The language of gesture in

early modern Italy

PETER BURKE

'Come all'historico sia necessaria la cognitione de' cenni'

Bonifacio, L'arte de' cenni.
'Evvi mai cosa piu visibile, piu comune e piG semplice del
gestire dell'uomo?
E pure quanto poco si riconosce di esso!!'
D e Jorio, L n mimica degli antichi.

In the last few years the territory of the historian has expanded to
include gesture, as well as the history of the body in general. For
the practitioners of the so-called 'new history', o r 'history of the
everyday' (German: Alltagsgescl~ichte),everything has a past and
nothing is too unimportant to receive historical attention. Even
smells have a history which can be recovered and written.'
Opponents of the new history assert that historians of this
school trivialize the past. Three responses to this charge seem
appropriate. T h e first is to recognize the danger of trivialization
wherever a 'new-historical' topic is pursued for its own sake,
without any attempt to show connections with anything else. For
an example of this approach one might cite Cimara Cascudo's
historical dictionary of Brazilian gestures, a scholarly and fascinating
72 Peter B ~ r k e
book (and a good basis f o r future work) but a study which collects
information without raising questions.'
A second response might be t o argue that tlie notion of the
'trivial' needs t o be probleniatized and relativized and more
s p ecificall y tliat gestures were not taken lightly in early niodern
Europe. Italy may lack spectacular debates over gesture of the kind
to be found in England (the Q u a k e r refusal t o observe 'hat-
honour'), 01- in Russia (blessing with t w o fingers o r three), but in
tlie early seventeenth ccntury a Genoese patrician, a crusader for
the vanishing ideal of republican equality, claimed that he was
imprisoned unjustly o n account of his gesti del corpo (for example,
his proud way of walking into the room and his failure t o stand u p
straight before the Chancellor), gestures regarded by the government
as a form of 'dumb i n s ~ l e n c e ' .This
~ phrase, still current in the
British A r m y , reminds us tliat in some quarters at least, tlie rules of
gesture continue t o be taken seriously.
T h e third response might be t o folloni Slierlock Holnies, Freud,
and Morelli (not t o mention Carlo Ginzburg), and t o assert tlie
importance of tlie trivial o n the grounds that it provides clues t o
what is more significant." W e can study gesture as a sub-system
within the larger system of conimunication which we call 'culture'.
This assumption is shared b y many social historians. It may even
seem obvious. So it may be useful t o remind ourselves of tlie
existence of a 'universalist' approach to gesture, recently reincarnated
in the well-known books of Desmond Morris (despite the
unresolved tension in his w o r k between universalizing zoological
explanations of the gestures of the naked ape and attempts t o map
their cultural geography).' As an example of more rigorous
(indeed, 'scientific') analysis pointing in the opposite direction, w e
may cite Birdwhistell's fanious demonstration tliat even unconscious
gestures, such as modes of walking, are not natural but learned,
and so vary froni o n e culture t o another."
It is, however, the 'culturalist' approach which I shall attempt t o
pursue here, in the case of a society in which - according t o its
northern neighbours, at least - the language of gesture was and is
particularly eloquent: Italy.
T o follow this road t o the end, it would first be necessary t o
reconstruct tlie complete repertoire of gestures available in a
given culture, tlie 'langue' from which individuals choose their
 T h e language of gestrtrc in early modern Italy 73
particular ‘paroles' according to personality or social context. The
way would then be clear for a general discussion of the rclation
between that rcpertoire and otlier aspects of thc culture - such as
the local contrasts between public and private, sacrcd and profane,
decent and indecent, spontaneous and controlled, and so on.
The surviving sources arc of course inadequate for these tasks,
although they are as rich as an carly modern historian has any right
to hope. The literary sources range from formal treatises such as
L'arte dc' cenni (1616) by the lawyer Giovanni Bonifacio o r
Andrca D e Jorio's La mlmica dcgli antichi (1532) - both attempts
to compilc dictionaries of gestures - to the more casual observations
of forcign travellers like John Evelyn, who recorded at least one
insulting gesturc (biting the finger) which the two lexicographers
missed. In the second place, Italian judicial archives often note the
gestures of insult leading to cases of assault and battery, and (among
otlier things), confirm Evelyn's hermeneutics.' The Inquisition
rccordcd another gcstilre absent from Bonifacio and D e Jorio, the
denial of Cliristianity by pointing the index finger of the right hand
h c a v e n w a r d ~ In
. ~ thc third place, the art of the period can and must
be utilized as a sourcc, despite the difficulty of measuring the
distance betwcen painted gesturcs and gestures in daily life.
The task described above is clearly too ambitious for a short
paper. So, instead of attempting to reconstruct the complete
repertoire of Italian gestures of greeting, insulting, praying, and so
on, o r t o conlmcnt on regional variation (from Venice to Naples), I
shall simply offer a few observations on change over time, the
time-span being threc centuries o r so, c. 1500-c.1800. Following
the available sourccs, I shall bc forced to devote disproportionate
attention to upper-class males.
T h e changes which will be emphasized here are not unique to
Italy. They may be summed up in three hypotheses. T h e first is
that of an increasing interest in gestures in the period. The second
h yp othesis is that a movement which might be called a 'reform' of
gesture occurred in much of Europe in this period. The third and
last hypothesis attempts to link this reform to the rise of the
northern stereotype of the gesticulating Italian.
 Peter Burke

