Recreation in the Renaissance : Attitudes Towards Leisure and Pastimes in European Culture, 1350-1700

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. This 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.

Alessandro Arcangeli is Lecturer in Early Modern History, University of Verona, Italy.