ABSTRACT
Early modern Europe was a hybrid world where writing increasingly pervaded and shaped government, commerce, and culture, but where, nonetheless, orality remained pre-eminent. In these face-to-face societies where most people were, at best, only partially literate, even the highly educated conducted much of life with tongue, not pen. And in early modern Italy, where, according to some scholars, public life in courts and streets was notably theatrical, the professional and everyday artistry of oral transaction was perhaps especially rich.1 The intricate mechanics of talk, inquiry, contest, insult, cajolery, exhortation, negotiation, agreement, and proclamation formed a ne structure for power relations and a matrix for many economic transactions and commitments. Many business deals were not only arranged but also sealed without writing or paper.2 Dynamic spoken words also framed collective judgement and personal opinion, spurred action, and parried harm. My title invokes words that stirred the emotions and, more generally, propelled speakers and hearers to act. It also calls attention to the need, in pre-modern environments, for words to move in the mouths and bodies of human beings rather than through the technological ampli-ers that came to dominate during the twentieth century. To understand early modern oralities, we must look beyond the words, which freestanding signify little, and track them through social and material spaces. Orality was not only a mode of expression, but also a network of transactions that shaped and were shaped by situated human relationships.