A N E W I N T E R E S T I N GESTURES

Jean-Claudc Sclimitt has noted 'a new interest in gestures' in the

twelfth centur y .') A similar argument might be sustaincd in the case
of western Europe in the early modern period, more especially in
tlie seventecntli century. In the case of England, for example, this
interest can be sccn in the work of Bacon; in Bulwer's guide t o
hand gesturcs, the Chirologia (1644); and in the observations of
travellers abroad, including Thomas Coryate, John Evclyn, and
Philip Skippon. In thc case of France, one finds penetrating
analyses of gesture in tlic work of Montaignc, Pascal, La BruyPre,
and La Rocliefoucauld, as well as a full discussion in Courtin's
N o u v e a ~trait; de la civilirk (1671). T h e history of gesture and
posture attracted thc attention of scholars and artists such as
Poussin, whose Last Supper shows that he knew of tlie ancient
Roman custom of reclining t o eat.
In the case of Spain, it may be worth drawing attention t o Carlos
Garcia's treatise of 1617, famous in its o w n day, o n the 'antipathy'
between the French and the Spaniards revealed in the different
ways in which they walk, eat, o r use their hands. F o r example:
'Quand le Franqois a quelque fantaisie ct se pronieine, il met la
main sur le pommeau de 17cspCe,et ne porte son manteau que s u r
l'une d e ses Ppaules; I'Espagnol va jetant les janibcs q i et li comnie
un cocq, se recoquillant ct tirant les moustaches. Q u a n d les
Franqois vont en troupe par les rues ils rient, sautcnt, causent et
font un bruit si grand, que l'on les entend d'une lieue loing; les
Espagnols au contraire, vont droits, gravement ct froidement, sans
parler n y faire aucune action qui ne soit modcste et retenue'."
Garcia's w o r k is not without relevance t o Italy. It went through
thirteen Italian editions between 1636 and 1702. T h e influence of
this book (or of the comnionplaces it articulated with unusual
vivacitjl and detail) can be seen in an anonymous account of the
Venetian Republic, written in tlie late seventeenth century, which
divided 100 leading politicians into thosc with a 'gcnio spagnuolo'
(in other words a gravc manner), and those with a livelier 'genio
francese'.''
Linguistic evidence points in tlie same directions. In the first
place, towards an increasing interest in gesture, revealed by the
 T h e language of gesture in early modern Italy 75
development of an increasingly claborate and subtle language to
describe it. In the second place, towards the Spanish model, for this
language develo p ed in Italian by borrowing from Spanish such
terms as eticlwtta, complimento, crianza (good manners), disinvoltura
(negligence), and sussiego (gravity)."
The nlultiplication of texts discussing gesture, confirms the
impression of increasing interest. These texts include treatises
devoted specifically to the subject, such as Bonifacio's L'arte de'
cenni, which claimed to be addressed to princes because their dignity
required them to gesture rather than to speak, as well as La mimica
degli antichi of Bonifacio's severe critic de Jorio. The literature of
morals and manners, most obviously Castiglione's Cortegiano
(1 525), Della Casa's Galateo (c.1555), and Guazzo's Civile
conversatione (1574), also contains many relevant observations. So
does the literature of the dance, including the treatise I1 ballarino
(1551) by Fabrizio Cornazano which discusses not only the
various kinds of step but also how to deal with one's cloak and
sword, how to make a proper bow, how to take a lady's hand, and so
on. It is also worth looking at the literature of the theatre,
including G. D. Ottonelli (1661), who discusses 'I'arte gesticolatoria',
and A. Perrucci (1699), who is concerned with 'le regole del
gestire'.I3 The relation between happenings on and off the stage is
not a simple one, but to foreign visitors at least it may appear that
actors stylize and perhaps exaggerate the gestures current in a given
culture.
In their different ways, the books cited above reveal considerable
interest not only in the psychology of gestures, as outward signs of
hidden emotions, but also - and this is the innovation - in what we
might call their 'sociology'; in other words a concern with the
ways in which gestures vary (or ought to vary) according to what
mi g ht be called the 'domain of gesture' (the family, the court, the
church, and so on), and also to the actor (young o r old, male o r
female, respectable or shameless, noble o r common, lay o r cleric,
French o r Spanish, and so on). In other words, there was at this
time an increase in concern not only with the vocabulary of the
language of gesture (exemplified by Bonifacio's attempt to compile
a historical dictionary), but also with its 'grammar' (in the sense of
the rules for correct expression) and with its various dialects (or
sociolects). The connections between this interest in gesture, the
76 Peter Burke
contemporary concern with social variations in language and
costume, and, more generally, with the study of mcn and animals
in the so-called 'age of observation', deserves emphasis."

