the image
reinforces the message of the text and vice versa, this correlation results more
in a dynamic alignment of attitudes rather than in a monolithic view. The
combination of these two elements can therefore lead to multiple messages,
where the beholder is caught between diverging or converging textual and
visual ideologies, and to some extent compelled to reflect on, if not to resolve,
the difference. Again, this variability is not a deficiency but an expression of
plurality in painting and writing about sexual violence, which shows that,
instead of belonging to a strict coda, these ideas and perceptions were very
much in flux.
Besides texts, images are also influenced by other images. However, the
dynamic link between text and image implies the futility of a reductive visual
history on rape. Such visual history would presuppose an uninterrupted chain
of images, where contents, compositions, and gestures are transferred from
representation to representation in an orderly manner. Although sometimes

this is the case, and manuscript traditions together with workshop practices can
lead to the reuse of preexisting models, many examples appear to be new visual
inventions. The originality of the composition can signal the importance of the
subject matter and the authenticity of the attitude, but this cannot be ruled out
for recycled images either. Whenever possible, I will identify visual derivations
with the caveat that recognizing the compositional source does not establish
the significance of a representation, which is dependent on iconographic and
contextual considerations. Despite the role of pictorial prototypes, the impact
of images was primarily the result of the dynamic interaction with the experi-
ences, ideals, and aspirations of their intended audiences, which can be traced
in a variety of written sources.
Depicting rape in this period ultimately meant inventing or bringing
together visual codes of violence and sexuality. The pictorial shift toward
naturalism around 1300 had at least two major consequences. Firstly, it facili-
tated a move from a notational visual language of gestures toward a complex
rendering of bodies and their interaction. Even metonymical strategies profited
from the detailed representation of swords (referring to the penis) or openings
(referring to the vagina). The grabbing of the wrist no longer sufficed to
indicate sexual aggression: Various parts of the body were seized, clothes were
torn off, and women could be attacked in bedrooms and pools or on streets
and roads. However, the change from indication to enactment was ambiguous:
It increased the possibility for empathy with the victim but also with the
perpetrator. It permitted the sanitization of rape imagery through the gradual
nudity of the female victim, even if nudity in itself was not necessarily the
source of the erotic.56 Combined with violence, the images could turn into a
form of sado-eroticism, to use Madeline H. Caviness’ term, where in a scopic
scenario the male viewer found gratification in the sexualized agony of the
female body.57 Rape in this respect became part of medieval and early renais-
sance representations of torture and violence.58 Secondly, naturalism allowed
the extended cognitive framing of scenes, which was particularly important
to establish the context of endorsement or condemnation. Narrative and
allegorical sequences could guide the interpretation and, hence, the reception
of the images. This control was exactly required because of the amplified
expressivity of the representations. Without such interpretative frames, the
explicit imagery was bound to become eroticized – the trajectory it followed
in early modernity.
I have noted that the imagery reflects primarily the intentions of its com-
missioners and painters: They speak with a male voice, and they presuppose a
male gaze. We know very little about these patronal and authorial intentions
apart from the intricate visual and textual patterns that have come down to us.
In any case, patriarchal attitudes appear to dominate various forms of endorse-
ment, denial, or condemnation, and sanitization is linked to voyeuristic male

INTRODUCTION 15
preferences. The context of viewing of this imagery varied between the

intimacy of erotic poems, the restricted access to richly illustrated manuscripts
or wedding chests for the ruling elite, shared use of textbooks by lawyers,
political circles of influence for chroniclers, and public murals in churches or
civic buildings, meant for the urban community. Although fragmented and
marginalized, in some cases the presence and, hence, influence of female
audiences can be hypothesized. Constance of Sicily must have had her
thoughts about Peter of Eboli’s poem for Emperor Henry VI about the
glorification of violence, and so did Sancia of Mallorca about patriarchal
control in the Ancient History until Caesar for King Robert of Anjou.
Nicolosa di Luigi Guicciardini presumably appreciated the patriotism of the
panel showing the Taking of Pisa in Piero Capponi’s residence, with whom she
had seven children. Similarly, Giotto’s allegories of Injustice and Justice for
Enrico Scrovegni may also have been destined for his new wife, Jacopina
d’Este. Ambrogio Lorenzetti had three daughters in 1348, some of them
certainly born before the painting of War for the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena.
Whenever possible, I will highlight how female beholders complicate the
reception of the imagery. Although the impact of these representations on
the everyday life of women may have been minimal, they did have the
potential to question stereotypes and transform behavioral patterns. And, even
if the eventual failure of this imagery may signal its ineffectiveness, its existence
shows that at the dawn of the Italian Renaissance another politics of sexuality
was possible.
NOTES
1 Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Bantam, 1976),
6–34.
2 On wartime rape: Kathy L. Gaca, “Girls, Women, and the Significance of Sexual Violence
in Ancient Warfare,” in Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones, ed. Elizabeth Heineman
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 73–88; Anne Curry, “The Theory
and Practice of Female Immunity in the Medieval West,” in Sexual Violence in Conflict
Zones, ed. Elizabeth Heineman (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011),
174–188; Raphaëlle Branche and Fabrice Virgili (eds.), Viols en temps de guerre (Paris:
Payot&Rivages, 2013); and Michela Ponzani, Guerra alle donne: partigiane, vittime di stupor,
‘amanti del nemico’ 1940–45 (Turin: Einaudi, 2012), 171–52.
3 Alexandra Stiglmayer, “The War in Former Yugoslavia,” in Mass Rape: The War against
Women in Bosnia Herzegovina, ed. Alexandra Stiglmayer (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1994), 14–26. See also articles 7 (1) (g) 1–6, article 8 (2) (b) (xxii) 1–6, and article 8 (2)
(e) (vi) 1–6 in the International Criminal Court’s Elements of Crimes (The Hague:
International Criminal Court, 2011), 8–10, 28–30, and 36–39; and United Nations
Security Council Resolutions 1325 (2000), 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960
(2010), 2106 (2013), and 2122 (2013).
4 Catharine A. MacKinnon, “Turning Rape into Pornography: Postmodern Genocide,” in
Mass Rape: The War against Women in Bosnia Herzegovina, ed. Alexandra Stiglmayer
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), 73–81, at 74.

5 Maria Eriksson, Defining Rape: Emerging Obligations for States under International Law?
(Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2011), 259–339.
6 Article 7 (1) (g) 1–6 in the International Criminal Court’s Elements of Crimes (2002).
7 Corinne Saunders, Rape and Ravishment in the Literature of Medieval England (Cambridge:
D. S. Brewer, 2001), 1–33.
8 Mieke Bal, “Scared to Death,” in The Point of Theory: Practices of Cultural Analysis, ed. Mieke
Bal and Inge E. Boer (New York: Continuum, 1994), 36–39. For the critical implications of
a historical approach toward rape: Roy Porter, “Rape – Does It Have a Historical
Meaning?,” in Rape, ed. Sylvana Tomaselli and Roy Porter (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1986), 216–236.
9 Joanna Bourke, Rape: A History from 1860 to the Present Day (London: Virago, 2007), 5–18.
For a reconstruction of the tendencies in France from sixteenth to twentieth centuries:
Georges Vigarello, Histoire du viol XVIe–XXe siècle (Paris: Seuil, 1998). For a systematic
review of the atrocities against women in Hungary and on the challenges of historical
documentation: Andrea Pető, Elmondani az elmondhatatlant [Telling the Untellable]
(Budapest: Jaffa, 2018), 9–31.
10 Jennifer L. Airey, The Politics of Rape: Sexual Atrocity, Propaganda Wars, and the Restoration
Stage (Newark: University of Delaware, 2012), 1–30; Amanda C. Pipkin, Rape in the
Republic, 1609–1725: Formulating Dutch Identity (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
11 John Horne and Alan Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2001), 196–202 and 302–306; Ruth Harris, “The ‘Child of the
Barbarian:’ Rape, Race and Nationalism in France during the First World War Author,”
Past&Present 141 (1993): 170–206.
12 Louise Edwards, “Drawing Sexual Violence in Wartime China: Anti-Japanese Propaganda
Cartoons,” The Journal of Asian Studies 72 (2013): 563–586.
13 Diane Wolfthal, Images of rape: the “heroic” tradition and its alternatives (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999), 7–99.
14 Cristelle L. Baskins, Cassone Painting, Humanism and Gender in Early Modern Italy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 128–187; Jerzy Miziołek, “Florentine
Marriage Chests Depicting the Story of Lucretia and the War with Giangaleazzo
Visconti,” in Art and Politics, ed. Francis Ames-Lewis and Piotr Paszkiewicz (Warsaw:
Institute of Art, 1999), 31–43; Yael Even, “Commodifying Images of Sexual Violence
in Sixteenth-Century Italian Art,” Source: Notes in the History of Art 20 (2001): 13–19;
Yael Even, “The Emergence of Sexual Violence in Quattrocento Florentine Art,”
Fifteenth-Century Studies 27 (2002): 113–128; Yael Even, “On the Art and Life of
Collective Sexual Violence in Renaissance Italy,” Source: Notes in the History of Art
23 (2004): 7–14.
15 Ruth Mazo Karras, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing unto Others (New York: Routledge,
2005), 87–149.
16 Foucault’s planned text on the late Middle Ages has not been written, his views can be
inferred from the introductory volume and the posthumous publication on late-antiquity.
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality – An Introduction, tr. Robert Hurley (New York:
Vintage Books, 1990), 17–35. During a roundtable discussion in 1977 he suggested that the
definition of rape should focus exclusively on the physical aggression involved in the act
and disregard its sexual aspects. He drew a parallel between a punch in the face and the
thrust of the penis into the vagina, claiming that they represented the same type of physical
violence. Michel Foucault, Politics, Philosophy, Culture, tr. Alan Sheridan and others (New
York: Routledge, 1988), 200–204. Although this was a step toward the liberation of the
body from sexual compartmentalization, the proposition disregarded the perspective of the
victim. Sexual difference remains a constitutive aspect of these offenses. Monique Plaza,
“Our Damages and Their Compensation. Rape: The Will Not to Know of Michel
Foucault,” Feminist Issues 1 (1981): 25–35.

