Making the Renaissance Man
Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy
Timothy McCall
- 280 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Making the Renaissance Man
Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy
Timothy McCall
About This Book
Looking beyond the marble elegance of Michelangelo's David, the pugnacious, passionate, andâcruciallyâimportant story of Renaissance manhood. Making the Renaissance Man explores the images, objects, and experiences that fashioned men and masculinity in the courts of fifteenth-century Italy. Across the peninsula, Italian princes fought each other in fierce battles and spectacular jousts, seduced mistresses, flaunted splendor in lavish rituals of knighting, and demonstrated prowess through the huntâall ostentatious performances of masculinity and the drive to rule. Hardly frivolous pastimes, these activities were essential displays of privilege and virility; indeed, violence underlay the cultural veneer of the Italian Renaissance. Timothy McCall investigates representations and ideals of manhood in this time and provides a historically grounded and gorgeously illustrated account of how male identity and sexuality proclaimed power during a century crucial to the formation of Early Modern Europe.