Items related to The War of the Fists: Popular Culture and Public Violence...
The War of the Fists is a study of seventeenth-century worker culture in the city of Venice, focusing on the mock battles, or battagliole, which the town's two popular factions waged on public bridges. These "little battles" were partly festive battle, partly sport, and partly thinly veiled plebeian mayhem: they could involve as many as a thousand fighters on each side and attracted crowds of thirty thousand or more. Their importance in the city's plebeian life makes bridge battles an extremely valuable point of entry for exploring structures of Venetian popular culture, a task which Robert Davis attempts at four levels: the social geography of Venetian factionalism; the combat itself, and its relationship to social culture; the festive world which grew up around the encounters; and the response of Venice's patrician state to this largely uncontrollable worker celebration.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
"Davis tells a colorful story with verve and acumen, and couches it comfortably in matters of import for the larger social history of pre-modern Europe."--Journal of Social History
"Davis describes in great detail this little-known feature of Venetian popular culture, drawing out its social ramifications. Based on a range of original sources and graced with illustrations and maps, this is an excellent study of plebeian life in early modern Europe."--CHOICE
"In this fascinating and well written book Robert Davis opens up a surprisingly new and challenging vision of the social world and violent life of late Renaissance Venice from the apparently humble and insignificant perspective of regular battles waged by artisans and lower class toughs for the honor of dominating certain bridges in the city. This book can be read as an exciting example of the new social/cultural history, as a stimulating prototype of microhistory, as a rather different direction to take the history of sport, or simply as an intriguing read on the complex and still surprisingly unknown world of everyday life in the early modern period. Not only is this history that is fun to read and think about, it is history that will be most intriguing to build upon."--Guido Ruggiero, University of Connecticut
"This is a fascinating evocation of the passions and behavior of the ordinary citizens of Renaissance Venice. Professor Davis vividly exposes the tensions that lay below the surface of that smoothly-functioning Republic, and suggests that the battles on the bridges provided an outlet for anger and rivalry that helped the Serenissima maintain its aura of social order and political calm. If topography and the involvement of all levels of society made Venice unique, this account nevertheless reveals the roots of modern public sports events in the confrontations, the maneuvers, and the forms of popular recreation that Davis here brings so colorfully to life."--Theodore K. Rabb, Princeton University
"This study provides great insight into a characteristic of the popular culture of Venetian society too often neglected in the depiction of life in this Renaissance republic. Davis allows the reader to gain a more complete understanding of the various dynamic forces at work in the social and cultural world of the 'Queen of the Adriatic.' This well-written and intriguing study will be of interest to both cultural and social historians not only of Venice, but sixteenth-century society as a whole. Davis contributes to our further understanding of the complexity of this unique republic at a moment when it enjoyed the reputation of stability and tranquility among the Italian city-states of the Renaissance."--Sixteenth Century Journal
"A wonderful microstudy of the social history of power, honor, and class identities. Marvelously focused, this essay is about big themes....Should have a broad and commanding appeal to a whole range of students."--Peter Arnade, California State University, San Marcos
"...Sheds valuable light on previously unexplored aspects of early modern Venetian society and raises intriguing questions about the relationship between elite and popular culture."--Renaissance Quarterly
"By studying the verified material closely in all its aspects, he has gathered much new information about the society of Venice and, in particular, about its people and culture and the relationship between the people and the nobility."--Journal of Modern History
Robert C. Davis is Assistant Professor of Renaissance Italian History at Ohio State University.
Review:
"Davis tells a colorful story with verve and acumen, and couches it comfortably in matters of import for the larger social history of pre-modern Europe."--Journal of Social History
"Davis describes in great detail this little-known feature of Venetian popular culture, drawing out its social ramifications. Based on a range of original sources and graced with illustrations and maps, this is an excellent study of plebeian life in early modern Europe."--CHOICE
"In this fascinating and well written book Robert Davis opens up a surprisingly new and challenging vision of the social world and violent life of late Renaissance Venice from the apparently humble and insignificant perspective of regular battles waged by artisans and lower class toughs for the honor of dominating certain bridges in the city. This book can be read as an exciting example of the new social/cultural history, as a stimulating prototype of microhistory, as a rather different direction to take the history of sport, or simply as an intriguing read on the complex and still surprisingly unknown world of everyday life in the early modern period. Not only is this history that is fun to read and think about, it is history that will be most intriguing to build upon."--Guido Ruggiero, University of Connecticut
"This is a fascinating evocation of the passions and behavior of the ordinary citizens of Renaissance Venice. Professor Davis vividly exposes the tensions that lay below the surface of that smoothly-functioning Republic, and suggests that the battles on the bridges provided an outlet for anger and rivalry that helped the Serenissima maintain its aura of social order and political calm. If topography and the involvement of all levels of society made Venice unique, this account nevertheless reveals the roots of modern public sports events in the confrontations, the maneuvers, and the forms of popular recreation that Davis here brings so colorfully to life."--Theodore K. Rabb, Princeton University
"This study provides great insight into a characteristic of the popular culture of Venetian society too often neglected in the depiction of life in this Renaissance republic. Davis allows the reader to gain a more complete understanding of the various dynamic forces at work in the social and cultural world of the 'Queen of the Adriatic.' This well-written and intriguing study will be of interest to both cultural and social historians not only of Venice, but sixteenth-century society as a whole. Davis contributes to our further understanding of the complexity of this unique republic at a moment when it enjoyed the reputation of stability and tranquility among the Italian city-states of the Renaissance."--Sixteenth Century Journal
"A wonderful microstudy of the social history of power, honor, and class identities. Marvelously focused, this essay is about big themes....Should have a broad and commanding appeal to a whole range of students."--Peter Arnade, California State University, San Marcos
"...Sheds valuable light on previously unexplored aspects of early modern Venetian society and raises intriguing questions about the relationship between elite and popular culture."--Renaissance Quarterly
"By studying the verified material closely in all its aspects, he has gathered much new information about the society of Venice and, in particular, about its people and culture and the relationship between the people and the nobility."--Journal of Modern History
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherOxford University Press
- Publication date1994
- ISBN 10 0195084039
- ISBN 13 9780195084030
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages240
- Rating
Buy New
Learn more about this copy
US$ 205.83
Shipping:
US$ 31.27
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
The War of the Fists: Popular Culture and Public Violence in Late Renaissance Venice
Published by
Oxford University Press
(1994)
ISBN 10: 0195084039
ISBN 13: 9780195084030
New
Hardcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description hardcover. Condition: New. New. book. Seller Inventory # D8S0-3-M-0195084039-6
Buy New
US$ 205.83
Convert currency