INTRODUCTION 17
17 Robert Mills, Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
2015), 1–24.
18 For reassessments of medieval queer studies: Karl Whittington, “Queer,” Studies in
Iconography 33 (2012): 157–168; Karl Whittington, “Medieval Intersex in Theory,
Practice, and Representation,” Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies 9 (2018):
231–247; and Roland Betancourt, Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender, and Race in
the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020), 121–160.
19 Leah DeVun, The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2021), 134–162.
20 Michael Camille, The Medieval Art of Love (London: Laurence King, 1998), 8–25 and
94–155.
21 David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1989), 317–377.
22 Jill Burke, The Italian Renaissance Nude (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), 93–157.
For the European context: Thomas Kren, Jill Burke, and Stephen J. Campbell (eds.), The
Renaissance Nude (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2018).
23 Una Roman D’Elia, The Poetics of Titian’s Religious Paintings (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005), 69–76.
24 James Grantham Turner, Eros Visible: Art, Sexuality and Antiquity in Renaissance Italy (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 12-192.
25 Bette Talvacchia, Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance Culture (Princeton: Princeton
26 Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, tr. Rosalind Brown-Grant (London:
Penguin, 1999), 147 (II, 44).
27 Virginia Cox, Women’s Writing in Italy, 1400–1650 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2008), 1–36.
28 Laura Cereta, Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist, ed. and tr. Diana Robin (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1997), 70–71.
29 Cassandra Fedele, Letters and Orations, ed. and tr. Diana Robin (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2000), 23.
30 Elizabeth S. Cohen, “The Trials of Artemisia Gentileschi: A Rape as History,” The
Sixteenth Century Journal 31 (2000): 47–75; and Elizabeth S. Cohen, “No Longer Virgins:
Self-Presentation by Young Women in Late Renaissance Rome,” in Refiguring Women:
Perspectives on Gender and the Italian Renaissance, ed. Marilyn Migiel and Juliana Schiesari
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 169–191.
31 Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, tr. Edmund Jephcott, rev. ed. (Malden: Blackwell,
2000), 365–379 (4.1) and 414–421 (4.6).
32 Elias, The Civilizing Process, 236–256.
33 Elias, The Civilizing Process, 142–160.
34 Hans Peter Duerr persuasively argued that, far from being eradicated, sexual violence
subversively persisted after the sixteenth century up to the present days (together with
other forms of obscenity). Hans Peter Duerr, Obszönität und Gewalt (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp,
1993), 391–412.
35 Matteo Bernardelli, “Il diritto sessuale: crimine e peccato all Corte dei Gonzaga,” in ‘El più
soave et dolce et dilectevole et gratioso bochone’ – Amore e sesso al tempo dei Gonzaga, ed.
Constantino Cipolla and Giancarlo Malacarne (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2006), 87–123, at
92–103 and 110–115.
36 Constantino Cipolla and Giancarlo Malacarne (eds.), ‘El più soave et dolce et dilectevole et
gratioso bochone’ – Amore e sesso al tempo dei Gonzaga (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2006), 366–367,
419–420, 444–445, and 454–458.
37 Nicholas Terpstra, Lost Girls: Sex and Death in Renaissance Florence (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2012).

38 Élisabeth Crouzet-Pavan and Jean-Claude Marie Vigueur, Décapitées: Trois femmes dans
l’Italie de la Renaissance (Paris: Albin Michel, 2018), 21–52 and 70–80.
39 Joan Kelly, “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” in Joan Kelly, Women, History and Theory:
The Essays of Joan Kelly, ed. Joan Kelly (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 19–50.
Kelly’s interpretation underlines the freedom of upper-class women before the Renaissance
and considers courtly love as a genuine expression of respect toward the lady. See Chapter 6
for further discussion of the French material. For Isabella d’Este and her art patronage:
Constantino Cipolla, “Introduzione,” in ‘El più soave et dolce et dilectevole et gratioso bochone’ –
Amore e sesso al tempo dei Gonzaga, ed. Constantino Cipolla and Giancarlo Malacarne
(Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2006), 9–44, at 33–40; Stephen Campbell, The Cabinet of Eros:
Renaissance Mythological Painting and the Studiolo of Isabella d’Este (New Haven: Yale
40 See, for instance, the works commissioned by Queen Marie of Brabant: Tracy Chapman
Hamilton, Pleasure and Politics at the Court of France: The Artistic Patronage of Queen Marie of
Brabant (1260–1321) (London: Harvey Miller, 2019).
41 Anne Derbes, Ritual, Gender & Narrative in Late Medieval Italy: Fina Buzzacarini and the
Baptistery of Padua (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), 35–65 and 263–324.
42 Suzanne M. Edwards, The Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature (London: Palgrave,
2016), 82–135.
43 Rosalind Brown-Grant, Visualizing Justice in Burgundian Prose Romance: Text and Image in
Manuscripts of the Wavrin Master (1450s–1460s) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), 167–230.
44 Louis Green, “The Image of Tyranny in Early Fourteenth-Century Italian Historical
Writing,” Renaissance Studies 7 (1993): 335–351 and E. Igor Mineo, “Necessità della
tirannide. Governo autoritario e ideologia della comunità nella prima metà del
Trecento,” in Tiranni e tirannide nel Trecento italiano, ed. Andrea Zorzi (Rome: Viella,
2013), 59–75.
45 Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1980), 9.
46 Lauro Martines, Power and Imagination: City-states in Renaissance Italy (London: Allen Lane,
1979), 149–175; Fabrizio Ricciardelli, The Myth of Republicanism in Renaissance Italy
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 31–67.
47 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, ed. and tr. Quentin Skinner and Russell Price
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 59 (XVII).
48 Francesco Guicciardini, Dialogue on the Government of Florence, ed. and tr. Alison Brown
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 23.
49 Giuliano Milani, I comuni italiani (Bari: Laterza, 2005), 108–158.
50 Philip Jones, The Italian City-State: From Commune to Signoria (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997),
521–650.
51 John White, The Birth and Rebirth of Pictorial Space (London: Faber and Faber, 1967), 19–56.
52 Hans Belting, “Das Bild als Text: Wandmalerei,” in Malerei und Stadtkultur in der Dantezeit:
die Argumentation der Bilder, ed. Hans Belting and Dieter Blume (Munich: Hirmer, 1989),
23–64; and Klaus Krüger, Politik der Evidenz: Öffentliche Bilder als Bilder der Öffentlichkeit im
Trecento (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2015).
53 A comprehensive study of this communal visual propaganda in painting remains a desider-
atum. Helene Wieruszowski, “Art and the Commune in the Time of Dante,” Speculum 19
(1944): 14–33; Brendan Cassidy, Politics, Civic Ideals and Sculpture in Italy, c. 1240–1400
(London: Harvey Miller, 2007), 87–149 and 201–229.
54 Martin Warnke, The Court Artist: On the Ancestry of the Modern Artist, tr. David McLintock
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 1–74.
55 W. J. T. Mitchell, “What Is an Image?” New Literary History 15 (1984): 503–537.
56 Sherry C. M. Lindquist, “The Meanings of Nudity in Medieval Art: An Introduction,” in
The Meanings of Nudity in Medieval Art, ed. Sherry C. M. Lindquist (Burlington: Ashgate,
2012), 1–45.