A reform of gesture formed part of the moral discipline of the

Counter-Reformation. In the Constitutions, which he issued for
his diocese of Verona around the year 1527, the model bishop
Gianmatteo Giberti ordered the clergy to show gravity 'in their
gestures, their walk and their bodily style' (in gestu, incessu et
habitu corporis). The term habitus was of course widely known
from the Latin translations of Aristotle before Pierre Bourdieu
made it his own. San Carlo Borromeo, another model bishop, also
recommended gravitas to the clergy of his diocese. San Carlo,
however, concerned himself with thc laity as well, recommending
decorum, dignit y and 'moderation' (misura) and warnina them
9
against laughing, shouting, dancing, and tumultuous behaviour.I5
A little later, the anonymous Discorso contro il Carnevale
discussed the need for order, restraint, prudence, and sobriety
(ordine, continenza, prudenza, sobrieta) and underlined the dangers
of pazzia, a term which might in this context be translated not as
'madness' but as 'loss of self-control'.'"
Similar recommendations to those just quoted were made on
rather different grounds (secular rather than religious, prudential
rather than moral) by the authors of a number of treatises intended
for members of the nobility, lay o r clerical. In the fifteenth
century, the humanist Maffeo Vegio had already warned noble
boys t o concern themselves with the modesty of their movements
and gestures (de verecundia motr4um gestuumque corporis), while
similar recommendations for girls may be found in the treatise
Decor puellarum." Another clerical humanist, Paolo Cortese, in
his treatise D e Cardinalatu (1510), warned against ugly movements
of the lips, frequent hand movements, and walking quickly, and
recommended what he called a senatorial gravity.Is When Baldassare
Castiglione, in a famous passage in I1 Cortegiano, warned his
readers against affected gestures, he was taking his place in a
Renaissance tradition. It is also clear from these humanist texts that
 The language of gesture in early modern Italy 77
the authorit y of Cicero and Quintilian was taken as seriousl y in the
domain of gestures as in that of speech.
The tradition continued to inspire writers after Castiglione. The
physiognomist-dramatist Giovanni Battista della Porta recommended
his readers not t o make gestures with their hands while speaking
(in Italy!). Stefano Guazzo discussed the dignit y and the eloquence
of the body and the need to find the golden mean, as he put it,
between 'the immobilit y of statues' and the exaggerated movements
of monkeys (l'instabilita delle simie). As for Caroso's treatise on
dancing, it has been argued that it expresses a more restrained ideal
than its predecessors, suggesting that the court dance was diverging
more and more from the peasant dance in this period.'9 After
reading this corpus of texts, many Renaissance portraits may well
appear as translations of their recommendations into images.
Whether the portraits express the ideals of the artist, the self-image
of the sitter, o r the artist's image of the sitter's self-image, the
oestures portrayed - which t o post-romantic eyes often seem
P
~ntolerablyartificial - may be read as evidence of attempts to create
new habits, a second nature.
The most detailed as well as the best-known Italian recommenda-
tions for the reform of gesture are to be found in Giovanni della
Casa's I1 Galateo. The ideal of this Catholic prelate is actually as
secular as Castiglione's; it is to be elegant and well-bred (leggiadro,
costumato). T o achieve elegance, it is necessary, according to Della
Casa, t o be conscious of one's gestures in order t o control them.
T h e hands and legs in particular need discipline. For example,
noblemen are advised, in the author's version of the classical topos,
not to walk too quickly (like a servant), o r too slowly (like a
woman), but rather to aim at the mean."
Della Casa's points are mainly negative; one suspects that this
inquisitor kept in mind, if not in his study, an index of forbidden
