Recreation in the Renaissance

Appendix: the European Vocabulary of Recreation 131
As with the preceding case, word formation of disport/sport 20 signals diversion
(see ‘deportation’ and related vocabulary). Diporto is attested in thirteenthcentury
Italian poetry. Needless to say, since the British invention of modern
sport the word has been directly borrowed in every other language – but this
phenomenon lies beyond our chronological boundary.
The French noun passe-temps is documented from the early fifteenth century,
the Spanish pasatiempo towards 1490, the Italian equivalent widely used in the
following century. 21 The term anchors the range of leisure activities to which it
is applicable to the task of killing time, often with the implication of avoiding
boredom. The latter purpose has such deep cultural roots and so wide a historical
range of occurences, that the claim by a recent scholar that boredom is an
eighteenth-century English invention cannot be taken seriously. 22
The French entretenement 23 is attested in the fifteenth century. Among its
meanings, we find prominent that of pleasant conversation. The same is true of
sixteenth-century Italian (where a secondary value of courting is also present).
Intrattenimento also stays for pastime, amusement, its spectrum of meanings
ranging from a theatrical performance to a party.
The French reflexive/medium intransitive verb s’amuser is documented from
the twelfth century, the noun from the fifteenth. 24 It derives from muser, literally
‘to keep one’s muzzle in the air’, consequently ‘to waste one’s own time’. It
has since developed to refer to play and a variety of pleasant occupations.
While the general meaning of pleasure 25 (and of a few more terms) covers a
much wider realm than the present research, in its linguistic varieties the noun
could also be used for indicating specific occasions or means of causing pleasure.
The Latin root from which delight 26 derives generated a group of verbs (lacio,
lacto, delicio) which denote seduction, allurement, deception. Semerano links it
to an Akkadian and semitic verb (lqh) which means ‘to seize, to capture’. Deliciae
are amusements full of pleasure, delights; delicatus is he who lives in delights,
‘gracious, delicate’. Vernacular developments retain the double reference to
‘pleasure, delights’ and those activities which produce them (I will return to
this dichotomy below), with a wide range of applications, from games and
spectacles, to more informal conversations and a carefree life. The pleasant
emotion could refer to satisfaction derived from each of the human senses, from
the commodities that make life comfortable, or from the relief from toils and
worries. It also indicated the joy provoked by true knowledge, in both the senses
it acquires in the religious experience (a leitmotiv of ascetic and mystic language)
or in the arts and sciences (a usage which occurs in Leonardo da Vinci). Here we
encounter again the value of ‘intensive, mutual love relationship’, with the
added Christian nuance (with no lesser witness than Dante) of sensual satisfaction
perceived as sin, vice and guilt. 27
The term solace is related to consolation, one of the meanings it had in
sixteenth-century French. 28 More specifically than other equivalent terms, it
indicates the relieving effect that pleasure can have on the human mind. It could
be used both combined with pleasure or joy, or as their equivalent, and also (like
pleasure) refer to the act that produced such a state of mind. The activity could
also lend the name to a place dedicated to its implementation. 29
Spasso/Spaß 30 is an occasional carefree, light-hearted occupation, and its pleasant
effect on the human psyche. ‘Fun’ is also the main meaning in German (as
well as ‘joke, jest, antic’). In late medieval Italian ‘andare a spasso’ had already