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
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35-56
Isabella Sforza: beyond the stereotype
Francine Daenens
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57-74
Writing for women rulers in Quattrocento Italy: Antonio Cornazzano
Diego Zancani
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76-91
Christian good manners: spiritual and monastic rules in the Quattro- and Cinquecento
Gabriella Zarri
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92-104
Benedictine communities in Venetian society: the convent of S. Zaccaria
Victoria Primhak
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105-121
History writing from within the convent in Cinquecento Italy: the nuns' version
Kate Lowe
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122-137
To take or not to take the veil: selected Italian case histories, the Renaissance and after
Francesca Medioli
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138-164
The Virgin Mary: consoler, protector and social worker in Quattrocento miracle tales
Ruth Chavasse
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166-181
Women and criminal law: the notion of diminished responsibility in Prospero Farinaccio (1544-1618) and other Renaissance jurists
Marina Graziosi
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182-193
Women between the law and social reality in early Renaissance Lucca
Christine Meek
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194-208
'Amore maritale': advice on love and marriage in the second half of the Cinquecento
Brian Richardson
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209-226
'Pagare le pompe': why Quattrocento sumptuary laws did not work
Jane Bridgeman
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227-242
Attacking sumptuary laws in Seicento Venice: Arcangela Tarabotti
Daniela De Bellis
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244-264
Exemplary women in Renaissance Italy: ambivalent models of behaviour?
Marta Ajmar
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265-284
Womanly virtues in Quattrocento Florentine marriage furnishings
Paola Tinagli
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285-314
Persuasive pictures: didactic prints and the construction of the social identity of women in sixteenth-century Italy
Sara F. Matthews Grieco
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316-333
Isabella Andreini and others: women on stage in the late Cinquecento
Richard Andrews
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334-349
Gender deceptions: cross-dressing in Italian Renaissance comedy
Maggie Günsberg
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350-366
Attitudes to women in the drama of Venetian Crete
Rosemary E. Bancroft-Marcus
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368-384
Humanism and feminism in Laura Cereta's public letters
Diana Robin
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385-400
Seen but not heard: the role of women speakers in Cinquecento literary dialogue
Virginia Cox
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401-420
Transformations of the 'buona Gualdrada' legend from Boccaccio to Vasari: a study in the politics of Florentine narrative
Pamela J. Benson
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421-437
Marrying for love: society in the Quattrocento novella
Judy Rawson
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438-452
Women and Italian Cinquecento literary academies
Conor Fahy
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453-462
Aretino's Sei giornate: literary parody and social reality
Giovanni Aquilecchia
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463-477
The rhetoric of eulogy in Lucrezia Marinella's La nobiltà et l'eccellenza delle donne
Adriana Chemello
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478-497
Vittoria Colonna as role model for Cinquecento women poets
Giovanna Rabitti
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498-512
Women and the making of the Italian literary canon
Nadia Cannata Salamone
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Bibliography entry:

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

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


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