The word on the street: street performers and devotional texts in italian renaissance cities

From well before the introduction of print, street performers had competed with preachers and prophets for the attention of audiences in the piazzas of Italian cities. Once the press appeared in Italy, these performers (cantastorie, cantimbanchi, cerretani, ciarlatani) quickly began to channel this activity into the new medium, publishing and selling a great range of cheap texts, among them religious and devotional works which they would also have performed publicly. This essay surveys the kinds of religious texts that street performers composed, published, and sold in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and how these printed texts continued to interact closely with traditions of oral performance and recitation. It also considers how this aspect of their repertoires fared in the era of Catholic Reformation when tighter control began to be exercised over religious practice, popular performance, and the use of public spaces.