Love, Marriage, and Sex in Renaissance Italy

A brand new seminar series by Lisa Kaborycha

Did people during the Renaissance experience love differently than we do today? What were the marriage customs and what were the relations between husband and wife? In their private lives, how closely did they observe religious doctrine on sexual behavior? In this series of lectures, historian Lisa Kaborycha explores these questions and more. By delving into their social customs, legal documents, tax records, personal correspondence, literature, and art, we will get up close and personal with the men and women of the Italian Renaissance, who reveal their complex and sometimes startling attitudes on love, marriage, and sex with freshness and verve.

Lisa Kaborycha, Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, is a former Fulbright Fellow, recipient of the National Endowment for the Humanities award and Harvard’s Villa I Tatti Center for Renaissance Studies fellowship. She is the author of three books: Voices from the Italian Renaissance, A Sourcebook (Routledge, 2024); A Short History of Renaissance Italy, Second edition, (Routledge, 2023); and A Corresponding Renaissance: Letters Written by Italian Women 1375-1650, (Oxford Univ Press, 2016). Kaborycha has been living in Florence, Italy since 2007 working on research and teaching at American universities

27 May - 17 June 2025
Tuesdays 18:00-19:30 

In person lectures in the Library and simultaneously available on Zoom.

Recordings will be available for registered participants.