gestures. Yet it would be a mistake to discuss the reform of gesture
in purel y negative terms, as part of the history of repression. It can
be viewed more positively as an art, o r as a contribution to the art
of living. This is the way in which Castiglione sees it, not to
mention the dancing-masters - and in the seventeenth century, if
not earlier, dancing formed part of the curriculum in some Italian
noble colleges. It was a festive mode of inculcating discipline."
If the reformers of gesture had a positive ideal in mind, what was
78 Peter Burke
it? It might be (and sometimes was) described as a Spanish model,
influential in Italy as in central Europe and including gesture as
well as language and clothes. If it had to be summed up in a single
word, that word might well be 'gravity'. The contrast made in
Castiglione's I1 Cortcgiano between 'quella gravith riposata peculiare
dei Spagnoli' and 'la pronta vivacita' of the French was, o r was
becoming, comnionplace." Indeed, Italians frequently perceived
S p anish gesture as an absence of gesture. Thus Pedro de Toledo,
Viceroy of Naples, surprised the local nobility by the fact that
when he gave audience he remained immobile, like a 'marble
statue'.') The phrase was, o r became, a topos. O n e of Toledo's
successors was described as so grave and motionless 'that I should
never have known whether he was a man o r a figure of wood'.'"
The Venetian ambassador to Turin in 1588 described the prince's
wife, a Spanish Infanta, as 'allevata all'usanza spagnola . . . sth con
gran sussiego, pare immobile'." Guazzo's remark about the need
t o avoid the immobility of statues, quoted above, must have had a
to p ical ring.
In em p loying the tern1 'model', I d o not want to suggest that
the Italians of the period always idealized the Spaniards. O n the
contrary, they were much hated and frequently mocked, the
mockery extending on occasion to their gestures. Their gravity was
sometimes inter p reted as the stiffness of arrogance. Think, for
example, of the figure of 'Capitano' on the Italian stage and of his
stylized bravure: in other words aggressive, macho gestures
intended to challenge o r provoke his neighbours. Again, an
eighteenth-century description, by the nobleman Paolo Matteo
Doria, of Naples when it was under Spanish hegemony, gives a
highly critical account of the mutual suspicion of the upper
nobility, each observing the gestures of the others, and of the
gestures themselves, an 'affected negligence' and 'determined,
arrogant movements' failing to hide the desire to 'show superiority
over other^'.'^
N o r d o I want to assert that Spaniards always followed this
particular ideal. It was probably restricted to the upper classes, and
it may have been restricted to formal situations, especially t o
rituals (though curiously enough, the stiff rituals of the Spanish
court seem to have been brought there from Burgundy only in the
mid-sixteenth century)." N o r d o I want to suggest any facile
 The lnngwage of gesture in early modern Italy 79
explanation of change in terms of 'influence'. The appeal of the
Spanish model was surely that it met a pre-existing demand for the
reform of gesture, in other words for stricter bodily control.'"
The history of that demand has been written by Norbert Elias in
his famous stud y of the 'process of civilisation' (by which he
generally means self-control), concentrating on northern Europe
but including a few observations on the Italians (who were, after
all, pioneers in the use of the fork).'' More recently, the late Michel
Foucault has offered an alternative history of the body, examining
the negative aspects in his Discipline and Punish, the more positive
ones in his H i s t o q ~of Sexualit y , and emphasizing control over the
bodies of others as well as over the self." Elias and Foucault were
of course concerned with the practice rather than the theory of
gesture and the control of the bod y . It is time to ask whether o r not
the Italian reformers of gesture succeeded in their aims.

