On 5 December 1709 in Bologna, Lucia Cremonini is accused of a terrible crime: the murder of her newborn son. This tragic episode, exhumed from the depths of time, is placed at the centre of an enthralling study by one of the leading scholars of modern history and the history of religious beliefs. During the course of a dramatic trial the crime is debated by representatives of religious, philosophical, moral, and scientific culture, all characteristic of the formative period of the modern world and all seeking a convincing answer to fundamental questions. When does life begin? When can a human being first be described as such, so that his or her killing is a crime punishable by the maximum penalty? What is the true role of baptism in the formation of the human person? These are all highly topical questions in an age like our own, where belief is subject to the powerful assaults of scientific research and new questions are being raised about the essence and the limits of human existence.

«The value of Prosperi’s work lies in his ability to discern the multifaceted layers of cultural meaning embedded in a single line of text from the criminal archives. This text succeeds as an illustration of how the historian can breathe life and colour into the seemingly emotionless and formulaic literary composition of archival legal documents». Jane Bitomsky, Parergon

«Overall, then, this book is meticulously researched and densely argued. It transports the reader from the intimacy of Lucia’s experiences… through to the wider legal and religious implications of her actions. The work goes beyond the history of childhood, contributing something to the largely unexplored area of the history of infancy. It also ventures into the history of the very meaning of how our human past has interpreted and understood what it means to be human». Anna French, Journal of Ecclesiastical History

«Any book by Adriano Prosperi is a welcome event for early modernists… Readers will emerge from this book with a thorough, and thoroughly humane, understanding not only of an obscure individual tragedy but of the way theology, law, doctrine, and premodern science governed the meaning of reproduction and the beginnings of life itself, and fell disproportionately on the shoulders of women». W. David Myers, Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal