The Artes and the Ars moriendi in Late Renaissance Venice: The Professions in Fabio Glissenti's Discorsi morali contra il dispiacer del morire, detto Athanatophilia (1596)

In his voluminous Moral Discourses Against the Displeasure of Dying (1596), the Venetian physician Fabio Glissenti describes the tenacious revolt against death that permeates virtually all of society. Though important in itself as a major humanistic treatment of death in the vernacular, Glissenti's treatise has an unusual significance that lies not so much in its patent purpose - to recommend the acceptance of death - but rather in its countervailing undercurrent - to probe the psychology of work. In novellas and dialogues among interlocutors drawn from the gamut of professional types in Venice, Glissenti presents testimonials of professional art or pride, exchanges concerning professional morality, and Dantesque catalogues of punishments for professional sins. This study examines the professional ethos suffusing the Discorsi morali as a reflection of moral and psychological attitudes toward work in early modern culture.