Note 180 — SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC MORALS: PART I

An interesting survey of this wider kind has been attempted by U.A. Canello for the whole sixteenth century in his Storia della Lett. It. nel Secolo XVI. (Milano: Vallardi, 1880). He tries to demonstrate that, in the sphere of private life, Italian society gradually refined the brutal lusts of the Middle Ages, and passed through fornication to a true conception of woman as man's companion in the family. The theme is bold; and the author seems to have based it upon too slight acquaintance with the real conditions of the Middle Ages.