Charity and Power in Early Modern Italy: Benefactors and their Motives in Turin, 1541-1789 (Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine)

This is the first thorough study of charity and of medical and poor relief in post-Renaissance Italy. It departs from current interpretations by putting much greater emphasis on the various circumstances that motivated individual men and women to become involved in charity, and argues that conflicts and tensions in their social and political surroundings were crucial in prompting their charitable activity and defining perceptions of the needy.