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.

About the Author
Timothy McCall is Associate Professor of Art History at Villanova University, Philadelphia. He is the co-editor of Visual Cultures of Secrecy in Early Modern Europe (2013) and the author of Brilliant Bodies: Fashioning Courtly Men in Early Renaissance Italy (2022).


Book Information
ISBN 9781789147858
Author Timothy McCall
Format Hardback
Page Count 280
Imprint Reaktion Books
Publisher Reaktion Books