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The Black Widows of the Eternal City

The Black Widows of the Eternal City

Author: Craig A. Monson

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

ISBN: 9780472132041

Category: History

Page: 258

View: 908

The Black Widows of the Eternal City offers, for the first time, a book-length study of an infamous cause célèbre in seventeenth-century Rome, how it resonated then and has continued to resonate: the 1659 investigation and prosecution of Gironima Spana and dozens of Roman widows, who shared a particularly effective poison to murder their husbands. This notorious case has been frequently discussed over 350 years, but the earliest writers concentrated more on fortifying their reading constituency’s shared attitudes than accurately narrating facts. Subsequent authors remained largely content to follow their predecessors or keen to improve upon them. Most recent writers and bloggers were unaware that their earlier sources were generally unconcerned with a correct portrayal of real events. In the present study, Craig A. Monson takes advantage of a recent discovery—the 1,450-page notary’s transcript of the 1659 investigation. It is supplemented here by many ancillary archival sources, unknown to all previous writers. Since the story of Gironima Spana and the would-be widows is partially about what people believed to be true, however, this investigation also juxtaposes some of the “alternative facts” from earlier, sensational accounts with what the notary’s transcript and other, more reliable archival documents reveal. Written in a style that avoids arcane idioms and specialist jargon, the book can potentially speak to students and general readers interested in seventeenth-century social history and gender issues. It rewrites the life story of Gironima Spana (largely unknown until now), who has dominated all earlier accounts, usually in caricatures that reiterate the tropes of witchcraft. It also concentrates on the dozen other widows whose stories could be the most recovered from archival sources and whom Spana had totally eclipsed in earlier accounts. Most were women “of a very ordinary sort” (prostitutes; beggars; wives of butchers, barbers, dyers, lineners, innkeepers), the kinds of women commonly lost to history. The book seeks to explain why some women were hanged (only six, in fact, most of whom may not have directly poisoned anyone), while dozens of others who did poison their husbands escaped the gallows and, in some cases, were not even interrogated. It also reveals what happened to these other alleged perpetrators, whose fates have remained unknown until now. Other purported culprits, about whom less complete pictures emerge, are briefly discussed in an appendix. The study incorporates illustrations of archival manuscripts to demonstrate the challenges of deciphering them and illustrates “scenes of the crime” and other important locations, identified on seventeenth-century, bird’s eye-perspective views of Rome and in modern photographs. It also includes GPS coordinates for any who might wish to revisit the sites.
The Black Widows of the Eternal City
Language: en
Pages: 258

The Black Widows of the Eternal City

Authors: Craig A. Monson
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-09-21 - Publisher: University of Michigan Press

The Black Widows of the Eternal City offers, for the first time, a book-length study of an infamous cause célèbre in seventeenth-century Rome, how it resonated then and has continued to resonate: the 1659 investigation and prosecution of Gironima Spana and dozens of Roman widows, who shared a particularly effective
The Black Widow: Of the Appalachian Preserve
Language: en
Pages:

The Black Widow: Of the Appalachian Preserve

Authors: William Malic
Categories: Fiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-11-28 - Publisher: Lulu Press, Inc

Book one Appalachian Preserve introduced a cast of characters populating the Appalachian Mountains. A serious of catastrophic events, some natural but mostly brought about by man, led to the splintering of the once great United State of America. The American Spirit lives on in the hearts of these simple mountain
The Fall of Cardinal Giovanni Foscolo
Language: en
Pages: 184

The Fall of Cardinal Giovanni Foscolo

Authors: Demetrius Duke
Categories: Fiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 2008-11 - Publisher: Strategic Book Publishing

Cardinal G. Foscolo misplaces the Apocryphal Judas Parchments but informs the Pope they have been stolen and that a ransom is demanded. The New York Mafia fronts the ransom money. Murder ensues, and the treacherous cardinal flees to New York.
Roma beata; letters from the Eternal city
Language: en
Pages: 758

Roma beata; letters from the Eternal city

Authors: Maud Howe Elliott
Categories: Travel
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-12-19 - Publisher: Good Press

"Roma beata; letters from the Eternal city" by Maud Howe Elliott. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be
Encyclopedia of the Black Death
Language: en
Pages: 429

Encyclopedia of the Black Death

Authors: Joseph Patrick Byrne
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-01-31 - Publisher: ABC-CLIO

This encyclopedia provides 300 interdisciplinary, cross-referenced entries that document the effect of the plague on Western society across the four centuries of the second plague pandemic, balancing medical history and technical matters with historical, cultural, social, and political factors.

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