T h e reform discussed in the previous section was not peculiarly

Italian, but part of a general Western 'process of civilisation' (there
are parallels in other parts of the world, such as China and Japan,
but their history remains to be written). The h y pothesis I want to
present here is that the reform of gesture, if not more rigorous, was
at least more successful in the northern Protestant parts of Europe
such as Britain and the Netherlands than in the Catholic south;
that the stereotype of the gesticulating Italian, still current in the
north, came into existence in the early modern period; and that it
reflects a contrast between two gestural cultures, associated with
two styles of rhetoric (more o r less copious) and other differences
as well.31
The contrast is not between the presence and the absence of
gesture, though it was sometimes perceived as such. What we
observe in this period - at second hand - is rather the increasing
distance between two body languages, which we might call the
flamboyant and the disciplined. (I d o not mean to imply that one
body language is 'natural' and the other 'artificial' o r 'civilized'; on
the contrary, I assume that all body languages are artificial, in the
sense of being learned.)
SO Peter Burke
If the Italians perceived thc Spaniards as gesturing too little, the
northerners perceived the southerners as gesturing too much. The
Dutchman Van Laar's view of the gcsticulating Italian is discussed
in Herman Roodenburg's contribution in Chapter 7 of this
volume. In English, 'gesticulate' is a pejorative term (defined by
the Oxford English Dictionary as the use of 'much' or 'foolish'
gestures) and it is documented from 1613 onwards, a point which
supports the hypothesis of a new interest in gesture at this time.3'
From about this time onwards, if not before, we find British
writers commenting with surprise o r disdain on what they regard
as the excessive gestures of the Italians (or the French, o r the
Greeks). Thus Thomas Coryate, in Venice in 1608, noted what he
called 'an extraordinary custom', 'that when two acquaintances
meet . . . they give a mutual kiss when they depart from each
other.' In the church of San Giorgio, he commented still more
explicitly on 'one kind of gesture which seemeth to me both very
unseemly and ridiculous', that of people who 'wagge their hands
up and downe very ~ f t e n ' . ' ~Philip Skippon, in Rome in 1663,
described a Jesuit preaching on Piazza Navona 'with much action
and postures of his body'.'-' Frenchmen as well as Italians came in
for this kind of criticism. In 1691 The English Spy mocked the
French for 'so many Shruggs and Apish Gestures . . . Finger-Talk
as if they were conversing with the Deaf'.35 In Naples, the
language of the body was even more apparent than it was
elsewhere, at least t o the British visitor; to John Moore in 1781, for
example, describing the 'great gesticulation' of a story-teller, o r to
J. J. Blunt observing 'infinite gesticulation' during a reading of
Ario~to.~"n the early nineteenth century, an American, Washington
Irving, was still more explicit in his diagnosis of the symptoms of
the Italian national character, as he viewed from his cafi table on
Piazza San Marco a conversation conducted 'with Italian vivacity
and ge~ticulation'.~'
These texts are of course insufficient to support any grand
h yp othesis, but at least they make an interesting problem more
visible. T h e simple contrast between north and south, Catholic and
Protestant will of course have to be refined. Where, for exan~ple,does
one place Poland? In what ways did Spanish gravity differ from
British self-control? T o what extent were these stereotypes of
national characters, expressing themselves through the language of
 T h e language of gesture in early m o d e m Italy 81
t h e b o d y , generalizations a b o u t a single social g r o u p , t h e noble-
m e n ? T h e r e is a m p l e s c o p e h e r e f o r f u r t h e r discussion a n d also f o r
c o m p a r a t i v e research.

