Comunicare per gesti nel Rinascimento: un cantiere di ricerca

This text introduces a dossier of essays, resulting from an informal research group that has begun, and plans to continue, to work on the subject area and approach of a cultural history of gesture. The scope of the following pages is twofold: firstly, to set a historiographical background of the main directions in which a cluster of disciplines have ploughed the field, and indicate some of the gaps that still need filling; secondly, to signal some specificities of the historical context of the Renaissance that makes it a particularly interesting territory to explore in this perspective.