{"product_id":"how-to-do-it-guides-to-good-living-for-renaissance-italians-0226042006","title":"How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0226042006\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e Bell, Rudolph M.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCondition:\u003c\/strong\u003e New\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow to Do It shows us sixteenth-century Italy from an entirely new perspective: through manuals which were staples in the households of middlebrow Italians merely trying to lead better lives. Addressing challenges such as how to conceive a boy, the manuals offered suggestions such as tying a tourniquet around your husband's left testicle. Or should you want to goad female desires, throw 90 grubs in a liter of olive oil, let steep in the sun for a week and apply liberally on the male anatomy. Bell's journey through booklets long dismissed by scholars as being of little literary value gives us a refreshing and surprisingly fun social history.\"Lively and curious reading, particularly in its cascade of anecdote, offered in a breezy, cozy, journalistic style.\" -Lauro Martines, Times Literary Supplement\"[Bell's] fascinating book is a window on a lost world far nearer to our own than we might imagine. . . . How pleasant to read his delightful, informative and often hilarious book.\" -Kate Saunders, The Independent\"An extraordinary work which blends the learned with the frankly bizarre.\" -The Economist\"Professor Bell has a sly sense of humor and an enviably strong stomach. . . . He wants to know how people actually behaved, not how the Church or philosophers or earnest humanists thought they should behave. I loved this book.\" -Christopher Stace, Daily Telegraph\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mia Karts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51676080767264,"sku":"NEW0226042006","price":32.22,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0980\/7426\/3840\/files\/61dvg7jKpLL.jpg?v=1779234137","url":"https:\/\/miakarts.com\/products\/how-to-do-it-guides-to-good-living-for-renaissance-italians-0226042006","provider":"Miakarts Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}