Abortion in Early Modern Italy

Book presentation by John Christopoulos

February 19, Sala del Torrino, Villa Salviati

The EUI Queer and Feminist Studies and the History of Science and Medicine Working Groups hosted a book presentation with John Christopoulos.

In this talk, John Christopoulos, Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia’s History Department, presented his latest book, Abortion in Early Modern Italy, originally published in 2021 by Harvard University Press, with an upcoming Italian translation.

Book abstract

In this authoritative history, John Christopoulos provides a provocative and far-reaching account of abortion in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy. His poignant portraits of women who terminated or were forced to terminate pregnancies offer a corrective to longstanding views: he finds that Italians maintained a fundamental ambivalence about abortion. Italians from all levels of society sought, had, and participated in abortions. Early modern Italy was not an absolute anti-abortion culture, an exemplary Catholic society centered on the “traditional family.” Rather, Christopoulos shows, Italians held many views on abortion, and their responses to its practice varied.

Abortion in Early Modern Italy


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
chiara lacroix (May 23, 2024). Abortion in Early Modern Italy. EUI | History of Science and Medicine. Retrieved April 17, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/11pnc


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