Beauty: The Body as Artefact

Romana Sammern is an art historian based at the Inter-University Organization Arts & Knowledges (University of Salzburg/Mozarteum University). She researches the intersections of body, image, and medicine in the early modern period. She holds a PhD from Humboldt University of Berlin and a habilitation from the University of Passau. Her research has been supported by fellowships in Austria, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States.Julia Saviello is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Art History, Goethe University Frankfurt. Her research centres on hair and the human body, objects as image carriers, and the intersections of ceramics and nature in the early modern period. Her publications include Verlockungen. Haare in der Kunst der Frühen Neuzeit (2017) and Der Schild und das Bild (2026).

‘From its beguiling cover to its engaging and carefully curated contents, this is a must-have addition to the early modern corpus and the burgeoning research fields of beauty and embodiment. With texts from Cicero to Goya—each presented in the original alongside translations and pithy commentary by a stellar international team of cutting-edge scholars—students and instructors alike have been gifted a rare and rich package here.’Catherine Kovesi, Professor of History, University of Melbourne‘Is human beauty eternal and unchanging, or highly subjective? Should you praise or condemn cosmetic practices? This edition of key texts shows how writers and philosophers grappled with the question of how to define, modify and manage male and female beauty from antiquity to the eighteenth century. With original texts on beauty, translations, and insightful commentaries, this is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the history of beauty.’Evelyn Welch, Vice-Chancellor and President, University of Bristol

• AcknowledgementsLists of figures List of contributors Introduction: The beautiful body artefactRomana Sammern and Julia Saviello1. Cicero: Perfect beauty as compound (ca. 86–84 BC)Julia Saviello 2. Ovid: The appearance of natural beauty (1st century AD)Romana Sammern3. Apuleius: The allure of beautiful hair (ca. 160/170)Julia Saviello4. Isidore of Seville: Painting as make-up (c. 620)Wolf-Dietrich Löhr 5. Trota of Salerno: Transmitting beautifying knowledge (first half of the twelfthth century)Montserrat Cabré6. Hildegard of Bingen: Hair and adornment of nuns (c.1150)Philippe Cordez7. Gerard of Cremona: Galen in translation – canonicity and race (before 1187)Robert Brennan8. Vincent of Beauvais: Makeup as the loss of the divine image (1247)Wolf-Dietrich Löhr9. Francesco Petrarca: Fragments and colours of beauty (ca. 1336/1374)Julia Saviello10. Franco Sacchetti: Women’s art as a correction of creation (ca. 1390)Wolf-Dietrich Löhr11. Lorenzo Valla: The pleasure of beauty (1431)Alberto Saviello12. Leon Battista Alberti: Genealogy of beauty (1433)Julia Saviello13. Giovanni Borromeo: Male beauty, cosmetics and power (1468)Timothy McCall 14. Leonardo da Vinci: Unkempt and naturally beautiful (ca. 1492)Julia Saviello15. Baldassare Castiglione: The charm of effortlessness (1528)Romana Sammern 16. Albrecht Dürer: The diversity of the human body (1528)Romana Sammern17. Erasmus von Rotterdam: The body as a moving image (1530)Wolf-Dietrich Löhr18. Agnolo Firenzuola: The woman as a beautiful object (1541)Romana Sammern 19. Benedetto Varchi: Grace and beauty (1540s?)Fabian Jonietz20. Giovanni Marinello: Cosmetic recipes (1562)Elena Lazzarini21. Alessandro Allori: A beautiful surface and bones that evoke sadness (1560s)Helen Barr22. Lodovico Dolce: The beauty of the female complexion (1565)Romana Sammern23. Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo: Graceful folds – the textile shell of the body (1584)Julia Saviello24. Giovan Battista Della Porta: The physiognomy of the beautiful body (1586)Romana Sammern25. Peter Paul Rubens: The beauty of trained bodies (ca. 1610)Romana Sammern26. William Shakespeare: The nature of the beautiful (ca. 1610)Laura Gronius27. Girard Thibault: Movement in harmony with the body (1630)Julia Saviello28. Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Similarity and idealization (1665)Heiko Damm29. Marie Meurdrac: Teaching ladies the art of beauty (1666)Erin Griffey and Victoria Munn 30. Gérard Audran: Measuring the ideal body of antiquity (1683)Julia Saviello31. Aphra Behn: Slavery and ‘the standard of true beauty’(1688)Kim F. Hall and Tapiwa Gambura 32. Gerard de Lairesse: The colours of nature (1707)Ulrike Kern33. William Hogarth: Curls and other beautiful entanglements (1753)Julia Saviello34. Alexander Cozens: The end of the canon of beauty (1778)Anja Zimmermann35. Claude-Henri Watelet: Flesh tones and the beauty of white skin (1788)Mechthild Fend36. Francisco de Goya: Painting as make-up (1794)Wolfram PichlerIndex