Abstract

By the sixteenth century, the ever-growing popularity of casini and ridotti in cities such as Venice resulted in the widespread pursuit of women’s gambling. This article argues that female card play, an activity of skill as well as chance and risk, offered women financial opportunities at a time when they were excluded from most “honorable” forms of income-generating work. They included female sex workers who benefited from the game’s popularity among men of all classes, by luring unsuspecting men into fixed card play. Through close readings of visual and textual representations of these types of gaming practices in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Venice, I consider how they not only shed light on the operations of a moralizing social technology reinforcing class and gender asymmetries but also, when read against the grain, illuminate a new kind of economic independence of women as actors and workers overlooked by scholars.

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call

Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.