Illustrations and Figures Acknowledgments Introduction A Network of Lovers: Sexuality and Disease Patterns in Early Modern Venice The Suspected Culprits: Dangerously Beautiful Prostitutes and Debauched Men Stigma Reinforced: The Problem of Incurable Cases of a Curable Disease Gender and Institutions: Hospitals and Female Asylums Conclusion Afterword Bibliography Index

A unique study of how syphilis, better known as the French disease in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, became so widespread and embedded in the society, culture and institutions of early modern Venice due to the pattern of sexual relations that developed from restrictive marital customs, widespread migration and male privilege.

LAURA MCGOUGH is Lecturer in the School of Public Health, University of Ghana, Ghana. She undertook postdoctoral training in sexually transmitted diseases at Johns Hopkins University after completing her Ph.D. at Northwestern University in History, and has worked as a consultant for HIV/AIDS projects for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), WHO, and other organizations.