The Sex of Men in Premodern Europe

Patricia Simons is Associate Professor, History of Art, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She has curated several exhibitions including 'Seeing is Healing? The Visual Arts of Medicine', in 2000, and her previous publications include Patronage, Art and Society in Renaissance Italy (co-editor, 1987).

'This is a remarkable book, based on an extraordinary depth of scholarship. Patricia Simons provides a detailed unpicking of the sexual codes of Renaissance Europe, so that one can finally understand the innuendo. No-one else has her detailed knowledge, and she has it for language, image and material object - this is real cultural history in the round. And her fundamental argument is completely original, and will change how we think about the period. The book is a treat to read, never jargonistic and always witty.' Lyndal Roper, University of Oxford

• Introduction; Part I. Witnessing Men's Bodies: Paradigms Old and New: 1. How to be a man in early modern Europe; 2. The phallus: history and humour; 3. Material culture in late medieval and early modern Europe; Part II. Projecting Male Sex: Models and Metaphors: 4. Physiology and anatomy; 5. Value and expenditure; 6. Pleasure and the unequal two-seed theory; 7. Fertility and beyond; 8. Implements in action; Conclusion.