L'asino in corpo. Sesso e pazienza tra monaci e santi nel Medioevo

Abstract

The essay, suspended between history and anthropology, aims to explore the perception of the donkey between the High and Late Middle Ages. The donkey, long mistreated in the popular mind due to ingrained clichés surrounding it, and especially contrasted with the horse, considered a more noble and useful animal than the humble donkey, was instead redeemed when, thanks to Christian and hagiographic literature, it gained a wholly positive charge capable of engendering sentiments of clear evangelical inspiration.