Speaker: Academia.edu

Abstract: »The legendary figure of Lucretia is one of the rare glimpses where the image of a woman, a victim of rape, - secular, pagan, married - captured the imagination of Medieval and Renaissance thinkers. Rape victims induced the anxieties of Renaissance men because they challenge conventional womanly positions of Madonna and whore. In this paper, I will analyze how women confronted the social stigma and psychological trauma of rape as well as their connections with classical antecedents of virtue in the face of rape and dishonour. My work comes from a court case involving three women who were jailed as witnesses in Rome in the 16th century for a rape trial and were raped in the jail by the judge. It is their insights into their secular world that it is possible to see how the cultural norms surrounding the rhetoric of rape negotiated by the actual victims of the crime.« (Source: All Academic)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of Italy | Sex and the law: Rape / Rape in Italy