Abstract Summary
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a period commonly described as the Scientific Revolution, have been characterized by religious war, seasonal outbreaks of epidemic disease, and an ambitious and expanding sense of what was possible politically, religiously, and scientifically. Lived and imagined longevity pushed the boundaries of what it meant to be human in this dynamic era. This paper takes as its protagonist Alvise Cornaro (1484-1566), a long-lived Paduan nobleman who wrote a series of short treatises in the vernacular extolling the “sober life” as the source of his own longevity. Cornaro revised, expanded, and republished this treatise five times between 1558 and his death in 1566. The treatise sold widely in early modern Italy and is a continued bestseller today. I have examined most surviving sixteenth-century copies of Cornaro’s treatise. Using a bibliographical and book historical approach, I trace readers’ marks and provenance to recover contemporary responses to the possibilities Cornaro peddled. I then situate Cornaro’s treatise and its readers within the context of popular works in dietetics and secrets. Cornaro sold the virtues and possibilities of longevity to a non-elite readership who were accustomed to turning to cheap printed sources that integrated alchemical, occult, and medical ideas for popular audiences.
