"Neither Letters nor Swimming": The Rebirth of Swimming and Free-diving

In a novel study of the impact of classical culture, John McManamon demonstrates that Renaissance scholars rediscovered the importance of swimming to the ancient Greeks and Romans and conceptualized the teaching of swimming as an art. The ancients had a proverb that described a truly ignorant person as knowing “neither letters nor swimming.” McManamon traces the ancient textual and iconographic evidence for an art of swimming, demonstrates its importance in warfare, and highlights the activities of free-divers who exploited the skill of swimming to earn a living. Renaissance theorists of a humanist education first advocated a rebirth for swim training, Erasmus included the classical proverb in his Adages, and two sixteenth-century scholars wrote treatises in dialogue form on methods for teaching young people how to swim.

"In tracing the world of swimming from antiquity to the Renaissance, with a focus on the primary source material, McManamon has produced a book full of rich detail." Alexander Nice, in Bryn Mawr Classical Review, January 2022.

John M. McManamon, Ph.D. (1984), is Emeritus Professor of Renaissance History at Loyola University Chicago. He has published monographs on Italian humanism and the history of underwater archaeology, critical editions, and numerous articles, including Caligula’s Barges and the Renaissance Origins of Nautical Archaeology Underwater.