Household Medicine for a Renaissance Court

Abstract

Household recipe books were the most prevalent form of women’s authoritative medical writing in Renaissance Europe. Among the most significant female-authored collections from fifteenth-century Italy was that of Caterina Sforza (1463-1509), Countess of Imola and Forlì. Two recently discovered manuscripts shed new light on her creative praxis and the practical knowledge she collected, developed, and tested. We argue that Caterina’s vast miscellany of ‘secrets’ must be read intentionally within the context of a household economy writ large, simultaneously serving the health needs and political objectives of a Renaissance court. These discoveries highlight the authority of experiential knowledge within the domestic realm and beyond. Since the manuscripts were subjected to censorship, we interrogate the later reclassification of some of Caterina’s authoritative knowledge as heterodox.