INTRODUCTION 19
57 Madeline H. Caviness, Visualizing Women in the Middle Ages: Sight, Spectacle and Scopic
Economy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 84–85.
58 Robert Mills, Suspended Animation: Pain, Pleasure and Punishment in Medieval Culture
(London: Reaktion Books, 2005), 106–144; Scott Nethersole, Art and Violence in Early
Renaissance Florence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), 39–143; Assaf Pinkus, Visual
Aggression: Image of Martyrdom in Late Medieval Germany (University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2021), 82–96. Mills and Pinkus attempted to soften Caviness’ conclusions
about the gratification of the male gaze through the historical framing of the imagery.
I believe that the sado-eroticism of these representations, intentional or not, remains their
fundamental aspect.

TWO
VICTIMS OF LUST
T he general matrix of medieval misogyny was based on women’s corporeal

and moral inferiority as opposed to men, and found its ultimate biblical
justification in the second version of the Creation (Genesis 2:18–23).1 After
shaping [formavit] Adam from the slime of earth, God constructs [aedificavit] Eve
from Adam’s rib, and she becomes bone of his bones, flesh of his flesh. Despite
the existence of the first version (Genesis 1:27), where God creates [creavit] man
and woman at the same time and to his image, the second version will position
the female from the beginning as a bodily derivate of the male. This inferiority
acquires further moral dimension with the Fall (Genesis 3:1–7): the serpent
approaches Eve, who will eat from the forbidden fruit and give it to Adam.
The female is the one who is responsible for the hardships and sufferings of
earthly existence, because of her proneness to transgression and deceit. The
widespread dissemination of this second version to all strata of society con-
tinued to maintain and reinforce negative stereotypical attitudes toward
women in the Middle Ages and beyond.
Violent treatment of women linking punishment and arousal can be wit-
nessed in the decoration of the Chapel of the Magi in the San Petronius basilica
in Bologna (Figure 2.1). The program is connected to the last will of
Bartolomeo Bolognini in 1408, a silk merchant and leading figure in the
commune.2 The will stipulated that the chapel should be painted “by a single
good painter” and he, among other things, should show the “glory of eternal
life” and “infernal punishments as horrible as he can.”3 This prescription
20

VICTIMS OF LUST 21
2.1. Giovanni da Modena, Hell, after 1408, fresco, Chapel of the Magi, San Petronius
basilica, Bologna. Photo library of the Federico Zeri Foundation.
indicates the relative liberty accorded to the painter, possibly Giovanni da

Modena, but it also shows that there was a broad, common understanding of
the Last Judgement and Hell to draw on.4 The painter certainly complied with
the instructions, and presented a detailed panorama of tortured souls and
their bodies.
The pit of Lust [LUXURIA] is placed on the lowest level, below Envy
[INVIDIA] and Gluttony [GOLA] on the left side of Satan. We will see the
strong connection between lust and gluttony was customary in the period.
Here, on the rock dividing the two craters, a young naked woman is lying on
her back while a winged demon is forcing a skewer with food into her mouth
(Figure 2.2). The elements of eating relate to the nearby sinners of gluttony,
who are offered food on plates they cannot touch or on long skewers that
impale them before reaching it. The punishment for excessive eating is mixed
with references to corporeal violence since it is difficult to disregard here
phallic associations. The demon kneels on her chest between the breasts, and
he is choking her to keep her mouth open. Her hair is disheveled, which
presumably stands for her disorderly sexual behavior. She is trying to push back
the right arm of her torturer and lift his leg from her chest. Signs of violence
and her resistance are overwhelmingly clear. She is one of the few figures in

2.2 Giovanni da Modena, Lust, detail of Hell, after 1408, fresco, Chapel of the Magi, San
Petronius basilica, Bologna. Photo library of the Federico Zeri Foundation.
the overcrowded cycle who establishes direct eye-contact with the viewer.
Her figure is carefully choreographed between decorum and exposure. The
breasts are emphatically visible, whereas her genitalia are hidden by her raised
leg and the demon’s flippered-foot. Giovanni da Modane presents an attractive
and abused female body. The contextual reference to her immoderate hunger
and uncontrolled lust endorses the violence inflicted on her.
Below this emblematic scene, the pit comprises several lustful sinners.
A crowned male figure shrieks when two dog-headed demons torment him
with fiery pincers from behind. He is probably an adulterer (and not a
fornicator, kings were likely to be married) facing his partner, whose hands
are similarly tied behind her back. She is not targeted for the moment, but her
elaborate hairstyle stands for her vanity. Their bodies appear to touch each
other by the genitalia, he is steeping between her legs, possibly as an indication
of heterosexual contact. Below them, a sodomite is skewered from anus to
mouth and roasted. The connection to his companion is underlined, since he
locks his gaze with his partner, who is holding the other end of the skewer in
his mouth. Although less evident, the grey-haired man on the right might also
be a sodomite. His chest is flogged and a demon on the right knees him in the
penis and pulls his head back by the hair.

VICTIMS OF LUST 23
In the center of the pit a young woman is walking away from her fanged
persecutor. Three fiery serpents revolve around her legs and body, her hands
are tied behind the back. Her hair is done similarly as the partner in crime of
the king, a strong indicator of vanity. She is presumably linked to the tonsured
friar behind her, whom she seduced and thus committed the sin of sacrilege by
violating his vow of chastity. They mirror each other’s movements, which
visually underlines the connection between the two. The friar is flogged with
thorny twigs, the woman is not hit at this moment. There is an uncanny
dynamic between she and her tormentor: Their gazes lock, similarly to the
sodomites, as if she is disarming him with her look. Her body is presented in
her full attractive glory and her half-way turned pose highlights her breasts
even more, while the genitalia remain hidden. She is not simply depicted
naked, she is a female nude, since the absence of clothes reinforces her beauty,
idealized for the male audience. Surrounded by adulterers, fornicators, and
sodomites, the context of lust justifies her detention, but the painter opted this
time for a seductive presence, which is about to be physically violated. She
stands in contrast to the other, who is about to be force-fed on the rock above
her: The aggression displays her future and at the same time she embodies the
reason for the aggression. Use of force is endorsed as a legitimate response to
female beauty. In the semiotics of the fresco, the removal of genitalia from
sight further sanitizes this violence: Penises and vulvas are hidden, so the actual
organs of lust are eliminated. Furthermore, placed above the impaled sodom-
ite, the difference between the two transgressions is highlighted. The
instrument-driven punishment of sodomy appears sadistic, where human
contact is relegated to the operation of the machinery. Sexual aspects of the
encounter are displayed as repulsive through the violation of the anus. The use
of force is about discarding this form of intercourse. In contrast, her corporeal
presence invites physical contact and presents heterosexual exchange as desir-
able and obtainable even by force.
The women in the San Petronius basilica were part of a religious rhetoric
that ran into unresolvable difficulties when defining lust, violence, and binary
sexuality in the context of sin. The rejection of corporeal pleasure concludes in
a sadomasochistic fantasy: The violation of female and male bodies.
To understand this contradiction, some parameters for the representation of
rape in the medieval church need to be established. While several contexts that
I will cover in the second part of the book can be labeled as secular in the sense
that they do not directly depend on biblical or broader religious sources, it
remains that romances, chronicles, or political allegories do not fully escape
from the fundamental matrix of Latin Christianity. What I offer here is neither
a final nor a comprehensive survey: Views on sexual violence were complex
within Christianity itself, and this complexity found its way to the rich
imagery.5 Defining the visual culture of sexual violence, therefore, is not a

