Includes bibliographical references and index.

Front Matter -- Copyright page -- Figures -- Contributors -- Corpses, Evidence and Medical Knowledge in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age / Francesco Paolo de Ceglia -- From Divination to Autopsy -- Saving the Phenomenon: Why Corpses Bled in the Presence of Their Murderer in Early Modern Science / Francesco Paolo de Ceglia -- Unfamiliar Faces: the Identification of Corpses in Late Medieval Valencia / Carmel Ferragud -- Reading the Corpse in the Late Middle Ages (Bologna, Mid-13th Century–Early 16th Century) / Tommaso Duranti -- The Uncertainties of the Anatomical Gaze -- Dissection Techniques, Forensics and Anatomy in the 16th Century / Allen Shotwell -- Monstrous Exegesis: Opening Up Double Monsters in Early Modern Europe / Alan W.H. Bates -- Corpses, Contagion and Courage: Fear and the Inspection of Bodies in 17th-Century London / Kevin Siena -- Knowledge from Bodies and Resistance to Anatomical Discourse (Padua, 16th–18th Centuries) / Massimo Galtarossa -- Corpses and Evidences -- Reading Moral Conduct and Physical Characteristics: the Classification of Suicide in Early Modern Europe / Alexander Kästner -- Corpses and Confessions: Forensic Investigation and Infanticide in Early Modern Germany / Margaret Brannan Lewis -- Visum et Repertum: Medical Doctrine and Criminal Procedures in France and Naples (17th–18th Centuries) / Diego Carnevale -- Frightening Whirlpools: Drowning in France in the 18th Century / Lucia De Frenza and Caterina Tisci -- Back Matter -- Bibliography -- Index.

When, why and how was it first believed that the corpse could reveal ‘signs’ useful for understanding the causes of death and eventually identifying those responsible for it? The Body of Evidence. Corpses and Proofs in Early Modern European Medicine , edited by Francesco Paolo de Ceglia, shows how in the late Middle Ages the dead body, which had previously rarely been questioned, became a specific object of investigation by doctors, philosophers, theologians and jurists. The volume sheds new light on the elements of continuity, but also on the effort made to liberate the semantization of the corpse from what were, broadly speaking, necromantic practices, which would eventually merge into forensic medicine.

Description based on print version record.