ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the history of plastic surgery through the case histories of facial surgery that circulated in a period that goes from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth centuries with special attention to patients’ social standing. It aims to explore a picture of the social and political stratification of late sixteenth-century Italy with special attention to the culture of the duel and honor in the Papal state. The book focuses on grafting as it was thought about and practiced across a range of different disciplines in the early modern period and argues that grafting must be put in close connection with the conceptual transformations of the “Scientific Revolution.” It also explores the methodological stakes of writing a history of pain and sketches a history of the techniques of pain management in early modern surgery.
