Recreation in the Renaissance - (Early Modern History: Society and Culture) by A Arcangeli (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

In Renaissance Europe, when 'leisure classes' used social gathering to define civility and the commercialization of leisure was beginning, the human need for recreation became a cultural topos. The book explores the vocabulary of play and games; the spectrum of leisure activities, often gender-specific or appropriate to particular social groups; the medical discourse on the preservation of health, where amusements were assessed as physical exercise; the moral approach to play; legal treatises on gambling; and the visual representation of leisure.

Review Quotes

'An original, learned, lucid and accessible study that should be essential reading for students of the history of sport, leisure and the Renaissance.' - Professor Peter Burke, University of Cambridge

'In this elegant and wide-ranging book, Alessandro Arcangeli sets medical exercise among other types of recreation discussed by European writers during the long Renaissance.' - Vivian Nutton, Medical History

About the Author

ALESSANDRO ARCANGELI (PhD Pisa) Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Verona, has studied at the Warburg Institute (1989-90) and was a Fellow of Villa I Tatti (1998-99). His book on the cultural history of dance, Davide o Salomè, was awarded a prize (Finale Ligure Storia, 2001).