In contrast to prevalent scholarly opinion on the subject, this book proceeds on the assumption that early Italian love poetry is the linguistic aspect of a veneration ritual that was an integral element in public festivities. The sources provide adequately clear evidence that the forms of behaviour identified by social historiography as a strategy of self-demarcation employed by the aristocracy over and against other strata of society included public appearances by women, the display of women, and the poetic cult of beauty. It may be assumed that this latter stood in explicit contrast to the religious assessment of female beauty.