Reviews
The book contains fascinating, and sometimes shocking, information about Terpstra’s topic. I appreciated that Terpstra does not exclusively limit himself to the subject of Casa della Pietà, but uses the mystery of what happened to the home’s residents as a way to examine related issues.
Lost Girls is a fine addition to any history collection, especially those with a focus on the Renaissance.
The Casa della Pietà, or House of Compassion, was one of Renaissance Florence's earliest shelters for orphaned or otherwise abandoned adolescent girls... Of the 526 girls who lived there during the 14 years it was open, 324 died there. What was killing these girls? Terpstra attempts to solve this mystery.
[Terpstra's] study of Pietà can be recommended highly not only to those interested in women's history, social history, medical history, and economic history but also to anyone who cares about the historian's craft.
A masterpiece of historical writing and an invaluable contribution to the study of premodern Italy... This book should be welcomed by anyone interested in social history, gender history, the history of sexuality, religious history or the history of medicine.
Energetic, archival scholarship.
Unusual and ingenious... Those interested in the history of early-modern Catholic Europe and Catholic institutions on the Italian peninsula will find much to think about while reading this book.
It is well written and well researched by an established and erudite historian of this period, and it treats a difficult subject: the situation of Florentine orphaned or abandoned adolescent girls in the sixteenth century.
Terpstra weaves literary evidence, intelligent guesswork, and vivid historical imagination into an eminently readable micro-history that forms part of a growing body of scholarship that challenges long-held historical assumptions about female honor in the Mediterranean world.
In this finely crafted microhistory he exposes the social and cultural contradictions often lost in more general studies that were critical to the existence and functioning of the Casa della Pietà.
Nicholas Terpstra uses the puzzling deaths of teenaged girls in a Florentine asylum for the poor to take us into many surprising corners in the life of working people, and especially women, in that sixteenth-century city—sexual, medical, religious, and more. A fascinating Renaissance mystery story and a wonderful read!
This is history with a decidedly human face. The author’s vivid descriptions of urban life and its material realities are unsurpassed. It’s no exaggeration to say that this book makes the streets of Renaissance Florence come alive like no other.
Book Details
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Note on Dates, Currency, and Measures
1. Mystery and Silence
2. The Setting: Sex and the City
3. Renaissance Teenagers: Working Girls
4. Teenage Girls and Birth Control
5
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Note on Dates, Currency, and Measures
1. Mystery and Silence
2. The Setting: Sex and the City
3. Renaissance Teenagers: Working Girls
4. Teenage Girls and Birth Control
5. Renaissance Fundamentalists and Girls in Trouble
6. Virgin Girls and Venereal Disease
7. Conclusion: Friction in the Archives
Appendix: Sexual Politics: Giulia and the Crown Prince Gonzaga
Notess
Bibliography
Index