straightforward exercise. Even the sweeping judgment about omnipresent

religious misogyny and the tacit endorsement of rape can be questioned, as
critical representations appear in Picture Bibles from the twelfth century in
France; and they accompany Old Testament narratives such as the rape of the
Levite’s wife, Dinah or Tamar.6 By 1362, Cristoforo Orimina depicted Dinah’s
abduction against her will in the Picture Bible for the head of the Celestine
order Matteo de Planisio in Naples, which indicates familiarity with the French
prototypes.7
To recall, any attempt to talk about rape in the Middle Ages is caught in
the negative views on human sexual activity. Since (nonmarital) intercourse
was anyhow considered sinful, the violent component aggravated but did not
essentially change the category of the act. Rape was sanctioned not as a
violation but as a form of corporeal pleasure, and the medieval statements
are bound to be insufficient from our contemporary perspective. Broadly
speaking, these views represented an amalgam of Christian condemnation of
human sexuality and the social compartmentalization of rape victims in
Roman law, which equally influenced theological distinctions and secular
legislation. Under various rubrics, freeborn Roman women (daughters and
wives) could press rape charges in Antiquity, but this right was not accorded to
prostitutes, foreigners, or slaves.8 The Roman laws were primarily concerned
with the sexual integrity of women, an important asset for the family (for their
husbands and fathers) rather than the physical injury to female victim. Social
compartmentalization characterized the Lombard legislation, drawn up by
King Rothari (643).9 This misogynistic standpoint was compatible with
Christian views on lust and women as sinful temptresses. A telling example
is the Dominican friar St Thomas Aquinas, who in the Summa Theologiae
(c. 1265–1274) offered one possible synthesis of the prevailing views on
sexual violence in the period.10 This well-known work is indicative of a
variety of opinions, since it attempted a reconciliatory summary of differing
interpretations.11
Aquinas examined rape under the questions on lust [luxuria].12 In line with
the medieval understanding, lust was considered a vice.13 It was the corruption
of the virtue of chastity [castitas] which required only moderation of bodily
pleasure and not necessarily complete abstinence – virginity [virginitas]. On the
other hand, Aquinas established that some acts in the service of Venus can be
regarded good, providing they are performed to their correct end, in an
appropriate manner and order. Evoking St Augustine’s authority, this end
was the preservation of humanity, similarly to the role of food in the preserva-
tion of the individual.14 Such activity aiming at procreation was without sin if
it remained a rational exercise devoid of lust.15 He even called it necessary for
the “common good” [bonum commune], which had allusions to the good of the
commune [bonum communis].16 The ordered practice of sexuality not only

VICTIMS OF LUST 25
saved the individual from the sin of lust (and eternal damnation), but it also
assured the flawless functioning of the political community here and now.
From this presentation it is clear that disturbances in the process of
procreation qualified as lust. The catalog of transgressions, largely based on
Gratian’s Decretum and to some extent the Roman legal matrix, comprised
simple fornication [fornicatio simplex], adultery or intercourse with a married
woman [adulterium], incest [incestum], intercourse with a virgin [stuprum],
abduction [raptus], sacrilege or intercourse with a nun [sacrilegium], and sodomy
or a vice against nature [vitium contra naturam].17 Aquinas relied on two
fundamental notions while banning these practices.18 First, whether the sexual
act could actually generate an offspring to be raised in a family. Fornication,
the union of unmarried people, was discarded since it cannot offer a lawful
home to the child and therefore destroyed the fabric of society.19 Gratian
specifically listed widows, prostitutes, and concubines, and, although
Aquinas broadened this to a general category, his explanation also referred
to prostitutes.20 Second, vice against nature covered masturbation and all
forms of non-vaginal intercourse, regardless of the species (bestiality) or sex
(sodomy) of the participants, and it was banned because of the biological
impossibility of conceiving a child.21 These two distinctions demarcated
sexual activity outside wedlock and branded them sinful with all its theo-
logical, moral, and social implications. It is also evident that, during these
acts, aggression was an irrelevant factor – in terms of canon law, one could
not violate a prostitute or a concubine, and rape was not recognized
between same-sex partners.
The medieval economy of sexual violence concerned female victims, who
had some sort of protected status due to their social situation: virgins, wives,
and nuns.22 Intercourse with them already came under the rubric of lust, but
it was more problematic since it threatened the prevailing order of sexuality:
The ability of the virgin to start a family, the role of the wife in maintaining
the bloodline, and the spiritual union of the nun with the Lord. The status of
the victim added a second-level consideration to the sin of lust. Moreover,
the use of force was mentioned in relation to abduction.23 In this respect, one
can say that rape was recognized as a crime, but it was relegated to a third-tier
discourse on sexuality, ranking behind general considerations about lust and
specific considerations about the status of the victim. For Aquinas, and in
canon law, the absence of a straightforward terminology further weakened
this recognition. The Latin words denoted intercourse with a virgin [stuprum],
a married woman [adulterium], or a nun [sacrilegium], and they did not indicate
the use of force. They became rape when they were combined with abduc-
tion [raptus], but violence could equally refer to the removal from the family
home (against her or her guardian’s will) and the breach of the hymen. The
closing article of the Summa Theologiae on the section of lust summarized

these differences (still ranking the unnatural vices, such as sodomy, the
highest):
Now it is more against reason to make use of the venereal act not only
with prejudice to the future offspring, but also so as to do harm [iniuria]
to another person besides. Wherefore simple fornication, which is com-
mitted without harm to another person, is the least grave among the
species of lust. Then, it is a greater harm to have intercourse with a
woman who is subject to another’s authority as regards the act of
generation, than as regards merely her guardianship. Wherefore adultery
is more grievous than intercourse with a virgin. And both are aggravated
by the use of violence [per violentiam]. Hence abduction and rape [raptus]
of a virgin is graver than intercourse with a virgin, and abduction and
rape [raptus] of a wife than adultery. And all these are aggravated by
coming under the head of sacrilege.24
In this conclusion Aquinas neatly followed his previous points, but he also
made clear the hierarchy of transgressions. Unlike Gratian, he linked abduction
to married women and shifted slightly the emphasis from capture to the use of
force.25 In the end, the reference to violence related the issue to the problem of
consent. It echoed Pope Alexander III’s decretal Veniens ad nos (undated,
probably after 1176), stating that a valid marriage required in the first place
free and voluntary consent on both sides and not only sexual intercourse.26
This change in canon law intended to reduce the legal possibility of marriage
by abduction, and therefore by rape. From a theological perspective, Aquinas
account of lust and violence did not accord a place for same-sex aggression. It
followed a tradition prevalent in Latin Christianity from the twelfth century
that persecuted male–male relations under the banner of sodomy.27
Although marriage was a matter for canon law and the church, it had
implications for the urban community and therefore it was regulated in secular
law. During the thirteenth century, consent gradually became a key compon-
ent of rape legislation across Europe.28 In Italy, the general conceptual matrix
of sex crimes operated with comparable distinctions but, given the geograph-
ical and chronological spread of statutes, several variations emerged. Based on
earlier rules and privileges of urban life, around 1200 statutory law already had
authority over Roman law in the city-states.29 Maria Grazia Nico Ottaviani
noted the focus on abduction, which characterizes early legislation.30 The
twelfth-century Pisan constitution considered abduction in the context of a
valid marriage without referencing sexual violence.31 The statutes of the
Podestà of Colle Val d’Elsa in 1341 differentiated between abduction of and
intercourse with women by force [per vim carnaliter cognite] and reserved the
right to torture the suspects, like in the case of murder and robbery.32 The
statutes of Montepulciano (1337) included the tariff for virgins (hundred lire)
and stipulated that, in case both parties were unmarried, the perpetrator could

VICTIMS OF LUST 27
be excused of the fine if he espoused her.33 It also made a distinction between

adultery with or without abduction. In the statutes of Rome (1363), abductors
of children or girls were hanged if they were caught, and the punishment
could not be revoked.34
The focus on abduction was gradually complemented with a similar
emphasis on the marital status of the female victim.35 In the statutes of
S. Maria a Monte (1391), violence against virgins, nuns, widows, and married
women is condemned, although a distinction is made between violent behav-
ior or coercion [sforzerà] and subsequent rape [per forza carnalmente cognoscerà].36
Rape of virgins and nuns triggered a penalty of 200 lire, which could be
waived by marriage if the victim consented, and intercourse with a married
woman against her will was penalized three times higher, at 600 lire. If the
violent act against them excluded “knowing them carnally,” the tariff dropped
to 50 lire. In Montepulciano, legal protection did not apply to prostitutes and
women of bad fame, but victims could bring five witnesses to prove their
honest status.37 In the statutes of Gualdo Cattaneo (1483), the rape [violenter seu
per vim carnaliter cognoverit] of married women, virgins, and widows of good
fame is followed by capital punishment.38 The punishment for consensual
fornication with a married woman is put at 100 lire, whereas carnal knowledge
of a common women is at 25 lire. Prostitutes were often explicitly mentioned
in the legal texts and deprived of the possibility to press rape charges.39
Importantly, social stratification can sometimes be observed regarding the
aggressors. In the statutes of Bologna (1288), knights, magnates, and their sons
paid 50 lire for adultery, whereas a commoner was charged 300 and the female
participant 100 lire.40 However, if he raped a widow or a virgin [strupum
comiserit in viduam vel virginem per vim], he was to be punished financially and
in his person at the discretion of the magistrate. The legislation in Bologna
protected to some extent the sexual privileges of powerful male citizens. In
Rome, somewhat contrarily, women who claimed to be forced [dicerit se esse
exfortiatam] had two months to press charges, after that the crime lapsed. Once
they did and it was upheld, there was a significantly different penalty for nobles
(2,000 lire) and commoners (50 lire).41 This entry appears to discourage
members of the aristocracy from taking advantage of women of lesser status.
On the other hand, the emphasis on marital status is not omnipresent. The
statutes of Chianciano (1287) forbid, without specifying social status, lying with
a woman [nessuno stupri giacendosi con lei] or committing violence against her.42
They proposed a punishment of 25 lire and the construction of five feet of the
communal wall for each “breach” [infrazione], but only if she cried out for
help. In the thirteenth-century the statutes of Volterra envisaged a fine of
100 lire for those who did violence to any woman against their will [fecerit
violentiam alicui mulieri ultra suam voluntatem], but cautiously (or realistically)
added that the consuls or magistrates might pursuit the matter if it was in their

