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Mad Tuscans and Their Families : A History of Mental Disorder in Early Modern Italy / Elizabeth W. Mellyn.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2014]Copyright date: ©2014Description: 1 online resource (304 p.) : 8 illusContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780812246124
  • 9780812209815
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 616.8900945/5 23
LOC classification:
  • RC450.I82 M45 2014
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- A note on dates and money -- Introduction. The Tales Madness Tells -- Chapter 1. Incapacity, Guardianship, and the Tuscan Family -- Chapter 2. "Madness Is Punishment Enough" -- Chapter 3. Spending Without Measure -- Chapter 4. From Madness to Sickness -- Chapter 5. The Curious Case of Forensic Medicine -- Conclusion -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments
Summary: Based on three hundred civil and criminal cases over four centuries, Elizabeth W. Mellyn reconstructs the myriad ways families, communities, and civic and medical authorities met in the dynamic arena of Tuscan law courts to forge pragmatic solutions to the problems that madness brought to their households and streets. In some of these cases, solutions were protective and palliative; in others, they were predatory or abusive. The goals of families were sometimes at odds with those of the courts, but for the most part families and judges worked together to order households and communities in ways that served public and private interests.For most of the period Mellyn examines, Tuscan communities had no institutions devoted solely to the treatment and protection of the mentally disturbed; responsibility for their long-term care fell to the family. By the end of the seventeenth century, Tuscans, like other Europeans, had come to explain madness in medical terms and the mentally disordered were beginning to move from households to hospitals. In Mad Tuscans and Their Families, Mellyn argues against the commonly held belief that these changes chart the rise of mechanisms of social control by emerging absolutist states. Rather, the story of mental illness is one of false starts, expedients, compromise, and consensus created by a wide range of historical actors.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780812209815

Frontmatter -- Contents -- A note on dates and money -- Introduction. The Tales Madness Tells -- Chapter 1. Incapacity, Guardianship, and the Tuscan Family -- Chapter 2. "Madness Is Punishment Enough" -- Chapter 3. Spending Without Measure -- Chapter 4. From Madness to Sickness -- Chapter 5. The Curious Case of Forensic Medicine -- Conclusion -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Based on three hundred civil and criminal cases over four centuries, Elizabeth W. Mellyn reconstructs the myriad ways families, communities, and civic and medical authorities met in the dynamic arena of Tuscan law courts to forge pragmatic solutions to the problems that madness brought to their households and streets. In some of these cases, solutions were protective and palliative; in others, they were predatory or abusive. The goals of families were sometimes at odds with those of the courts, but for the most part families and judges worked together to order households and communities in ways that served public and private interests.For most of the period Mellyn examines, Tuscan communities had no institutions devoted solely to the treatment and protection of the mentally disturbed; responsibility for their long-term care fell to the family. By the end of the seventeenth century, Tuscans, like other Europeans, had come to explain madness in medical terms and the mentally disordered were beginning to move from households to hospitals. In Mad Tuscans and Their Families, Mellyn argues against the commonly held belief that these changes chart the rise of mechanisms of social control by emerging absolutist states. Rather, the story of mental illness is one of false starts, expedients, compromise, and consensus created by a wide range of historical actors.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)