Dissimulation and the Culture of Secrecy in Early Modern Europe - Jon R. Snyder

Larvatus prodeo announced Rene 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.

TITLE: Dissimulation and the Culture of Secrecy in Early Modern Europe

AUTHOR: Jon R. Snyder

SKU: 9780520274631

PUBLISHER: University of California Press

DATE PUBLISHED: 03/08/2012

PLACE PUBLISHED: United States

PAGES: 312

BINDING: Paperback / softback

LANGUAGE: English

DIMENSIONS: 152 mm x 229 mm x 20 mm

WEIGHT: 408 gr