power.43 In the statutes of Verona (1327) rape was only described circumstan-
tially: The recommended penalty for intercourse with a married or unmarried
woman, with or without her consent, was equally 300 lire for the male party.44
The use of force was only relevant insofar as whether the female victim’s
husband should lose her dowry or pay a fine of 100 lire. If they claimed that the
woman was raped, and they failed to prove it, this triggered another penalty of
100 lire. Here the legislation discouraged rape charges, because they were
considered a loophole to reject the accusation of consensual adultery.
Regarding sodomy and male rape, the initial blanket condemnation (death
by burning) seemed to transform in some cities during the fourteenth century.
Michael Rocke noted that, in Florence, initial legislation in 1325 involved
castration for those who sodomized boys, and a fine of 100 lire for those aged
between 14 and 18 who allowed themselves to be sodomized. In 1365 the
penalty was changed to death by burning for “passive” and “active” partici-
pants, but at the same time the concept of violent sexual assault was intro-
duced, including full absolution for the victim.45 In Siena, on the other hand,
the entry on sodomy in 1309–1310 did not differentiate either between forced
and consensual same-sex intercourses (the penalty was equally 300 lire) or the
age of participants.46 In 1334–1341 the interdiction was significantly extended
and included four age bands (ages 14–20, 20–30, 30–40, and above 40 years)
with gradually increasing penalties (from 100 lire to death by burning).47 The
bands indicate an attempt to punish same-sex relationships between young
boys less severely than those where there is a significant age gap between the
involved parties.
Another key factor for visual representations appears to be the wording of
the statute itself, since it can be formulaic or descriptive. Descriptive legal texts
might facilitate the visualization of the crime. Guido Ruggiero has observed
that in Venice the legal (normative and procedural) language of heterosexual
rape remained antiseptic in the period using standard expressions, especially
compared to the vivid descriptions of sodomy; and this can be generally
accepted for the Italian peninsula.48 Descriptive statutes with narrative details
on heterosexual rape were rare. For instance, the statutes of Montopoli (1360)
obliged the rapist of a virgin to pay 100 lire if he was above 16 years old but it
was waived if he married her. The fine was reduced to 25 lire if he only seized
and threw her on the ground without corrupting her.49 The absence of
narrative details indicates that the legislators were less interested in the physical
circumstances of the aggressions that the social status of the victim. This goes so
far that in some cases attempted rape drew the same penalty. The statutes of
Arezzo in 1327 considered sexual violence in the context of adultery and
similarly punished attempted and actual rape [per vim voluerit cognoscere vel
cognoverit aliquam mulierem].50 This is certainly an inclusive component, never-
theless, social compartmentalization remains, since the statute subscribed a

VICTIMS OF LUST 29
50 lire punishment for women “without a man” and 100 lire for married
women if they were of “honest life and good fame.” In Chapter 5 I will
examine more closely the Paduan and Sienese statutes on sexual violence and
suggest that Giotto’s Injustice and Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s War echo some of the
fundamental points in these legal texts: One making use of narrative descrip-
tion, the other relying more on marital status.
The normative texts on sexual violence does not mean that prosecution
against rape was widespread and successful. Trevor Dean cautioned that,
although the severity of the penalties increased in the second half of the
fourteenth century, this is not matched by an increase of rape cases in the trial
records.51 Samuel K. Cohn even detected a decrease in the prosecution of
violence against women in Florence (matched with a rise in trials against
sodomites).52 The difficulty to prove rape during a trial and fear of shame
may have been a factor in this. Carol Lansing examined a case brought
anonymously in front of Bologna’s criminal court in 1295, where Tomasina,
the victim, initially denied any wrongdoing against herself.53 After the perpet-
rator, Nicolao, admitted the crime (perhaps under torture), testimonies were
submitted about Tomasina’s status, indicating that she was a concubine, not a
lawful wife of someone. Following the character assassination, Nicolao was
convicted and fined probably for false testimony. Nevertheless, the limited
number of documented cases show a variety of transgression and sometimes
include severe violence. Trials in the territorial state of Florence around
1400 included rape of a 5-year-old commoner and an 11-year-old grandniece
roaring from pain, violation of nuns in the convent, kidnapping of women,
and gang violence against an unmarried girl.54 Similarly, the prosecution of
sodomy in Florence reveals several instances of gang rapes and violent assaults
against teenage boys leading to lacerated anuses at least in thirty-three cases.55
The question of consent and concerns around the burden of proof can be
seen in emperor Frederick II Liber Augustalis (1231), which examined in
unusual detail the dilemma of heterosexual rape from a male perspective.
Partially drawing on some legislations of King Roger II and King William II,
the emperor proposed a comprehensive reform to regulate the use of violence
in his realm, which included sex crimes at the beginning of Book One. The
first three articles dealt relatively straightforwardly with various categories of
women. The abduction [raptu] of nuns and novices or violence against them
was punished by death, and the abduction of virgins and widows could no
longer be excused by marrying the victims.56 It also offered legal protection to
prostitutes in a stand-alone article (following William II), which was highly
uncommon in the period. The passage emphasizes their miserable status and
the favor of the ruler forbidding that anybody should compel them to satisfy
“his will if they are unwilling.”57 The penalty was the same as for the
abduction and rape of nuns or novices if the wrongdoing was proven.

Prostitutes were still required to cry out for help and report the crime in eight
days unless they were detained during this time. Adultery is missing from this
discussion and, therefore, dissociated from rape. It is considered in Book
Three, and its focus is on the slitting of the noses of wives who cheat on their
husbands or of mothers who prostitute their daughters.
The emperor and his advisors apparently gave some thought to the pros-
ecution of rape cases.58 Violence against women had often been handled in
Sicily through “judgment by combat,” which the emperor wished to eradi-
cate. However, the question of how to investigate rape charges remained: “for
there is a very great risk for those accusers who can hardly or never prove their
accusations by common proofs since crimes of this kind are hidden from the
observations of men who are able to provide testimony of the truth.”59 As a
remedy, he would agree that confessions or testimonies of eyewitnesses of
sexual intercourse itself are sufficient for conviction and capital punishment.
For cases where this is not possible, he would reserve the right of the victim to
appeal to the emperor himself if the following criteria is met:
But if the real truth of the matter cannot be proved, but it is only proved
that a woman or another in her behalf has three times denounced
someone for tampering with her chastity by his actions or in some other
way to keep him from repeating this illegal presumption of his; and if he
is later found with the woman who is crying out and calling for help of
others with her screams, and if he is found in a struggle, or in flight, or
even in or near the house of this woman, or if he holds the woman
violently beneath him while he opens the guard of her virginity and
corrupts her or attacks her after she has been corrupted, while she is
crying out, we order that his case should be remitted to the knowledge of
our highness.60
Although the passage essentially repeats the customary legal requirements

(crying out for help while the perpetrator is in the house), it attempts to
broaden the definitions and reject some ambiguous defenses such as harmless
courting or accidental trespassing. The following article obligates witnesses
who can hear the victim screaming to run to her assistance (to create more
clarity around these crimes). Ultimately, it is at the discretion of the emperor
how to judge these circumstances. However, to reduce the number of cases,
the concluding articles in the Liber Augustalis targets false testimonies by
women, who would apparently even blackmail men to obtain favorable
marriage offers and threaten them with execution. All in all, despite the
pioneering attempt to legislate in favor of the female victim, the text reasserts
the dominance of the male perspective.
Visual culture was part of this milieu, even if images depict only its minor
segment. In the volumes of statutory law the entries including the ones on
sexual violence were not illustrated.61 The same is true to the medieval copies

