DEFINITION
Generally speaking, the promenade dealt with in this paper is a social event in which participants perform the act of covering a short distance, often back and forth, within a given space. Cultural values, attitudes, and circumstances concur to determine its historical specificity.
This definition involves seven key aspects:
1. The promenade is a self-organising social event. In many historical cases, it celebrated a personage or a special event, without losing its self-organising character. Recreational activities have historically played a role in attracting and entertaining the promenaders—for instance, band concerts organised in public parks in the 19th and 20th centuries—but have mostly occurred in concomitance with a promenade without originating it. The same can be said for shopping, which since the 19th century has become an increasingly attractive force and a corollary activity, without ever challenging the social purpose of the promenade.
DEFINITION
2. It is characterised by a wide participation across class and gender boundaries, though with fundamental differences throughout the centuries. From the 19th century onwards, the promenade has become an increasingly bourgeois event, whereas between the 16th and 20th centuries it welcomed European kings and queens; members of the royal families; popes; and the aristocracy and high bourgeoisie. On the contrary, lower-class participation was generally forbidden or at least discouraged in 16th-18th-century Europe.
3. For the 17th—19th century aristocracy and high bourgeoisie the promenade was mostly by carriage. A significant exception was pre-20th century Venice, where the promenade was historically carried out by boat (gondola). Walking, on the other hand, became progressively prominent from the early decades of the 20th century.
DEFINITION
4. The space in which the promenade occurs is conventionally acknowledged, established by custom, and relatively geographically bounded. Stretches of city and town roads, squares, urban park lanes, and riverbanks were—and still are—the most common sites of promenade. In all these cases, the route’s length is purposely limited to increase the density of the promenaders, encourage their back and forth movement, and, in so doing, enhance their social and visual interaction. Sites for promenading were either customarily and autonomously chosen by the people—for instance, Via del Corso in Rome—or planned and implemented by rulers or urban administrations.
5. It typically involves couples, families, and small groups. The participation of single individuals has always been generally discouraged and socially stigmatised.
DEFINITION
6. There is a public to which the performance of the promenade is addressed. Being a sort of parade, the public is very often not only that of the other promenaders themselves, but consists of people sitting at the café tables flanking the routes and squares, or standing along the streets to watch the promenaders passing by.
7. It is carried out on a regular basis, and on specific days and/or times of day.