ii68 Reviews judgement: perhaps itwould have been better at some point to say so, because the reasons fora sceptical approach aremore strongly argued than those for taking some images literally.Nevertheless, Section iii does leave us with some persuasive state ments about what commedia dell'arte costumes looked like,based on a comprehensive knowledge of dress and fashion of theperiod. There are some less surprising conclu sions, stillbased on interestingpictures, about how troupesmight have adapted their performances to fitdifferentavailable spaces. For all these things, the book directs us to much more visual evidence thanmany of us knew existed. Because of the systematic art-historical background, we are given a better feel thanwe ever had before for the importance of some sequences of pictures, such as theRecueil Fossard and the illus trations to theCorsini manuscript collection of scenarios; and we see again how often 'Fossard' postures and costumes were simply copied, and placed indifferentcontexts, by a string of later seventeenth-century artists.Most of all, perhaps, the spread of commedia dell'arte images intoproducts such asAmbrogio Brambilla's game board of I589, and into theGerman market forStammbuicher ('Friendship Albums'), will force theatrehistorians intobroadening the scope of their research. (One is tempted to speak here of a 'Disneyfication' process, in which popular figures take root in the imagination and are then deployed in contexts quite far removed from stage or performance.) The Art of Commedia is not an easy or comfortable read. One has constantly to flipback and forthbetween the textand one ormore black-and-white plates, peering through amagnifying glass in an attempt (sometimes a vain one, it must be said) to identifyor confirm thedetails being described. Some important pictures, particularly the astonishing frescos inTrausnitz Castle, feelunder-used because one cannot read them, or distinguish their colours, properly. (However, one can see that thesemore than 340 reproductions could only have been made more user-friendly by raising costs to an astronomical level.) The points being made, especially inSection ii, often seem fragmentary as well as very detailed; and it is easy for the non-art historian to lose trackof the relationship which theymay have to an overarching argument. Nevertheless, this is a very important study. It contains early on (p. 29) a salutary plea for an integration ofwhat we can learn from textual records on the one hand and from iconography on the other.After immersion in the images contained in this book, one comes awaywith a kaleidoscope of street charlatans, carnival masquerades, grotesques, acrobatics, codpieces, and farcical plots of seduction and humiliation. These things lend themselves, of course, to being visually depicted in an entertain ingway. By contrast, scholars working on the textual evidence (scenarios, published plays, and actors' self-propaganda) pursue what lends itself to being recorded in words. They observe the close links between improvised and scripted drama, and the ambitions of the snobbier sections of theprofession-their pretence that theyno longer had anything todo with street theatreor scurrility.A revisionism which is more interdisciplinary, and towhich The Art ofCommedia now provides an indispensable contribution, will eventually produce amore comprehensive and accurate view. UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS RICHARD ANDREWS Reading andWriting Italian Homosexuality: A Case ofPossible Difference. By DEREK DUNCAN. Aldershot: Ashgate. 2oo6. vi+ 178 pp. ?45. ISBN 978-o-7546 539I-2. This volume, the firstsingle-authored study of itskind inEnglish, pursues twomain goals. Firstly it looks to uncover 'the paths of constraints and resistance charted by an emergent queer subject' (p. I2) in a number of Italian narrative texts ranging from the turnof thecentury to thepresent day. Secondly, andmore broadly, itargues foran MLR, I02.4, 2007 II69 understanding of Italian homosexuality as being inherentlydifferentvis-a-vis north ernEuropean constructs ofmale same-sex desire, and as giving rise to a literarytradi tionprimarily defined by acts ofmasking, strategic silences, and productive reticences. The firstgoal is brilliantly met; Derek Duncan weaves an elegant and thought provoking narrative which establishes Italian homosexuality as a viable field of re search. Rather than claiming to be unveiling a hidden gay genealogy, his study is guided by a keen awareness of the problematic status of the very notion of a queer subject, particularly in the early part of the century.Accordingly, not all of...