VICTIMS OF LUST 31
of emperor Justinian’s Digest or pope Gregory IX’s Decretals, which neverthe-

less frequently received rich frontispieces.62 Susan L’Engle noted that, in civil
law, some limited imagery appears in relation to criminal sentencing of theft
(decapitation and foot-amputation).63 She also insisted that the thirty-six mock
cases of Gratian’s Decretum represents the richest material in terms of legal
iconography in the period.64 Keeping these constraints in mind, I will examine
the visualizations of lust in two sets of visual sources that can provide an insight
into the religious perception of sexual violence in the fourteenth century.
Gratian’s Decretum have been repeatedly and lavishly illustrated in Italy, par-
ticularly in Bologna. These images include cases on marriage, and some depict
rape and abduction scenes. The links and discrepancies between the twelfth
century text and its fourteenth century imagery show attempts to visualize
theological distinctions around marital status and sexuality. The images
remained tied to a normative if not elitist legal discourse, which secured their
recognition but at the same time limited their reach. To get a sense of the
visual material offered to the broader population in the Italian cities, I will turn
to Last Judgement scenes, where the sin of lust figures prominently. The frescoes
in churches expressed rather directly the punishment for illicit sexuality
(including sodomy), and they provide a stark contrast to the nuanced discourse
in canon law.
2.1 SEX CRIMES IN GRATIAN’S DECRETUM
Gratian’s Decretum was presumably completed in two redactions between

1139 and 1158 in Bologna.65 He originally conceived the work as a teaching
aid with limited references to Roman law, which then became dominant in
the second redaction and turned it into the fundamental text of medieval
canon law. The writing, therefore, shows a mixed character where Gratian’s
interpretative passages are brought together with more authoritative state-
ments. It consists of thirty-six mock cases, and the last ten are dedicated to
marriage. The cases usually present a multi-layered situation, which is exam-
ined step-by-step. Several copies of the work were richly illustrated in Paris
and Bologna, and Anthony Melnikas published a monumental edition of this
corpus in 1975.66 The images introduce the corresponding mock cases, and
usually represent some of their episodes, if not the entire story. In this respect,
the illustrations are linked to a narrative, which is in turn scrutinized in the
commentary. The images therefore are not direct depictions of legal terms, but
interpretations of deeds that may have legal implications.
To deal with this material, Melnikas adopted a comparative approach,
where miniatures from various manuscripts were presented under the corres-
ponding cases. This inquiry allowed the diversity of the visual tradition to
emerge. His premise guided specialist studies on rape imagery. Diane Wolfthal

concluded that the illustrations of sexual violence in the Decretum are less
explicit than the ones in the Sachsenspiegel and often blur the line between
seduction and rape, despite the text’s insistence on violence.67 François Garnier
suggested that sometimes removing the belt of a maiden indicates the loss of
virginity, but the ambiguity around consent remains.68 Barbara Pike Gordley
pointed out the significance of taking the wrist or handling the knife in the
context of sexual violence.69 She also briefly signaled that consensual inter-
course was depicted the same way as presumed rape, which may undermine
the possibility of a universal language of poses and gestures.
Notwithstanding the values of the comparative approach, I suggest that
additional insights can be gained by examining the depictions of rape and
consensual adultery in a single manuscript. Cases XXXI, XXXII, XXXIII, and
XXXVI all include some sort of illicit sexual union with a varying degree of
coercion. By contrasting the miniatures in a single manuscript, the slight
alterations within its visual language can be detected. The gestures have a
higher consistency vis-à-vis to each other within the same work, a micro-
cosmos of visual creation on its own. I examine the changing legal and
narrative aspects of the cases in two sets of illuminations: In the Decretum
now in the Vatican and the one in Geneva.70 Both works were made in
Bologna, which became the center of Italian manuscript production from
1250 with increasingly rich decorative programs.71 The Vatican copy is indica-
tive of a Byzantine style relying on a straightforward language of gestures
around the end of the thirteenth century, before the widespread adoption of
Giotto’s naturalistic compositions. On the other hand, the Geneva copy shows
full absorption of the naturalistic style, which is used to express nuanced
corporeal distinctions.72
The Vatican Decretum is symptomatic of the complex production of these
manuscripts. The identity of the commissioner is unknown, but the codex
contains an inscription on folio 35 0r naming the author of the work, a certain
Jacopino da Reggio: “like rose blooms from flowers, this book blooms from
books / painted by the hand of Jacopino da Reggio.”73 The inscription heralds
the outstanding qualities of the codex and credits its visual richness to the hand
of Jacopino. However, the connection between his possible vision for the
decoration and the images themselves are more complex, since the four
miniatures in question can be attributed to three different hands.74 Case
XXXI was possibly the work of a master trained in Modena.75 The illuminator
of case XXXII contributed also to the Bible of Clement VII, today in Paris.76
The images of cases XXXIII and XXXVI are attributed to the Master of
1311.77 Furthermore, Jacopino himself is solely mentioned to be a copyist
between 1269 and 1286.78 This begs the question of whether he is indeed an
illuminator, as the term “by his hand” in the inscription would imply, who
oversees the work of his peers while himself contributing to the work, or he is

VICTIMS OF LUST 33
responsible solely for the coordination of the images in the manuscript. In any
case, it signals the extent of collaboration behind the visual program. I will first
examine the description of the cases, the commentary, and the illustrations in
Vatican Decretum, after that I will turn to the imagery of the Geneva codex.
The first part of case XXXI revolves around marriage and adultery. “A man
seduced and had intercourse [constuprauit] with the wife of another. When her
husband died, the adulterer married the adulteress.”79 Although Gratian’s verb
constuprauit would allow us to read the intercourse as both consensual and
nonconsensual, the term adulteress indicates consent, even if the woman has
virtually no agency in the story. The first follow-up question, whether one
can marry a wife who “has been defiled [est polluta] by adultery” is ambiguous
in its terminology with regard to the act, but the reference to adultery here
also suggests willingness on behalf of both participants.80 The second part of
the case focuses on the arranged marriage of the daughter born from this
union against her own accord. The main concern here is the possibility of
girls and women to oppose or abandon the marital bond. Adultery dishonors
matrimony, and the use of violence remains a rather marginal factor. In the
commentary, Gratian further downplays coercion and mentions it only once.
He refers to the Council of Tribur (895) forbidding the union to a man who
“violated and raped” [stupro violasse] the wife of someone and promised to
wed her once her husband is dead. Although the deed is presented as an
aggression, the author considers disqualifying circumstances only the prema-
ture promise of matrimony and possible involvement in the death of the
husband.81
All in all, this story for Gratian was more about seduction and adultery than
sexual violence. The illuminator from Modena fully subscribed to this inter-
pretation of the image (Figure 2.3). The right side of the composition concen-
trates on the marriages of the mother and her daughter. Importantly, female
figures wear long robes that touch the ground, while male figures are dressed
in long tunics that nevertheless reveal their stockings [calze]. The seduction
takes place on the left, and it is framed by the arch of a building, which
separates it spatially and temporally from the main scene. The seducer is shown
from behind in his light purple tunic. He embraces the woman around the
waist and probably kisses her. The painter went a long way to express the
consent of the wife to this union. She embraces her lover, and her arms
are placed above his, visually discarding the possibility of physical coercion
(he would need to hold her arms down for that). Furthermore, the compos-
ition concentrates on her hands wrapped together behind his back. She is not
simply hugging him but ties him in an embrace. She is holding her right
wrist with her own left hand. Men grabbing women by their wrist is a
clear indicator of coercion, often rape.82 The woman holding her own wrist
discards any implication of male violence and underlines her willing

2.3. Jacopino da Reggio and collaborators, Case XXXI in Gratian’s Decretum, c. 1300, pigment
on parchment, fol. 271v, vat. lat. 1375, Vatican Apostolic Library, Vatican. © 2022 Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana.

VICTIMS OF LUST 35
participation in this illicit affair.83 The illuminator establishes visually that we

indeed witness adultery here.
Sexual violence becomes an issue in the convoluted story of case XXXII.
Here a man married a sterile prostitute with the consent of her grandfather but
against the wishes of her father. Anyhow, later he regretted his decision and
tried to conceive children with his servant. He was found guilty of adultery.
To liberate himself from the marital bond, “he asked another person to subdue
his wife by force [vi uxorem suam opprimeret] that he might thus dismiss her.”84
After that, he married a nonbeliever with the condition that she would convert
to Christianity. The episode involves three different women and covers
prostitution, infertility, concubinage, adultery, rape, and interfaith marriage.
Eight sections are dedicated to the various aspects of this case, and question five
examines whether a woman who “suffered force, lost her chastity [uim patitur
pudicitiam amittere].”85 The reference to the use of force in the description of
the case and the question made clear to the medieval reader the nonconsensual
nature of the intercourse. The lengthy answer first establishes, based on
numerous authorities, that chastity is a quality of the soul and, therefore,
violence against the body has no impact on it, providing its virtue remains
intact.86 Gratian’s approach is of course misogynistic in the sense that he
disregards the premediated and cynical violation of the female body and only
wonders whether the soul consented to the act. The purity of the soul stands
for the mundane concern of whether the victim enjoyed being raped. In this
tradition, arousal would equal lust and transform sexual violence to straight-
forward adultery or fornication.87 For what it’s worth, Gratian himself was
hesitant as to how to police this criterion. In this statement he emphasized the
impossibility of irrefutable demonstration, but later he concluded that, in the
absence of any other circumstances such as lustful desire, she was “violently
subdued by force to the desire of another [uiolenter aliena libidine oppressa uim
pertulit].”88 Consequently, she is not an adulteress or a fornicator and the
verdict exonerates her from the charges of illicit sexual intercourse. Although
it is not spelt out in the text, the aggression against her qualifies as rape. Despite
siding with the female victim for a moment, Gratian was less interested in her
fate than in the future marital endeavors of her husband.
In this sense case XXXII was partly about violence against women. Not
every manuscript opted for depicting this part of the story, but the Vatican
Decretum did. Although the illuminator was different from the previous one
and handled pictorial space with more ease than the one from Modena, the
essential language of gestures remained the same, this time focusing on the lack
of consent (Figure 2.4). The marriage scene is depicted on the left, whereas the
attack is shown on the right, under an archway comparable to the previous
miniature. The matrimony presents further clues to the intentions of the male
protagonist.89 On the left he is shown placing a finger on the right hand of his

