Recreation in the Renaissance

Introduction 3
post-1700 texts are predominantly present in the form of secondary
sources – although a neat distinction between what constitutes primary,
and what secondary, material is not always necessary, or possible).
I should probably state from the beginning that I do not regard
gambling as a central issue in my inquiry. This is worth mentioning,
since in this orientation I depart from a significant number of writers,
both early and late modern (that is, some of my sources as well as many
recent scholars). The European vocabulary of play (see, for instance, the
Latin ludus, French jeu, Italian gioco, Spanish juego) does include gambling
as one of its characteristic meanings, and gambling has often been
associated with the playing of games. However, gambling per se can be
recreational only in a loose sense of the word. Firstly, because if the
reason of an activity is the (expected) gain, that means that it is performed
for reasons other than relaxation and amusement. Recreation
does not consist in a given set of thoughts, speech acts and gestures; it
is rather defined by the spirit or reason why someone performs them.
The latter distinction brings with it a second point: if, in the pursuit of
gain, someone devotes so much time and energy to gambling that it
becomes their main occupation, this mere fact raises serious doubts
about the possibility of properly regarding them as playing (I may sound
here worryingly similar to early modern moralists, but I think they had
a point). The case of ‘leisure classes’, whose members by definition do
not need to work, is, from this respect, problematic; but nobody would
claim that a professional footballer, when playing according to a contract,
is just having a bit of fun. 4 Having said so, I must acknowledge
not only that a significant share of the historiography of play has predominantly
dealt with gambling, but also that for many early modern
writers the financial implications of play were the main reason for
discussing it. Therefore I shall briefly consider this element wherever
it appears and is relevant, not least since my preference for the emic
approach, or viewpoint from inside, obliges me to do so.
Other topics and material will also have limited consideration here,
since any serious attempt to study them would require (and does obtain
from other scholars) more than cursory attention. Among these I should
mention imaginative literature (as a source), the practice of reading (as
a leisurely occupation), the specific worlds of music and of the arts,
ritual (festivals, carnival, misrule, rough music/charivari, ritual battles –
a historiographic issue in its own right, despite the fact that individuals
and groups would surely have engaged in most of these practices for
fun).
As the preceding observations will have sufficiently indicated, the aim