Academy director Antal Molnár said the show includes eight mainly reworked artefacts or copies of chastity belts as well as a dozen digitally reproduced images of chastity belts accompanied by written explanations.
He added that interest in the show had been high, and write-ups had been published in the newspapers La Republica and Il Messagiero.
The first occurrences of the word ?chastity belt? in European languages appear in the 15th century and mean morality, purity and innocence, the director said. He added that the expression ? cingulum in Latin ? originally had nothing to do with the device.
?In popular opinion, the use of chastity belts dates back to the time of the Crusades and its aim was to enforce and ensure womanly fidelity. The concept is false,? exhibition curator and Semmelweis Museum director
Benedek Varga wrote in an introduction to the show.
?[The chastity belt] is actually based on an 18th century myth, which not only survived until the end of the 20th century both in scientific literature and the literature of popular science, but the collections of major and minor museums also made efforts to provide some relevant data,? he added.
?The real history of chastity belts is a series of the history of mentality, the history of sexuality, the history of medicine, and the museology of the past 500 years, full of distortion, falsification and flashbacks. It is much more about the modern age or, more exactly, how the modern age, from the century of the Enlightenment on, wanted to observe the culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.?
The exhibition is open until March 18.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
