Tennis has ancient origins. Ball games with wrist bands and rackets of various kinds have been practised since the Middle Ages and involve men and women, becoming not only forms of pastime, but actual tools for physical exercise and didactic strategy. The conference traces the stages of the long history of tennis, from its origins to the eighteenth century, and proposes a path in images through the evolution of playing techniques, to discover its symbolic and educational values, particularly popular in European courts. Clelia Arnaldi di Balme (Palazzo Madama), Alessandra Castellani Torta (Sant’Uberto Academy) and Blythe Alice Raviola (Milan University).

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