Recreation in the Renaissance

40 Recreation in the Renaissance
pastimes, is that of Areteus, deambulatio per amoena loca, to make a petty
progresse, a merry journy now and then with some good companions,
to visit friends, see citties, castles, townes.’ 43 Burton’s eulogy of the walk
deploys a variety of cultural references and historical contexts, from the
medieval monastery of Bernard of Clairvaux to ‘the Princes garden at
Ferrara’ as described in Schottus’s popular Itinerary to Italy. It is significant
to find here explicit reference to a traveller’s guide, since the
following recommended settings cluster together in what looks like
an early piece of travel journalism, attracting the reader’s attention to
a selection of Renaissance top tourist attractions: ‘the sight of such a
Palace as that of Escuriall in Spaine, or to that which the Moores built at
Granada, Fountenblewe in France, the Turkes gardens in his Seraglio, [. . .]
the Popes Belvedere in Rome [. . .]; or those famous gardens of the Lord
Chantelou in France [. . .]; or many of our Noblemens gardens at home.
To take a boat in a pleasant evening, and with musicke to row upon the
waters [. . .]; or in a Gundilo through the grand Canale in Venice, to see
those goodly Palaces, must needs refresh and give content to a melancholy
dull spirit.’ 44 Here the problems deriving from the specific
humoral balance of the melancholic govern a selection which is not
solely about walking, but includes a variety of recommended sensorial
experiences that are expected to play a curative role: pleasant odours
and drinks, the sight of lavishly decorated and furnished interiors, and
so on. The importance of vision, the positive impact of an amazement
on the beholder, brings the author to introduce the subject of spectacles,
from all sorts of pageants to the re-enactment of historical battles.
Burton continues with a list of recreations specific to either country or
town: ‘May-games, Feasts, Wakes, and merry meetings’ on the one side;
on the other, ‘walks, Cloysters, Tarraces, Groves, Theatres, Pageants,
Games, and severall recreations’. 45 He also cites keeping animals for
pleasure, and distinguishes between pastimes appropriate to different
seasons. He adds: ‘Some mens whole delight is, to take Tobacco, and
drinke all day long in a Taverne or Ale-house, to discourse, sing, jest,
roare, talke of a Cock and Bull over a pot, etc.’ – a subject which gives
way to a conventional critique of gambling, for which the physician
makes use of some of the Calvinist literature we will consider in the
next chapter (Daneau, Souter). 46 Burton’s survey continues: ‘Chesse-play,
is a good and witty exercise of the minde, for some kinde of men’;
‘Dancing, Singing, Masking, Mumming, Stage plaies, howsoever they bee
heavily censured by some severe Catoes, yet if opportunely and soberly
used, may justly be approved.’ 47 The description of appropriate occupations
reaches a climax when Burton observes: ‘But amongst those