| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Europe: Ancient and Medieval

Giovanni Ceccarelli. Il gioco e il peccato: Economia e richio nel Tardo Medioevo. (Collana di Storia dell'economia e del credito, number 12). Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino. 2003. Pp. 487. €30.00.
Giovanni Ceccarelli credits as one of the sources of inspiration for his book the practice among medieval Florentines of betting on the sex of their babies at birth. Such wagers were common in the Middle Ages, as were gambling and games of chance. Ceccarelli examines the game of dice—a particular favorite—and uses it to explore broader medieval attitudes toward the concept of "risk." The author's purpose is to show how the medieval discourse helped shape modern terms of discussion, how the Middle Ages served as a "point of observation" (p. 9) and "mental training ground" (p. 11) for the current understanding of risk.	1
The book is both ambitious and innovative. Ceccarelli undertakes close textual analyses of the work of numerous theologians, jurists, and canonists, stretching from late antiquity to the late Middle Ages. He carefully traces how medieval thinkers, at first intensely hostile to games of chance, came to treat the phenomena in progressively more sophisticated and systematic ways. The discourse on the game of dice evolved into a complex discussion that set the stage for the acceptance of the element of risk, particularly with respect to insurance contracts. The drama of the book is the process by which "risk" ultimately became perceived as an "object" that could be commercialized and quantified in economic terms.	. . .

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