Paul Broca made the most significant discovery in nineteenth-century human biology when he found that speech resides within the left frontal lobe of the human brain. As a young surgeon working at the hospice at Bicêtre on the outskirts of Paris – a repository for the criminal, the insane, the indigent, and the sick – Broca had to overcome derision, acrimony, personal attacks, vindictiveness, and prevailing doctrines before his findings were accepted. Based on a new reading and translation of original records by Broca, Jean- Baptiste Bouillaud, and Gustave Dax, Fearful Asymmetry recounts the story of this hard-won scientific discovery. Richard Leblanc describes the con- tentious process, beginning with Bouillaud, who laid the groundwork for the findings, that led Broca on the trail of discovery as he struggled to bring for- ward a fundamental truth of neurology and, ultimately, of the human condi- tion. Finally, Leblanc connects the research of the three French scientists to the work of Wilder Penfield at the Montreal Neurological Institute in the twenti- eth century, when neurology moved beyond postmortem anatomical studies to direct observations of the conscious brain. Making many of the debates about localization available for the first time in English, Fearful Asymmetry provides a detailed account of one critical scientific success and the long history behind it. Richard Leblanc is a neurosurgeon and a physician-scientist at the Montreal Neurological Institute, and professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University. After the Counter-Reformation, the Papal State of Bologna became a hub for the flourishing of female artistic talent. The eighteenth-century biographer Luigi Crespi recorded twenty-three women artists working in the city, although many of these, until recently, were ignored by modern art criticism, despite the fame they attained during their lifetimes. What were the factors that contributed to Bologna’s unique confluence of women with art, science, and religion? The Devout Hand explores the work of two generations of Italian women artists in Bologna, from Lavinia Fontana (1552–1614), whose career emerged during the aftermath of the Counter-Reformation, to her brilliant successor, Elisabetta Sirani (1638–1665), who organized the first school for women artists. Patricia Rocco further sheds light on Sirani’s students and colleagues, including the little-known engraver Veronica Fontana and the innovative but understudied etcher Giuseppe Maria Mitelli. Combining analysis of iconogra- phy, patronage, gender, and reception studies, Rocco integrates painting, popular prints, book illustration, and embroidery to open a wider lens onto the relationship between women, virtue, and the visual arts during a period of religious crisis and reform. A reminder of the lasting power of images, The Devout Hand highlights women’s active role in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Christian reform and artistic production. Patricia Rocco is adjunct professor of art history at Hunter College of the City University of New York and Manhattan School of Music. 4 4 M Q U P F A L L 2 0 1 7 H I S T O R Y O F M E D I C I N E • L I N G U I S T I C S S P E C I F I C AT I O N S Published for the Montreal Neurological Institute August 2017 978-0-7735-5132-9 $39.95A CDN, $39.95A US, £34.00 cloth 6 x 9 272pp 16 photos eBook available Fearful Asymmetry Bouillaud, Dax, Broca, and the Localization of Language, Paris, 1825–1879 richard leblanc The history of research into the function of the brain and language in nineteenth-century France. A R T H I S T O R Y • W O M E N ’ S H I S T O R Y S P E C I F I C AT I O N S December 2017 978-0-7735-5138-1 $65.00A CDN, $65.00A US, £56.00 cloth 6.25 x 9.25 296pp 16 colour and 62 b&w images eBook available The Devout Hand Women, Virtue, and Visual Culture in Early Modern Italy patricia rocco Exploring the role of women artists in creating visual imagery during the Renaissance.