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SUMMARY:Embodied knowledge: riding Ottoman horses in Renaissance Italy - M
 arissa Smit-Bose (Harvard University)
DTSTART:20231030T120000Z
DTEND:20231030T130000Z
UID:TALK207055@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Tom Banbury
DESCRIPTION:In the 1490s\, the Marquis of Mantua Francesco II Gonzaga succ
 essfully imported dozens of horses from Constantinople into Italy. Bolster
 ing his family's famous breeding enterprise\, these purchases involved sta
 ggering hardships and testify to the luxury status of Ottoman animals. Ove
 r the next decades\, a new riding style\, _manéggio_\, would be populariz
 ed from Naples and disseminated in texts like Federico Grisone's landmark 
 _Gli Ordini di Cavalcare_ of 1550. While the significance of this burgeoni
 ng genre of riding treatises is widely recognized\, the place of Ottoman h
 orses and horse ways in these developments has gone underexplored.\n\nAcco
 rdingly\, I examine the material and discursive engagement of Europeans (p
 rimarily Italians) with Ottoman equestrian culture in the sixteenth centur
 y. During this period\, the characterization of Ottoman horse care and tra
 ining in European travel narratives and hippological works shifted dramati
 cally. Denunciations of neglect became praises of gentleness and liberty w
 hich provided a rhetorical foil for the disciplined control sought in _man
 éggio_.\n\nDespite such admiration\, the bodily comportment of these moun
 ts often frustrated the expectations of European riders. More than a comme
 rcial transaction\, then\, importing Ottoman animals necessitated acts of 
 translation on the parts of both humans and horses and spurred the growth 
 of cross-cultural riding knowledge. Charting the boundaries of these exper
 iential\, embodied\, and innovative exchanges\, I use _alla Turchesca_ rid
 ing in Italy to showcase the active role of Ottoman interlocutors in the p
 roduction of this knowledge. At the same time\, I show how Italy's writing
  riders mobilized their command of these skills to claim expertise in the 
 competitive arena of courtly riding schools\, thereby consolidating a sens
 e of civilizational difference and\, increasingly\, of European superiorit
 y.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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