On the Importance of Being an Individual in Renaissance Italy

Douglas Biow is Superior Oil Company-Linward Shivers Centennial Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as the Director of its Center for European Studies. He is the author of In Your Face: Professional Improprieties and the Art of Being Conspicuous in Sixteenth-Century Italy; Doctors, Ambassadors, Secretaries: Humanism and Professions in Renaissance Italy; and The Culture of Cleanliness in Renaissance Italy, among other books.

• PrefaceIntroductionART I. PROFESSIONALISMChapter 1. Professionally Speaking: The Value of Ars and Arte in Renaissance Italy-Reflections on the Historical Reach of TechneChapter 2. Reflections on Professions and Humanism in Renaissance Italy and the Humanities TodayPART II. MAVERICKSChapter 3. Constructing a Maverick Physician in Print: Reflections on the Peculiar Case of Leonardo Fioravanti's WritingsChapter 4. Visualizing Cleanliness, Visualizing Washerwomen in Venice and Renaissance Italy: Reflections on the Peculiar Case of Jacopo Tintoretto's Jews in the DesertPART III. BEARDSChapter 5. Facing the Day: Reflections on a Sudden Change in Fashion and the Magisterial BeardChapter 6. Manly Matters: Reflections on Giordano Bruno's Candelaio and the Theatrical and Social Function of Beards in Sixteenth-Century ItalyEpilogueNotesBibliographyIndexAcknowledgments

"An elegant, erudite, and polemical book that most assuredly makes an important contribution to the literature on Renaissance individuality and male identity." (James R. Farr, Purdue University) "Douglas Biow offers a spirited and refreshing account of the ways Renaissance men carved out space for individuality over against the norms of their professions and communities." (John Jeffries Martin, Duke University)