“Focused on fifteenth-century Italy, this book boldly reassesses the cliched notion of a unified and cohesive prototype of the Renaissance man. McCall examines this concept through a series of well-selected examples and a refreshingly interdisciplinary method of analysis to understand how different models of masculinity and multiple signifiers of manhood have emerged throughout the Quattrocento. These contributed to consolidating a gendered, elite-based network of social prominence and political control. Drawing from theorists of gender and sexuality, such as R. W. Connell, Jack Halberstam, and Judith Butler, the volume delves into the material culture of the period, verifying the ways in which a wide range of items—paintings, medals, architecture, clothes, jewels, and even animals—have functioned as ‘markers of manhood,’ helping to fashion and validate tangible ideals of lordly masculinity. With artfully interwoven arguments, this illustrated book’s five chapters address different aspects of this intricate process of symbolic construction, persuasively suggesting that masculine authority was sanctioned not only in opposition to femininity, but also through the articulation of homosocial spaces and courtly venues in which men could compete with and dominate other men in performative displays of power. Recommended.”

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