1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910780637603321

Autore

Snyder Jon R. <1954->

Titolo

Dissimulation and the culture of secrecy in early modern Europe [[electronic resource] /] / Jon R. Snyder

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2009

ISBN

1-282-36103-1

9786612361036

0-520-94444-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (307 p.)

Disciplina

302.2094/0903

Soggetti

Secrecy - Social aspects - Italy - History

Truthfulness and falsehood - Social aspects - Italy - History

Interpersonal communication - Italy - History

Secrecy - Social aspects - Europe - History

Truthfulness and falsehood - Social aspects - Europe - History

Interpersonal communication - Europe - History

Italy Social life and customs 16th century

Italy Social life and customs 17th century

Italy Social life and customs Sources

Europe Social life and customs

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-271) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface: Lost Horizons -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Not Empty Silence. The Age of Dissimulation -- 2. Taking One's Distance. Civil and Moral Dissimulation -- 3. Confidence Games. Dissimulation at Court -- 4. The Government of Designs. Dissimulation and Reason of State -- 5. The Writing on the Walls -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

"Larvatus prodeo," announced René Descartes at the beginning of the seventeenth century: "I come forward, masked." Deliberately disguising or silencing their most intimate thoughts and emotions, many early modern Europeans besides Descartes-princes, courtiers, aristocrats and commoners alike-chose to practice the shadowy art of



dissimulation. For men and women who could not risk revealing their inner lives to those around them, this art of incommunicativity was crucial, both personally and politically. Many writers and intellectuals sought to explain, expose, justify, or condemn the emergence of this new culture of secrecy, and from Naples to the Netherlands controversy swirled for two centuries around the powers and limits of dissimulation, whether in affairs of state or affairs of the heart. This beautifully written work crisscrosses Europe, with a special focus on Italy, to explore attitudes toward the art of dissimulation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Discussing many canonical and lesser-known works, Jon R. Snyder examines the treatment of dissimulation in early modern treatises and writings on the court, civility, moral philosophy, political theory, and in the visual arts.