Exceptional Crime in Early Modern Spain: Taxonomic and Intellectual Perspectives. Elena del Río Parra, ed. The Medieval and Early Modern Iberian World 68. Leiden: Brill, 2019. xii + 218 pp. €95

[...]by the seventeenth century, physiognomists had created a criminal archetype, as exemplified by the Spanish Esteban Pujasol, who in 1637 claimed to have found criminal characteristics in a murderer's eyeball. Furthermore, in her examination of the gap between “historical records and poetic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Renaissance quarterly 2021-04, Vol.74 (1), p.296-297
Main Author: Abreu-Ferreira, Darlene
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cultural differences
Renaissance period
Serial crime
Taxonomy
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Summary:[...]by the seventeenth century, physiognomists had created a criminal archetype, as exemplified by the Spanish Esteban Pujasol, who in 1637 claimed to have found criminal characteristics in a murderer's eyeball. Furthermore, in her examination of the gap between “historical records and poetic material” (60), the author found that readers did not necessarily care whether stories of heinous crimes were true or false, wanting only to be “amused, entertained and shocked” (111). [...]Río Parra notes cultural differences between Spanish conventions and those found in early modern England, as examined by Malcolm Gaskill and Ken MacMillan, whose inquiries have unearthed evidence of murder investigations that relied on supernatural evidence, whereas in Spain, murder investigations followed more conventional methods of inquiry and interrogation.
ISSN:0034-4338
1935-0236
DOI:10.1017/rqx.2020.364