Introduction

The semantic field of the wounded body concerns both the image of the wound as a traumatic event, which leaves a mark on someone's body and soul (and prompts them to investigate its causes and the solutions to fix it), and the motif of the scar, which draws attention to the fact that time has passed and urges those who look at the marks on his body to engage in an introspective and analytical process. By studying and describing the transmission of this metaphoric paradigm through the literary tradition, the collected essays tried to show how the image of the bodily wound could respond to the complex interplay of some key issues which inform the emergence of introspective learning, the reshaping of the moral Self between the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, and the concept of body politic.