Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
What did abortion mean in late Renaissance Italy? In what ways did the reforming Church conceive of it and try to regulate its practice? This study explores attitudes toward abortion in Italy in the second half of the sixteenth century through the lens of confessional discourses and practices. In the last three decades of the century, bishops and popes attempted to eradicate the practice of abortion by imposing shaming and increasingly severe punishments for its procurers. However, such initiatives were hindered by the social and practical consequences of bringing procurers of abortion to light. The ecclesiastical establishment had to rely on the secret space of the confessional to reform this aspect of morality. Exploring the negotiations between theological pronouncements and the sociopolitical realities of ecclesiastical administration, this article draws attention to the ambiguities inherent in early modern conceptions of abortion and contends that these led to inconsistent responses among Counter-Reformation ecclesiastical authorities.
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada through a CGS Doctoral Scholarship, and by travel grants from the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto. I am greatly indebted to Elizabeth Cohen, Lucia Dacome, and Jennifer DeSilva for reading early drafts of this study and for providing invaluable suggestions. I thankfully acknowledge Renaissance Quarterly’s anonymous readers for their very helpful comments.