Saúde e beleza feminina medieval: os cosméticos para cuidados com o corpo nas obras de Abulcasis e Trotula de Salerno

Abstract

This dissertation proposes a comparative analysis between recipes aimed at the production of cosmetics for health care and female beauty in the Middle Ages. For this, the documentary corpus is made up of three texts of Arabic and Latin origin, which among the medieval textual genres, can be classified as fundamentally practical pieces. The first, entitled Treatise on Pharmacology and Cosmetics: Concerning Perfume, Adornment and Beautification, was written around the year 1000, in al-andaluz on the Iberian Peninsula, by the physician-surgeon Abulcasis. The two other pieces, called De Curis Mulierum and De Ornatu Mulierum, are attributed to the legendary Sapiens Matrona Trotula, written between the 11th and 12th centuries, in the port city of Salerno. These are documents that played an important role in the consolidation of medieval cosmetology literature, since this knowledge flourished in Antiquity, and was disseminated, above all, in the medical and literary records of ancient, Arab and Latin authorities. In these premises, cosmetic practices were based on the medical theories that guided healthy living at the time, with cosmetics being a viable option for treating certain women's problems. Constantly associated with the domestic space and the female figure, the authors were based on the a capite ad calcem conception, that is, they provided advice for taking care of the body a capite ad calcem, covering the following parts; hair, eyebrows, eyelashes, face, lips, teeth and gums, the voice, breasts, hands, feet and, finally, the genitals. The production of cosmetics involved the precise selection of elements found in nature, according to their inherent properties, as well as specific preparation techniques and instruments, and considering these processes, they could assume multiple types and formats. Therefore, the comparison between texts allows us to identify similarities and differences in themes and parts of the human body that each author considered important to include in their compilations