Understanding/Controlling the Female Body in Ten Recipes

Abstract

In 1529, a book called Dificio di ricette was published in Venice. It included ten recipes concerned with the female body, which aimed to instruct readers but also allowed them to control the female body, especially where reproduction was concerned. This book initiated a new trend of vernacular medical texts directed to a broad audience; it described practices, prescribed models, and served as a tool for readers to create their own experiments. When translated into other vernaculars, recipes were adapted to new readerships, with publishers and translators closely engaging and transforming their texts, reshaping the knowledge they diffused. By encouraging the discussion of these matters more openly in the vernacular, recipes potentially allowed female readers to actively regulate their own bodies.