Making the Renaissance Man

An investigation of representations and ideals of manhood in the courts of fifteenth-century Italy.

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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; they seduced mistresses, flaunted splendour in lavish rituals of knighting and demonstrated prowess through the hunt, in ostentatious performances of masculinity and 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 and provides a historically grounded and gorgeously illustrated account of how male identity and sexuality proclaimed power, in a century crucial to the formation of early modern Europe.