'The women who hatch the eggs': The construction of female biology and behavior in the 'Dialoghi of M. Magino Gabrielli'

The Dialoghi of M. Magino Gabrielli, Venetian Jew, on the Profit of His Inventions Concerning Silk written by Magino Gabrielli, a Jewish businessman, was published in Rome in 1588 as a how-to manual for the cultivation and raising of silkworms. The woodcuts in the Dialoghi depict a practice in silk technology in which women were instructed to place sacks of silkworm eggs in between their breasts to incubate until the eggs hatched. In addition to this provocative method, women were responsible for the health and growth of the worms until the silkworms spun their cocoon. The feeding and raising of the little creatures was also illustrated and explained in Magino’s book. The intimate interaction between women and worms in a scientific treatise elicits questions concerning gender and technology in the early modern period.;The woodcuts demonstrate the requirements of a certain type of woman to carry out the task discussed in the text that I argue rely on the early modern understanding of female biology and behavior in the Renaissance. Magino states that the women incubating the eggs be clean and plump virgins, “of good disposition” and “not at her time of the month.” The emphasis on the women’s moral and menstrual standing determines her usefulness as instrument in sericulture technology. Therefore, it is necessary to include seeming disparate sources, such as anatomical treatises and images of the Madonna lactans, that promote Magino’s (and other men’s) understanding of women. My argument concerning female biology and behavior coalesces into one of sexualized technology, evident in the woodcuts of the Dialoghi and as I posit the loci of which resides in the mammary region of the female body preserved and exalted in Magino’s book, anatomical prints and nursing Madonnas alike. The result of this sexualized technology in the illustrations and text in Dialoghi in turn produces a reflection of a woman’s role in the early modern Italy. Magino inventions are in fact founded on the concept of woman in the early modern period as a virtuous yet sexually desirable bearer and raiser of children, confined to the interior domestic sphere. Magino’s Dialoghi then presents a unique opportunity that goes beyond the production of silk in Italy and sheds light on gender and technology in the Renaissance and how the female body was incorporated and sexualized in this relationship.