Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society

Edited by Letizia Panizza

Legenda (General Series)

Legenda

1 July 2000  •  546pp

ISBN: 1-900755-09-2 (paperback)  •  RRP £75, $99, €85

RenaissanceItalianArtDramaPhilosophy


This impressive collection of essays by British, North American and Italian scholars focuses on women's contributions to the Italian Renaissance, in their most important historical, artistic, cultural, social, legal, literary and theatrical aspects. Previously unknown documents throw new light on early feminist thought, as well as on the lives of women rulers, artists and nuns. The striking visual material which accompanies these essays helps to recreate the extraordinary milieu in which women operated between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries in Italy.

Letizia Panizza studied at Berkeley and the Warburg Institute, and now lectures in the Department of Italian at Royal Holloway College, University of London. She has published extensively on Italian Renaissance topics, notably on humanist thought and on women writers. She contributed to the Cambridge History of Italian Literature (1996) and is co-editor of the History of Women's Writing in Italy (2000).

Reviews:

  • ‘In her introduction Letizia Panizza writes that one of the aims of the collection is to recover neglected areas of Italian culture and society, which she has done... Many of the essays are quite good; all are informative.’ — Elissa B. Weaver, Renaissance Quarterly 2002, 713-15
  • ‘Offers a vast and well-organized view of the position that early modern women occupied in Italy from 1400 to 1650... I highly recommend the collection.’ — Rinaldini Russell, Forum Italicum 36.1, 2002, 214-15
  • ‘The above is merely a fraction of the content. There is certainly richness in this volume. Many branches of scholarship gain by having these articles in print and they are an eloquent testimony to the vitality of scholarship in this area.’ — Olwen Hufton, Modern Language Review 97.1, 2002 (full text online)
  • ‘This excellent book of essays... retains the liveliness and originality of the conference held at Royal Holloway, University of London, ... with the added bonus that all those given in Italian have been translated, so that - as the editor says - we can benefit from the work of many specialists, some of whose work has not previously been available in English.’ — Alison Brown, Italian Studies LVII, 2002, 171-2
  • ‘Without doubt, the most important volume yet published in English on the specific contribution of women to culture and society in Italy in the Renaissance... The coherence of the volume is assured by a number of overarching themes.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies XXXIX, 2003, 480

Contents:

2-17

Civility, courtesy and women in the Italian Renaissance
Dilwyn Knox

Cite
18-34

Women as patrons and clients in the courts of Quattrocento Italy
Evelyn S. Welch

Cite
35-56

Isabella Sforza: beyond the stereotype
Francine Daenens

Cite
57-74

Writing for women rulers in Quattrocento Italy: Antonio Cornazzano
Diego Zancani

Cite
76-91

Christian good manners: spiritual and monastic rules in the Quattro- and Cinquecento
Gabriella Zarri

Cite
92-104

Benedictine communities in Venetian society: the convent of S. Zaccaria
Victoria Primhak

Cite
105-121

History writing from within the convent in Cinquecento Italy: the nuns' version
Kate Lowe

Cite
122-137

To take or not to take the veil: selected Italian case histories, the Renaissance and after
Francesca Medioli

Cite
138-164

The Virgin Mary: consoler, protector and social worker in Quattrocento miracle tales
Ruth Chavasse

Cite
166-181

Women and criminal law: the notion of diminished responsibility in Prospero Farinaccio (1544-1618) and other Renaissance jurists
Marina Graziosi

Cite
182-193

Women between the law and social reality in early Renaissance Lucca
Christine Meek

Cite
194-208

'Amore maritale': advice on love and marriage in the second half of the Cinquecento
Brian Richardson

Cite
209-226

'Pagare le pompe': why Quattrocento sumptuary laws did not work
Jane Bridgeman

Cite
227-242

Attacking sumptuary laws in Seicento Venice: Arcangela Tarabotti
Daniela De Bellis

Cite
244-264

Exemplary women in Renaissance Italy: ambivalent models of behaviour?
Marta Ajmar

Cite
265-284

Womanly virtues in Quattrocento Florentine marriage furnishings
Paola Tinagli

Cite
285-314

Persuasive pictures: didactic prints and the construction of the social identity of women in sixteenth-century Italy
Sara F. Matthews Grieco

Cite
316-333

Isabella Andreini and others: women on stage in the late Cinquecento
Richard Andrews

Cite
334-349

Gender deceptions: cross-dressing in Italian Renaissance comedy
Maggie Günsberg

Cite
350-366

Attitudes to women in the drama of Venetian Crete
Rosemary E. Bancroft-Marcus

Cite
368-384

Humanism and feminism in Laura Cereta's public letters
Diana Robin

Cite
385-400

Seen but not heard: the role of women speakers in Cinquecento literary dialogue
Virginia Cox

Cite
401-420

Transformations of the 'buona Gualdrada' legend from Boccaccio to Vasari: a study in the politics of Florentine narrative
Pamela J. Benson

Cite
421-437

Marrying for love: society in the Quattrocento novella
Judy Rawson

Cite
438-452

Women and Italian Cinquecento literary academies
Conor Fahy

Cite
453-462

Aretino's Sei giornate: literary parody and social reality
Giovanni Aquilecchia

Cite
463-477

The rhetoric of eulogy in Lucrezia Marinella's La nobiltà et l'eccellenza delle donne
Adriana Chemello

Cite
478-497

Vittoria Colonna as role model for Cinquecento women poets
Giovanna Rabitti

Cite
498-512

Women and the making of the Italian literary canon
Nadia Cannata Salamone

Cite

Bibliography entry:

Panizza, Letizia (ed.), Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society (Legenda, 2000)

First footnote reference: 35 Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society, ed. by Letizia Panizza (Legenda, 2000), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Panizza, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

Panizza, Letizia (ed.). 2000. Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Panizza 2000: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 Panizza 2000: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)


This Legenda title was first published by European Humanities Research Centre, University of Oxford but rights to it are now held by Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge.

Routledge distributes this title on behalf on Legenda. You can search for it at their site by following this link.


Permanent link to this title: