Umana fragilità. Storia di un sentimento in Occidente

A journey spanning the classical age, the Christian Reformation and the great divisions of European modernity: from the sense of catastrophe to the reflections of Erasmus and Luther, from *humana fragilitas* between the Renaissance and the Baroque periods right through to the reinterpretations of the Enlightenment and Romanticism, the theme of fragility is transformed and enriched. ‘Glass’ men and women, autobiographies, pathologies and wounded sensibilities populate the narrative, offering a direct and profoundly human perspective on the issue. As in his recent works, Musi draws on diverse sources and discourses: semantics and myth, philosophy and medical knowledge, iconology and the visual arts, literature, political science, psychology and psychoanalysis. Not to construct a ‘cultural history of emotions’, but a history told through feelings and emotions, which interprets the continuities and fractures of Western history through the lived experiences of individuals and communities. A contribution to our understanding of our own time, fragile yet still rich in possibilities. As life always is. As history always is.