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VMs: Re: Cicco Simonetta / Sartirana / library...?



With my meagre knowledge of Renaissance culture and politics (acquired only because of my interest
in the VMS) I can go along with your reasoning. I think it's the best theory we have at the moment.

Let me add a few (badly researched) arguments:
- (some) Renaissance states had a high degree of control over their subjects
- (some) states had a higly effective customs apparatus that ensured that no document could pass out
of the state uninspected
- posession of dangerous documents could have dire consequences for the owner
- therefore encryption was the only way to protect the owner.

A by-product of your theory is that the illustrations are an elaborate piece of obfuscation. A kind
of steganography, meant to distract from the real (textual) contents. Now what could these contents
be ?

Many plausible theories have been stated on this list:
- alchemy, strology, magic
- early scientific (astronomical, medical) discoveries
- state secrets
- state accounting
- business / trade information
- abortion, anticonception

Let me add a snippet of context information from a book on Renaissance "manuals" that I recently
acquired. Notice the sentence between asterisks. It supports your hypothesis:

"Readers will not be surprised to learn that the most salacious advice manual printed in Italy in
the sixteenth century concerned sexual acrobatics. "I modi" (The Ways) introduced readers to sixteen
techniques for achieving new heights of lovemaking pleasure, each illustrated with an explicitly
erotic woodcut image by the artist Giulio Romano. First published in 1524, the book instantly became
the talk of the town in Rome, especially among the many high prelates who kept mistresses, some of
whom may have posed for the engravings. All too soon, however, the stodgy pope Clement VII found out
about the publication, and suppressed further sale and circulation. * He ordered all copies burned,
imprisoned the engraver, prohibited any form of distribution, and made republication punisheable by
death. * Some fearless entrepreneur nontheless put out a second edition in 1527, adding sixteen
sonnets by Pietro Aretino, each containing many words and ideas that would receive an instant NC-17
rating in our own culture. Several counterfeit versions followed over the next few decades, as human
imagination and talent increased the number of positions and sonnets to twenty, then even to thirty
one. Buyers clearly threasured their copies, passing them on to generations of artists and writers
in France, Germany, and Italy who found inspiration for their own endeavours."

Rudolph M. Bell
How to do it
Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians
www.press.uchicago.edu

I have no time to read this book now, I have a lot of work to do. But it also contains chapters on
"Conception", "Preganancy and childbirth" and "Marital relations". It goes into Dioscorides and
medical "common knowledge". If you have it in your local library it probably is worth a look.


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