The lost boys of James Barrie’s Peter Pan or William Golding’s Lord of the Flies relished play, adventure and—sometimes—violence in an escape from society and its trammels. In Renaissance Italy energy, lust and even occasional destructiveness were expected of male youth, even inside the city. Authorities, lay and clerical, thirsted for social…
Elizabeth S. Cohen
Elizabeth S. Cohen is a professor at York University who writes about gender in early modern Italy.