{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.03595041322314049, 'fraction_numerical': 0.021074380165289255, 'mean_word_length': 5.144670050761421, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Food and Women in Italian Literature, Culture and Society: Eve's Sinful Bite, edited by Claudia Bernardi, Francesca Calamita, and Daniele De Feo, London and New York, Bloomsbury, 2020, x + 271 pp., $115.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-3501-3778-3

lives of women and men in science. It is worth mentioning that, in her discussion of the botanist Fiorini Mazzanti, Favino reveals hitherto unknown aspects of internationally renowned figures such as Giovanni Battista Brocchi (1772–1826). We discover that Brocchi, a friend of Fiorini Mazzanti’s father, was a teacher/mentor to the young botanist. In the correspondence between the two, he sometimes engages in an exchange between peers; according to Favino, however, their relationship was perhaps more often characterised by the usual ‘paternalistic and didactic’ (p. 49) dynamics that seem to have permeated relationships between women and men in the academy, often afflicted by the Pygmalion complex. Studies on gender and science and the history of women in science, technology, and medicine have taken hold globally since the 1980s, offering innovative points of view on historiography and sociology, ethnography, and philosophy, as well as science. In this context, the work of modernists such as Marta Cavazza, Paula Findlen, Massimo Mazzotti, Rebecca Messbarger, Katharine Park, Gianna Pomata, and Londa Schiebinger have contributed to rewriting entire chapters of Italy’s cultural, social, and institutional modern history. This is the research context with which Federica Favino’s work engages, offering us a book with a view: a new view on the making of the professional – male – scientist in mid-nineteenth-century Italy as seen from Rome, before the well-known era of Carlo Matteucci (1811–68) and Quintino Sella (1827–84). A view that gives back their voice to remarkable women scientists such as Elisabetta Fiorini Mazzanti and Caterina Scarpellini. As is customary, I close by noting some details of the book. It is both a pleasure to read and accompanied by a rich iconographic apparatus that dialogues with the text, adding thoughtprovoking insights into science communication of the time. Taking full advantage of footnotes as a parallel channel of dialogue with the reader, Federica Favino offers a generous wealth of information on sources that will be useful for future research. The index of names is precious by virtue of its thoroughness and precision.