2.4. Jacopino da Reggio and collaborators, Case XXXII in Gratian’s Decretum, c. 1300, pigment
on parchment, fol. 273v, vat. lat. 1375, Vatican Apostolic Library, Vatican. © 2022 Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana.
future wife, presented by her grandfather and father. On the right, dressed in a
long blue tunic, brown cloak, and black stockings he plots already her viola-
tion. He holds her lower arm, which foreshadows coercion, and with his right
hand pays the compensation for the subsequent attack on her. The hired rapist

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IHANA PÄÄLLIKKÖ.
Mikä tuoksu palmujen alla!

Ah!
Ruusunpunaiset kakadut hämmästyen
pudottavat puoleksisyödyt hedelmät maahan.
Ooo — nuori päällikkö kulkee kosioteillä!
Hän valmisti suloisen voiteen kokosmaidosta ja lemuavista

yrteistä, ja hänen ruumiinsa tuoksuu kuin laiva täynnä
hedelmiä ja kukkia ja kanelia.
Mikä jumalallinen päällikkö! Hänen molempiin poskiinsa ja

rintoihinsa on tatuoitu valkoinen aurinko, ja seppele hehkuvia
kukkia kiertyy hänen lanteillensa.
Ja tytöt kirkuvat niin rakastuneesti: »Ooo, ihana päällikkö!»

ja seisovat somina kuin ruukkunsa, kun hän astuu keikaroiden
kaivolle palmujen alta.
MEREN RANNALLA.
Meri aukaisi huikaistuneet silmänsä.

Aurinko oli noussut
riemastuneena kuin nuori kuninkaanpoika.
Oi Rarahu, miksi ovat silmäsi kaihomieliset?
Punainen koralli nauroi: meri on kantanut rannalle

nukkuvan nuorukaisen. Hänen jäsenensä rusentavat kaikki
sinun kukkasi.
Kuin kaksi kiihkeätä perhosta riensivät Rarahun silmät

nuorukaisen kasvoja kohden. Aurinko, sinä et ole niin ihana!
Nuorukainen nousi ja hämmentyi.

Rarahu, olet kauniimpi kuin iltapilvi.
Hänen sydämensä rakasti.
Kuin välähtelevät linnut

he kylpivät meressä,
ja taivas oli sinisiä kukkia täynnä.
Rarahu, Rarahu,
sinä loistat kuin kultainen rengas!
VENHELAULU.
Venheemme yllä on suuri valkea kuu.

Lootukset kuihtuvat hiuksillani,
ja sydämeni tahtoo huutaa.
Rannalta tulevat läikkyen hullut tuoksut,

puhkeavan bakulan ja mangopuun.
Oi kukat, olen humaltunut huumeestanne!
Soutakaamme kauemmaksi, armas,

missä tähdet loistavat yllä ja alla!
Kaukainen huilu soi rakkautta, kuolemaa.
VALKOISET PYHIMYKSET.
Hän ei voinut mitään tehdä, sytytti vain punaisen lyhdyn ja

suitsutuksen pienen epäjumalan eteen. Hän katseli nöyrästi
joutilaita käsiä helmassaan. »Ystäväni on niitä suudellut, ne
ovat pyhät.»
Hän olisi tahtonut panna ne kapealle alttarille pitkien

kynttiläin keskelle, ettei noiden suudelmain jälki olisi kulunut
pois. Hän olisi tahtonut palvella niitä kuin kahta valkoista
pyhimystä.
IKÄVÄ.
Yötaivas, ystäväni, kaartuu ylitsemme kuin kukka sinimusta,

valtainen, ja ovat tähdet niinkuin kultakuoriaiset ja käyvät
hunajata etsien.
Niin nuorina, niin täynnä ikäväämme yön terälehtein alla

kumpikin me valvomme ja lyövät sydämemme kuin
häkkilinnut taivaan laitoihin.
On monta päivää taivaanrannan taakse jo käynyt, monta

kiitänyt yön kultakuoriaista kauas välkkysiivin,
kun syliis kuumaan huikaistuen hiivin. Se kaikki kauas

liitänyt on päiväin lailla taivaanrannan taakse.
SYKSYINEN KUU.
Seison värisevänä mustien varjojen keskellä. Ilma on kuin

himmeää, sinistä lasia. ja autiolla taivaalla kulkee kuu niin
tuskallisen vaikenevana.
Sen säteet pistävät läpi sydämeni kuin ohuet kylmät miekat.

Kaikki ilo on sammunut minusta
Ja äkkiä näen säikähtäen, että käteni riippuvat ruumiistani

niin kylminä, kylminä ja täynnä kuolleita lehtiä.
YRJÖ JYLHÄ: PAINAJAISUNTA

TYRMÄSTÄ TULLUT.
Ne löivät mun kahlerautoihin kuin murhaajan vaarallisimman,

ja kytkivät lyijyliiveihin hävittääksensä vastustusvimman.
Yöt päivät käsiä vääntelin,

purin hampaani hajalle rautaan.
Pian kauhusta suunnilta huomasin:
elävält' olin heitetty hautaan.
En huudoksi tuskaa pusertanut,

en, vaikka se aivoja särki.
Oli kielikin kitaan kuivanut,
ja päässä jo sumeni järki.
Kai kuolleeksi vihdoin luulivat,

kun olin vain nahkaa ja luuta,
ja tunkion pieleen potkivat
kuin raadon mun ilman muuta.
Eräs lumppuri luita kootessaan

se minutkin kelkkaansa heitti,
vei kotiinsa, hoiteli vuoteessaan,
teki kääreet ja lääkkeet keitti.
Tulin terveeksi, taas olen voimakas ja ilosta hulluna aivan,
taas sappea täynnä ja raivokas, oi kiitos vankilan: vaivan!
AD ASTRA.
Jo juoksee liekki sihisten kyyn kiemuroivan lailla; pian

dynamiittipitkäinen lyö tulta taivaanmailla.
Miesjoukko kaukaa tähystää

sen sytyttäjän työtä.
He näkevät: hän sinne jää
kuin aikois mennä myötä.
Niin, ilmaan nousta aikookin

hän kerran näinkin tavoin!
Ei päästä muuten pilvihin,
tää ainut tie on avoin.
Hän monta kertaa noussut on,

mut aina maahan lyöty;
ei sentään vielä toivoton,
ei viime keino myöty —
Ja vuoren kylki halkeaa, kun panos syttyy, laukee.

Kivisuihku pilviin singahtaa — ja kallioille raukee.
JÄÄTYNYT.
Jäin pinnalle yksinäni uimaan;

jäävuori laivan upotti.
Käy navalta talvenhenki tuimaan.
Vain tuhtopuu on turvani.
On tyyni ja kylmä meri alla.

Yön haamut esiin liukuvat.
Ne kasvoni veteen painamalla
mun kohta tukehduttavat.
Jääseittejä syntyy ympärille.

Ne aamutuuleen särkyvät.
Ja pohjasta nousten näkyville
veen hirmut hiljaa väijyvät.
On tukkani kalisevaa jäätä.

