AbstractDisplacing the physiological model that had held sway in 19th-century medical thinking, early 20th-century medical scientists working on hormones promoted a new understanding of the body, psychological reactions, and the sexual instinct, arguing that each were fundamentally malleable. Hormon

AbstractThis article analyses a selection of Nicola Pende’s studies from the 1920s on ‘endocrinological abnormalities’ associated with impotence, a lack of virility in men, a lack of femininity in women, and homosexuality. By analysing endocrinological sexual theories and treatments, it aims t

Abstract This essay explores how hormone treatments were used to optimize and normalize individuals under Italian Fascism. It does so by taking the activities of the Biotypological Orthogenetic Institute − an Italian eugenics and endocrinological centre founded by Nicola Pende in 1926 − as the p

Herculaneum (Neapolitan and Italian: Ercolano) was an ancient Roman town, located in the modern-day comune of Ercolano, Campania, Italy. Herculaneum was buried under volcanic ash and pumice in the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Like the nearby city of Pompeii, Herculaneum is famous

The Grotta di Cocceio (Cocceius’ Tunnel) is an ancient Roman tunnel nearly a kilometre in length connecting Lake Avernus with Cumae and dating from 38-36 BC. It was burrowed through the tuff stone of Monte Grillo by the architect Lucius Cocceius Auctus at the command of Agrippa wh