[ ANNOTATED COPY ] - Nuptial Forest / Silva nuptialis - 1524: WOMEN, LAW, ADULTERY - A MISOGYNISTIC BOOK

[ WOMEN, LAW, ADULTERY - A MISOGYNISTIC BOOK

[ PRECIOUS ANNOTATED COPY ]

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NEVIZZANO, Giovanni,

[ Nuptial Forest ] - Silva nuptialis; in qua ex dictis Moder. per regulam et fallentias plurime questiones quottidie (...) in materia matrimonii; dotium; filiationis; Adulterii....

Lyon, Jean Moylin: Vincent de Portonariis, 1524. 4to, half-leather, 174 f.

A very curious work by Giovanni Nevizzano, Italian jurisconsult, professor at the University of Turin & at the University of Padua, who died in 1540. It contains various curious - and deliberately misogynistic - considerations on women, virginity, marriage, procreation, domestic life, the couple... Névizan thus mixes satirical writing & phallocratic legal considerations. In particular, he argues ironically that God did not send all the evil angels to hell; but that he placed some of them in the bodies of women... with the sole purpose of tormenting the male sex! All this does not prevent the author from taking a rather conciliatory look at adultery & the sins of the flesh... Numerous and interesting notes in the margins.

We notice in particular, f. 66 v. a curious passage where the annotator notes in the margin : "De Amore Venereo", "of venereal love ", he then gives a translation in French of a proverb on prostitution : "Amour de Putain, [chère] de chien" (chère meaning "chair" as in flesh).

The annotator mixes humanist and legal references: he is just as interested on f. 72r in a passage evoking Erasmus as in a mention of the 14th-century Italian jurist Paul de Castro. His interests are diverse: on f. 96v, he gives a date in French: "30 mai 1522" & mentions in the margin the siege & pillage of the city of Genoa by the Spaniards: "Genua capta ab hyspanis"; he mentions Hugues Capet (f. 96r). On f. 16v., he refers to a passage on divorce caused by an adulterous wife: "Dimittenda Uxor post adulteram"...

Very interesting annotated copy of a misogynistic book.