On puku puuhun jäätynyt.
En omaksi tunne jalkopäätä,
ja käsi pois on kierinyt.
Jo silmiä kova huurre painaa;

en enää niitä auki saa.
Olen laudalle pelastunut vainaa.
Vain sydäntäni paleltaa.
PAINAJAISUNI.
Painajaisunta ma yöllä näin: pölkyssä mestauskirveen,

vieressä ruumiini päättä näin uhrina tuomion hirveen.
Pää oli nostettu seipääseen

ihmisten pilkattavaksi.
Huomasin kuoleman muuttaneen
ilmeeni inhoittavaksi.
Sukuni myöskin ja ystävät

joukosta löysin ne sieltä.
Muutamat silmänsä ristivät —
näky lie vaivannut mieltä.
Kukaan ei nimeltä maininnut, surren ei muistellut kukaan:

jokainen oli mun tuntenut elämän naamion mukaan.
KOTIMATKALLA.
Pisarat pyörteenä ryöpyten saartavat majaan miehen, joka

vain matkalle himoiten tuijottaa ulos tiehen.
Erämaan taivalta kulkenut

aamusta iltaan asti,
myrskyä pakoon on poikennut
leväten raukeasti.
Silloin taas hänet yllättää

entinen kaipaus salaa,
hereille nukkuja hätkähtää,
virraten voimansa palaa.
Koholle rintansa riehahtaa; valveilla untaan hän jatkaa. —

Ovessa pitkään narahtaa: myrskyssä kulkija matkaa.
SIRKUKSESSA.
Sirkuskupoolin alla näin minä ihmettä monta, huimaa ja

uskomatonta; suosionmyrskyllä kuumimmalla trapetsityttönen
palkittiin, mutta narrin itkulle naurettiin.
Yhtä en näkyä milloinkaan mielestä saa minä erkanemaan:

seinälle notkea nuorukainen hypähti kätensä ojentaen,
vastassa kaunis ja ylpeä nainen seisoi veitsiä lennättäen.
Kylmän uhrinsa ympärille terästä sateli sukkelaan, nousten

nilkoista ryntähille, kättä, kaulaa jo kaartamaan; ihoa nuollen
ne sulkivat piiriinsä kasvotkin kalpeat.
Jäsenin pelosta jähmettyvin aseista jonkun ma vartosin

syöksyvän suuhun tai silmihin… — Havahdin vihdoin ja
vaaratta, hyvin tajusin leikin sen päättyneen, katsomon
riemuhun puhjenneen.
HÄRKÄTAISTELIJA.
Vain muodottoman, villin pään ja huohottavat silmät nään.

Sain kuulla juuri: pettänyt mun nainen on — ja siksi nyt taas
tyyntä kättä tarvitaan. Se meistä, ken on maltiton, se saaden
lopun autuaan jää saalihiksi hietikon.
Tein työni lailla mestarin, ja kautta Santta Pietarin nyt

vannon valan hurjimman: se tyttö, jota rakastan, ei
huomispäivää nähdä saa! Ja mieheen, jota halveksin, saa
kautta Santta Pietarin! myös säiläni mun sukeltaa.
II
Vyö silkkinen ympäri vain,

ja hän käymähän valmis on
läpi suosionhuutojen raivoavain,
yli hehkuvan hietikon.
Veri syyttäen miekasta huus:

Olet armaasi murhannut!
Jätä mielestä maine ja kunniakkuus,
olet kuoleman ansainnut.
Kuin mieletön taisteli hän

tulenleimuvin viittoineen.
Härän nähtiin villisti syöksähtävän,
hänet heittävän ylitseen…
OLAVI LAURI: RYPÄLETERTTU

ILTATÄHTI.
Tunnetko suontesi kohisevan tullessasi vastaani huhtikuun

öinä taivaan sinisten holvien alla vihreitten tähtien vihma
hiuksilla?
Kaikki hanget ovat mustia haavoja täynnä,

maan sulava veri virtaa solisten yössä;
sen maku tuntuu kuumana huulillamme —
pelkäätkö minua? Vapiset!
Oletko unohtanut talven pitkinä iltoina, minkä nyt tunnet

humisevassa yössä: olet vaatteiden tummien verhojen alla
aivan alaston — — —
Kuin nuoret eläimet seisomme huohottaen. Ja iltatähti

värisee suuren kyynelen lailla; se kohta putoaa sinisen ilman
halki ja särkyy riemusta helisten otsaimme yllä — — —!
AAMUTUNNELMA.
Aikainen aamu.
Nymfit kylpevät pyöreässä metsäjärvessä
keltaisessa ja sinipunaisessa vedessä.
Haihtuvien pilvien varjo

kuvastuu lepänlehtien kasteessa.
Paljaisiin jalkoihini tarttuu kosteita
heinänkorsia.
Katselen oksien lomitse: nymfit kylpevät metsäjärvessä.

Hyvin aikainen aamu, onnellinen, keltainen ja sinipunertava.
SYDÄNPÄIVÄ.
Kaikki auringonruusut ovat kääntyneet

etelään päin
kuin pitkät, liikkumattomat rukoilijat.
Lyhyet varjot
pakenevat suurten puitten alle,
ja keltainen kuumuus
sakenee raukeitten kukkien lemusta.
Suljetuin silmin kuulen sen suhisten
kohoovan ilmaan.
Hiljaisuudessa kuuluvat ainoat äänet talosta, krassojen

riutuvien liekkien nuoleksimasta: avoimista ikkunoista virtaa
hämärä viileys ja kuuluu hiljaista helinää kuin olisi se vanha,
kulunut soittorasia, hymyilyttävä ja laiska: eksyneen
kimalaisen surina, kärpästen uninen riita — —
Puun alla, violettien varjojen verkossa lepään alastomana

ja huohottaen kuin maalle vedetty kala. Ja oman ruumiini
tuoksu uuvuttaa minua.
KUUMA YÖ.
Yö vaipuu puutarhaan kuin lämmin, uninen lintu pehmeään,

harmaaseen pesäänsä. Kuin hapan viini tuoksuvat kaikki
ruusut, ja kiihkeän levottomana värähtelee rusko varisevien
sireenien yllä —— — —
Mikä liikkumaton huume! Kaikki kukat puristuvat toisiinsa

kasteisina ja auenneina, ja pakahduttava autuus pusertaa
kyyneleen himmeistä kuvuista. Ja suristen lentää ilmassa
hämärä nuoli, ponnahtaa otsaani pudoten kädelleni: taintunut,
värähtelevä kiitäjä, vielä tuoksuva, kostea sinisten terttujen
medestä — — —
Oi puutarhani
— jähmettynyt ääni, hievahtamaton hekkuma —
minä pakahdun kanssasi liikkumattomassa riemussasi,
ja kaikki tuoksusi painavat raskaana harsona kasvojani — —
Ah, nouse, ponnahda, elä,
alastomana, kasteesta vihteänä,
mielettömän juhlan kohinana,
jokainen tuoksu pitkänä huutona! —
minä johdan kaikki kukkasi

Full Ebook of The Imagery and Politics of Sexual Violence in Early Renaissance Italy 1St Edition Peter Bokody Online PDF All Chapter

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Full Ebook of The Imagery and Politics of Sexual Violence in Early Renaissance Italy 1St Edition Peter Bokody Online PDF All Chapter

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The Imagery and Politics of Sexual

Violence in Early Renaissance Italy 1st

Sexual Violence in Australia, 1970s–1980s : Rape and

Conflict and Violence in Medieval Italy 568 1154 1st

Medieval Imagery in Today s Politics 1st Edition Daniel

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From Byzantium to Italy Greek Studies in the Italian

The Lands of St Peter The Papal State in the Middle

This book is the ﬁrst comprehensive study of images of rape in Italian

Péter Bokody is Associate Professor of Art History in the School of

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment,

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Acknowledgments page vii

4 RAPE AS A WEAPON OF WAR 101

5 POLITICAL ALLEGORIES 146

Published online by Cambridge University Press

6 ABDUCTION IN ILLUSTRATED ROMANCES 182

7 LUCRETIA AND THE RENAISSANCE OF RAPE 228

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Fellowships in the Istituto Universitario Olandese (Florence, 2016) and

Published online by Cambridge University Press

I mages of rape in late-medieval and early renaissance Italy belong to the

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

1.1 PROPAGANDA AND RAPE

To capture this dichotomy, I propose differentiating between four general

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

public attention to the issue.2 It introduced a radical perception of rape in

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

the perception of these acts moved between endorsement, sanitization, denial,

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Emergence of critical perceptions can be detected in chronicles and public

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

The majority of the cases to be examined here relate to heterosexual

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

considered a key phenomenon, facilitated by images.24 The I modi, Giulio

The overwhelming part of the historical evidence available to us was written

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

In Italy these trends manifested on the highest level of political ideology.

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

preferences. The context of viewing of this imagery varied between the

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

T he general matrix of medieval misogyny was based on women’s corporeal

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press

indicates the relative liberty accorded to the painter, possibly Giovanni da

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009122528.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press

straightforward exercise. Even the sweeping judgment about omnipresent