Bourdieu in Bed: the Seduction of Innocentia (Rome, 1570). (original) (raw)

2003, Journal of Early Modern History

This was published as part of a three-article cycle on legal records and social anthropology (Spain, Switzerland, Italy) for Journal of Early Modern History, Spring, 2003, vol. 7, no. 1-2: "Bourdieu in Bed: the Seduction of Innocentia (Rome, 1570).": 55-85. A later version, with a different title (Innocentia and Vespasiano) appears as a chapter in Love and Death Note from 2021: This is a microhistory that takes on calculated strategies with love, sex, and marriage in mind. The male lover is somewhat an oaf, the wily servant is a slippery character, and the young woman, although victim of them both, comes off as handsomely clever. The denouement turns on a clumsy poem, handsomely remembered. The essay ends with a meditation on sliding sand and flickering flames, as models for life, and love. As for Bordieu, he was not himself in this particular bed, but, goodness knows, habitus was there, between the sheets.