Description: When, why and how was it first believed that the corpse could reveal 'signs' useful for understanding the causes of death and eventually identifying those responsible for it? The Body of Evidence. Corpses and Proofs in Early Modern European Medicine, edited by Francesco Paolo de Ceglia, shows how in the late Middle Ages the dead body, which had previously rarely been questioned, became a specific object of investigation by doctors, philosophers, theologians and jurists. The volume sheds new light on the elements of continuity, but also on the effort made to liberate the semantization of the corpse from what were, broadly speaking, necromantic practices, which would eventually merge into forensic medicine.
Review Quotes: "The Body of Evidence is a welcome contribution to the history of science that moves the history of the body, and scientific interest in it, away from anatomical textbooks and treatises to look at how that knowledge was deployed in legal contexts."
- Sarah Tarlow, University of Leicester, in: Journal of British Studies, January 2022, Vol. 61, No. 1: pp. 190-91.