The Hunchback in Hellenistic and Roman Art

Trentin's catalogue and comprehensive, up-to-date bibliography constitute an important scholarly resource ... This is a book that intelligently advances debates about representations of disability and the Other. * Classics Ireland * Trentino's book makes its contribution to the historiography of disability by bringing together all representations of the hunchback known throughout Antiquity ... This book represents a remarkable work and it often develops interesting reflections on difficult matters. * Revue des etudes anciennes [Bloomsbury translation] * Perhaps nowhere is the fundamental strangeness of Hellenistic and Roman mindset more obvious than in the popularity of hunchback figures in art. Ugly-but-desirable, humorous-but-serious, pitiable-but-lucky, they reveal complex and seemingly contradictory attitudes towards physical deformity that cannot easily be mapped onto the modern. Lisa Trentin's book represents the only comprehensive treatment in English of hunchback figures, both male and female. It brings together a large catalogue of important material and thoughtful discussion in a single, accessible volume, and will be an important resource to scholars and students of ancient art and to historians of the human body. This is a thought-provoking analysis of a representational type which has long remained marginalized. The catalogue of fifty-five representations of hunchbacks is in itself an invaluable resource.