NOTES

1 A. Corbin, Le minsmc ct In jonqt4ille: l'odornt ct I'imnginnirc socinl,

xviii-xixc siPc/es (Paris, 1982).
2 L. de Cimara Cascudo, Historin dos nossos gestos, S i o Paulo n.d.
(c.1974).
3 'Parvc alle serenissime Signorie loro cli'io entrassi nella sala corag-
giosamente, altri dissero con alterigia . . . stavo col corpo e col capo
storto', A. Spinola, Suitti scclti, ed. C . Bitossi (Genoa, 1981), p. 126.
4 C . Ginzburg, 'Spic: Radici di un paradigma indiziario', in Crisi ~1~11n
rngione: Nuovi rnodelli ncl rnpporto trn snperc e attivitfl Mmnnc, ed.
A. Gargani (Turin, 1979), pp. 57-106. Cf. Ginzburg, Ayj~ths,
Emblems, Clries (Loncion, 1990), pp. 96-125, 200-14.
5 D . Morris, Aynnwntching: A Field Gtride to Ht4mnn Rehnviour
(London, 1977) and Morris et al., Gestrrrcs: Tl9cir Origins and
Distribr4tion ( N e w York, London, 1979).
6 R. L. Birdnrliistell, Kinesics nnd Contcst: Ess'7jls on Bo~ljl-Motion
Cornmtmicntion (Philadelphia, 1970); cf. M. Mauss, 'Les techniques
d u corps', j o ~ r n a ldc psj~cl~ologie
norrnnlr ct pnthologiqr~e,39 (1935),
pp. 271-93.
7 Tl9e Ding1 o f j o b n Evelyn, ed. E. S. de Beer (Oxford, 1955), Vol. 11,
p. 173; cf. Rome, Archivio di Stato. Tribunale del Governatore,
Processi Criminali, '600, busta 50, 'mittendosi la dita in bocca'.
8 B. Bennassar, 'Conversion o u reniement? ModalitPs d'unc adhesion
ambigue des chritiens i I'Islam (XVIe-XVIIe sikcles), Annalcs E. S. C.,
43 (19SS), pp. 1349-66, esp. p. 1351.
9 J.-C. Sclimitt, 'Between text and image: the prayer gestures of Saint
Dominic', Histo31nndAnth7-opologj~,1 (1984), pp. 127-62, esp. p. 127.
10 C . Garcia, Ln oposicion 31conjuncidn de 10s dos grnndes luminnres de In
tierrn, o 11 antipntin defrnncesesjl espniioles, ed. M. Bareau (Edmonton,
1979). Quotation from ch. 14. It is not clear whether this treatise,
produced to justify Louis XIII's marriage to the Infanta, was originally
written in Spanish o r Frencli. It went through at least twenty-eight
editions by 1704 (in French, Spanish, Italian, English, and German).
82 Peter Burke
11 Venice, Bibliothcca Marciana, Ms. Gradcnigo 15, 'Esame istorico
politico di ccnto soggctti dclla rcpublica Vcneta'.
12 G.-L. Beccaria, Spagno/o e spngnoli in It'rlin: Rlflcssi lspanici sull~z
lingrt<~ l t n l i n ) ~ nriel Cinqr4c c dcl Scicento (Turin, 196S), pp. 161 -207.
13 G . Bonifacio, L"rrtc dc'cerrni (Viccnzn, 1616); G . D. Ottonelli, Delln
o i s t i n ~ ~m o n ~t ~ ~ ~ (I-lorcnce,
r ~o d ~ r ~ ~ t i(/el tro 1652); A. Pcrrucci,
'Dcll'artc mppl-cscntativa', in E.Pctrncconc, Ln Conrntetli~ltlrll'Artc
(Naplcs, 1927), pp. 70f.
I4 T h e idea of 'dialccts' of gcstl~rcgoes back to A. 1)c Jorio, Ln ~)ii)?iic'l
dcgli nnticbi i~~z-cstigatn ~ i c gcstire
l NL~polct(uio(Naples, 1832, rcpr.
1964), p. ssii: scc also Thomas. p. 3 and Graf, p. 36 in this \rolunie.
15 1.'. Taviani, Ln commcdin r!ellhrtc e ln socictri bnroccL7 (Rome, 1969),
pp. 5-43; cf. Snn Cnrlo e 11 sr4o tcmpo: Atti dcl convcgno
internnzionn/c riel I V c ~ n t c n ~ ~~r fi col f nmortc ( A l ~ l ~ ~21-26
n o , n~nggio
