Gender, Sexuality, and Syphilis in Early Modern Venice

This provocative book questions the assumption that syphilis (the "French disease") became widespread in Venice because of its legendary courtesans. Using new evidence, Laura J. McGough reconstructs the city's sexual networks, revealing a society where sexual relations linked people of different classes, neighborhoods, and occupations. Venice's restrictive marriage customs, its role as a center of migration, and fears of male sexual impotence brought about a sexual culture that fostered the spread of disease.

To prevent the spread of disease, Venetian authorities focused on a single target: beautiful young women and girls, who were encouraged to enter walled asylums to protect their chastity. Both medical authorities and the public believed this "routine disease" could be treated and cured: only cases that did not respond to treatment aroused suspicions that the disease was caused by witchcraft. Gender, Sexuality, and Syphilis in Early Modern Venice thereby explores the medical, social, and cultural transitions that occur as a disease comes to be regarded as routine and widespread.

Laura J. McGough is Lecturer in the School of Public Health, University of Ghana. She undertook postdoctoral training in sexually transmitted diseases at Johns Hopkins University after completing her PhD at Northwestern University in History, and has worked as a consultant for HIV/AIDS projects for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), WHO, and other organizations.