In Vieillir à la Renaissance, Professors Winn and Yandell have put together a collection of articles based on defining vieillir as a process. This is a new and challenging perspective to adopt, since most existing studies related to growing old in the Renaissance have focused on death (Claude Blum's work, for example), the awareness and fear of one's mortality, and the transformation of the previous centuries' ars moriendi. Vieillir à la Renaissance examines a variety of artistic, literary, philosophical, medical, and visual examples that often demonstrate a more practical, hands-on approach to aging. While familiar themes of death, mortality, and the desire to die well continually underscore these observations — indeed, a great number of articles point out the difficult distinction between aging and dying — the novelty (and success) of this volume is that it focuses on counterexamples to the pessimistic view we generally hold about the elderly at this time in history. In addition, this volume opens the reader's eyes to the surprising practices involved in aging in the French Renaissance.

For scholars looking for a general overview of aging from antiquity to the French sixteenth century without consideration of a particular author, genre, or gender issue, the introduction and first article are the most useful. As the introduction makes clear, the thirty-year life expectancy in the sixteenth century did not prevent several key figures from reaching their eighties and beyond: Ambroise Paré, Titian, and Michaelangelo, for example, were all octogenarians (14). Contrary to our general understanding and, perhaps, thanks to such illustrious chefs grisons, the sixteenth century saw the publication of numerous treaties on how to prolong one's life (14), suggesting that noble men and women were interested in aging well.

One of these publications, commissioned by the duchess of Uzès in 1597, is the subject of the first chapter: Ilana Zinguer contextualizes the volume by providing an important study of André du Laurens's medical treaty on how best to entretenir old age. As Zinguer writes, this treaty demonstrates a growing trend in medicine: doctors were now expected to standardize practices that would help the elderly have a positive impact on their own health and well-being.

The articles that follow, penned by fifteen prominent international scholars, are divided into four parts and are mostly monographic. Authors studied are Muret, Ronsard, Pasquier, Aubigné, Brantôme, Du Bartas, Monluc, and Montaigne. Besides these monographic studies, there are also three articles focusing on aging and gender: Colette H. Winn and Madeleine Kern single out the representation and silence of aging women in the Renaissance — Kern looks specifically at the genre of the comédie humaniste — while Gilles Banderier harnesses the male perspective in his article. In addition, there are three articles based on genre: Jean Vignes explores several paradoxical and, at times, highly entertaining proverbs, while Hervé Campangne studies the form of the nouvelle in the histories tragiques. Art historian Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier adds an additional perspective in her article, complete with sixteen black-and-white illustrations.

For those hoping to discover an unexpected optimism on the topic of elderly women, these articles confirm that few examples undo the negative (and negating) stereotype. While menopause is addressed in a long footnote on page 44, it would have been beneficial to have one of the scholars expand on this fundamental issue, since it is certainly a central question to the conception of women in the Renaissance. It was also surprising that, given the scope of memoirs, literature, and the integration of medical treaties, no one cites Montaigne's experiences in the Journal de voyage. The Journal would have been a great complement to several articles, including Cynthia Skenazi's rich study of the Essais.

The bibliography is particularly thorough: thirty-six pages, eleven of which are primary source texts. While typos are few, there are some small errors in footnotes, mostly due to translation from German to French. The three-page thematic index should be either augmented or excluded since it does not cover the breadth of the volume nor are its existing entries complete (see “mortality,” for example, which also appears on page 111).