1984) (Rornc, 19S6), pp. 91 1, 926-7.
16 'Discorso contro i l carncvale', in Taviani, comnzedin, pp. 67-81.
17 M. Vegio, De libo-orr4n1 cdr4crztione (Paris, 151 I), Bk 5, ch. 3.
1 S P. Cortese, De cn,-dinnlatr4 (Rome, 1510), pp. scvv-viii.
19 Dizionario Biogrnfico degli Itn/iani, s.v. 'Caroso'.
20 Giovanni della Casa, I1 Gnlntco (Florence, 155S), ch. 6.
21 F. Brizzi, Ln forrnnzione delln cknssc dirigcnte ncl Sci-Scttecento: I
.ccrninnriG7 nobilirrm )icll'Italin centro-sette~ztrionale (Rome, 1976),
pp. 254-5. O n the relation between dancing and body language in
general in this R. z u r Lippe, Nnt~rbeherrscl7r4)7gn m Alenscl7oz
(Frankfurt, 1974).
22 B. Castiglione, I1 Cortegin)~o(Venice, 152S), Bk 2, ch. 37: Federico is
speaking.
23 1;. Caraffa, 'Memorie', Arcl~ivioStorico per le Provitzcie Nnpoletnne, 5
(ISSO), pp. 25-7.
24 T. Boccalini, L17 bilnncin politics (Chhtclaine, 167S), vol. I, p. 215.
25 Quoted in Beccaria, Spngnolo e spagrioli, p. 174.
26 P. M. Doria, Alnssin7e del goao-no spagnolo n Nnpoli, ed. V. Conti
(Naples, 1973), p. 59: 'il titolato di prima sfera PI-etcnde con la sua
aftettata disinvoltura, e con i suoi rnovirnenti risoluti e disprezzanti . . .
ostentare superiorith sopra gl'altri'.
27 Clir. Hofmann, Dns Spnniscl~cHofzcrcmoniell won 1500-1700 (Frank-
furt, 1985).
28 A point made for the domain of language by J. Brunet, 'L'influencc d e
I'Espagne sur la troisiPnie personne dc politesse italienne', in Presence
ct in.fluencc dc I'Espngne dnris fa C M ~ ~ Mitalienne ~ C dc In Rennissnnce
(Paris, 1978), pp. 251-315.
 Tl7e l a n g u a g e of gestldre in early m o d e r n Italy 83
29 N. Elias, Uber den Prozess der Zivilisation: Soziogenetiscl9e r4nd
psycl~ogenetiscl7e Untersuchungen (2 vols, Bascl, 1939).
30 M. Foucault, S ~ r v e i l l e ret punir: naissance de la prison (Paris, 1975);
idem, Histoire de la sex~alitk(3 vols, Paris, 1976-1984).
31 T h e possiblc link bctween gestural discipline and Protcstantisrn
(especially Calvinisn~)deserves investigation. It is interesting t o find a
French Calvinist, Hcnri Esticnne, criticizing the gcstures of the
Italians. See H. Esticnne, Derts dialogues tie nor4vear4 langage franqois
italianizc et m t r e m e n t desguiz6, 1st cdn 1578 (Paris, 1980 edn),
p. 322.
32 Cf. and contrast 1.-C. Schmitt, 'Gcst~~slGesticrtlatio: Contribution i
I'Ctudc du vocabulaire latin rnCdieval dcs gestcs', in La lesicographie
d u ldtin mediCval et ses rapports nvec les recl3erchcs actuelles s ~ lar
civilisation dl4 Mo~lo7Age (Paris, 1981), pp. 377-90.
33 T. Coryate, Crudities (London, 161 I), pp. 399, 369.
34 P. Skippon, A n Account of a Journe~lmade thm' part of the Low-
corrntries, Germany, Italy and France, in A. and J. Churchill, A
Collection of Vo~tagesmztl Trovcls (London, 1752 edn), vol. VI,
p. 665.
35 T h e English Spy (London, 1691), p. 123.
36 J. Moore, A V i m *of Society and Afanners in Italy (Dublin, 1781),
Letter 60; J. J. Blunt, Vestiges of Ancient Manners (London, 1823).
37 G. Crayon [pseud. of Washington Irving], Tales of a Traveller (2 vols,
Paris, 1824), vol. I, p. 103.