The Limits of Life in Early Modern Europe (1450-1700)

FAIN: FEL-267442-20

Hannah Marcus
President and Fellows of Harvard College (Cambridge, MA 02138-3800)

We are living longer and longer. However, contrary to popular opinion, longevity is not a uniquely modern phenomenon. The Limits of Life explores the cultural and scientific world of advanced old age in early modern Europe (1450-1700). While many in this period were particularly intrigued by the possibility of extending human life, physicians and natural philosophers were also deeply concerned about the political, philosophical, ecological, and social implications of longevity. Expanding beyond the historical demography of Renaissance Italy, my research builds on recent scholarship interested in the cultural and medical history of death and dying. My research probes the ways that ideas about mortality and longevity crossed between elite spaces and popular discourse both in print and through well-documented encounters with the bodies of the aged. Longevity, as both a goal and a lived reality, revealed the religious, social, and embodied limits of early modern life.

Associated Products

Defining Old Age in the Renaissance: The View from Ulisse Aldrovandi's Pandechion Epistemonicon (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Defining Old Age in the Renaissance: The View from Ulisse Aldrovandi's Pandechion Epistemonicon
Abstract: I reveal Aldrovandi's poetic understanding of old age through a previously unexamined manuscript.
Author: Hannah Marcus
Date: 07/20/20
Location: zoom

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Title: Galileo’s Lessons for Living and Working through a Plague
Author: Hannah Marcus
Abstract: An outbreak in Italy in the 1630s forced him to find new ways of doing his research and connecting with his family
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/galileos-lessons-for-living-and-working-through-a-plague/
Format: Magazine
Publisher: Scientific American

What the Plague Can Teach Us About Coronavirus (Article)
Title: What the Plague Can Teach Us About Coronavirus
Author: Hannah Marcus
Abstract: We need to be on guard against the xenophobia and persecution that arose during outbreaks of that dreaded disease.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/opinion/coronavirus-italy.html
Format: Newspaper
Publisher: New York Times

Reading the Paper to Know the Past (Article)
Title: Reading the Paper to Know the Past
Author: Hannah Marcus
Abstract: 10.1007/s11016-020-00519-x.
Year: 2020
Format: Journal
Publisher: Metascience

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