Table of Contents

List of illustrations with sources acknowledged
Editor's Preface
Andrea de Jorio and his work on gesture by Adam Kendon

Gestural Expression of the Ancients in the light of Neapolitan gesturing

Introduction
ABC of Gestures
Abbracciare Embrace to Unione de gesti Gestures in combination
The Plates and Explanations of the Plates
Appendix
Index I: Index of Titles
Index II: Explanations of the Plates
Index III: Gestures
Index IV: Meanings
Index V: Monuments newly Explained
Letters of Recommendation and Permission

Bibliographical Appendix

A. Publications by Andrea de Jorio
B. References and Sources in Gestural Expression
C. Editor's References and Sources

Promotional Information

A translation with introduction of the first ethnographic and semiotic study of gesture in daily life.

About the Author

Adam Kendon is well known for his work on gesture and the organization of communication conduct in face-to-face interaction. He is the author of Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia (1988), Conducting Interaction (1990), and numerous articles on gesture. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici. He has been a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Reviews

"As a chronicle of the salty doings of a richly theatrical city, Gesture in Naples is unsurpassed; as a snapshot of a society now homogenised like any other, it is unique." - The Economist "I had heard about this book for years. The person who put the word out, at least in lay circles, was probably Luigi Barzini, in The Italians (1964). Praising his countrymen's gift for talking with their hands, Barzini lamented that so little had been written on this subject. To his knowledge, only one person - Andrea de Jorio, a Neapolitan priest - had attempted a lexicon of Italian hand gestures, in an 1832 volume entitled La Mimica degli antichi investigata nel gestire napoletano... Barzini offered a little sample... Upon reading [it], you felt that if you could not get hold of de Jorio's book immediately, you would bite your elbows... [N]ot until this year was de Jorio's treatise brought out in English. The translation, the copious notes, and the long, helpful introduction... [are] a source of wisdom and delight." Joan Acocella, New York Review of Books "The twentieth century found little time for de Jorio's pioneering work until recently, when the rise of semiotics combined with an interest among art historians in gesture to invest his achievement with an importance that not even he could have imagined. Even so, this book has been more often cited than read. In view of its immense relevance to contemporary studies of gesture in the context of language and culture, it is surprising that we have had to wait so long for a translation into English. Adam Kendon has now given us the first complete, annotated rendering of [de Jorio's book]. Kendon himself is an established leader in the new scientific approach to the study of gesture." G.W. Bowersock, The New Republic