Clio Medica97-The Man Who Crucified Himself

Maria Böhmer

• 08 november 2018
• 9789004353596

Samenvatting:

The Man Who Crucified Himself is the story of Mattio Lovat’s self-crucifixion in Venice in 1805. It shows how the narrative of this sensational medical case was popularised in nineteenth-century Europe and appropriated by readers in debates on madness, suicide and religion.



The Man Who Crucified Himself is the history of a sensational nineteenth-century medical case. In 1805 a shoemaker called Mattio Lovat attempted to crucify himself in Venice. His act raised a furore, and the story spread across Europe. For the rest of the century Lovat’s case fuelled scientific and popular debates on medicine, madness, suicide and religion. Drawing on Italian, German, English and French sources, Maria Böhmer traces the multiple readings of the case and identifies various 'interpretive communities'. Her meticulously researched study sheds new light on Lovat’s case and offers fresh insights on the case narrative as a genre - both epistemic and literary.