ABSTRACT
The conceptual framework and background of bodily practices into which physical exercise is best fitted is the system of traditional Greek medicine called hygiene. It is important to point out that this survey of a series of texts and practices does not necessarily yield a clear distinction between the dimension of gymnastics (also in medical use), military exercise, and leisure. This chapter has focused in good measure on treatises, testimonies in a certain way indirect with respect to the documentation of actual practices – regulative sources, which typically express intentions rather than reality. Pietro Monti did little more than follow an ancient medical tradition that had an authoritative foundation in Hippocratic writings (in particular De aeris aquis locis), which considered environment a decisive determinant of one's physical constitution, and, as a result, of one's overall health and susceptibility to particular diseases.
