Abstract: Italianate artifacts of conversation and literary game-playing in sixteenth-century France foreshadow those of seventeenth-century salon culture. They do so despite anti-Italianism that arose during the earlier period and the later view that salon entertainment originated primarily in the hôtel de Rambouillet. Examining the critical context of social practices in these periods shows that the activities of largely women-led circles in the sixteenth century illustrate the complex precursors of the seventeenth-century groups. Johan Huizinga and Eugen Fink provide a theoretical path across these periods indicating how the ludic activities in the sixteenth century produced influences that would shape attitudes and activities of salon culture to come. Estienne Pasquier illustrates practices of sixteenth-century literary society that spilled over into the seventeenth century.

Key Words: games and play, entertainment, women, sixteenth century, periodization, networks

In her little-known work L’Histoire de La Chiaramonte (1603), dedicated to Marguerite de Valois (1553–1615), the author and fille d’honneur Marie de Beaulieu (before 1563–after 1603), includes a poem composed of lines from Petrarch's Canzoniere that she translates into French: