WRITING BELOVEDS Humanist Petrarchism and the Politics of Gender AILEEN A. FENG Writing Beloveds Humanist Petrarchism and the Politics of Gender UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London © University of Toronto Press 2017 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in the U.S.A. ISBN 978-1-4875-0077-1 Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks. Toronto Italian Studies Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Feng Aileen A., author Writing beloveds : humanist Petrarchism and the politics of gender / Aileen A. Feng. (Toronto Italian studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4875-0077-1 (cloth) 1. Petrarca, Francesco, 1304–1374 – Influence. 2. Italian poetry – 16th century – History and criticism. 3. Petrarchism. 4. Humanism in literature. 5. Politics in literature. 6. Sex roles in literature. I. Title II. Series: Toronto Italian studies PQ4103.F45 2016 851'409 C2016-904897-7 CC-BY-NC-ND This work is published subject to a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivative License. For permission to publish commercial versions please contact University of Tor onto Press. This book has been published with the financial assistance of The Provost’s Author Support Fund at the University of Arizona, and a Book Subvention Award from the Medieval Academy of America. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario. Funded by the Financé par le Government gouvernement of Canada du Canada For Paul Contents Abbreviations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 3 Part I: Intellectual Masculinity and the Female Intellect in Humanist Petrarchism 1 Women of Stone: Gender and Politics in the Petrarchan World 17 2 In Laura’s Shadow: Gendered Dialogues and Humanist Petrarchism in the Fifteenth Century 68 3 Laura Speaks: Sisterhood, Amicitia, and Marital Love in the Female Latin Petrarchist Writings of the Fifteenth Century 106 Part II: Pietro Bembo and the Legacy of Humanist Petrarchism 4 Theorizing Gender: Nation Building and Female Mythology in the Ciceronian Quarrel 135 5 Politicizing Gender: Bembo’s Private and Public Petrarchism 163 Afterword 209 viii Contents Notes 213 Bibliography 241 Index 257 Abbreviations EpGr Poliziano, Angeli Politiani liber epigrammatum Graecorum Fam. Petrarca, Familiares (Rerum familiarium libri) RVF Petrarca, Rerum vulgarium fragmenta Rime Bembo, Rime (1530) Acknowledgments It gives me great pleasure to thank and acknowledge all of the people and various communities who have supported me in the writing of this book. First, I must thank those who have supported me from the earli- est stages of my career. Daniela Bini first introduced me to Petrarch’s poetry as an undergraduate, igniting a passion in me that would for- ever change the course of my professional career. JoAnn DellaNeva opened my eyes to the richness of the Pléiade poets and to Petrarch’s influence beyond the Italian borders. I am indebted to Albert Ascoli, Steven Botterill, Tim Hampton, and Barbara Spackman for their guid- ance and all manner of advice during my doctoral studies and beyond. Likewise, my fellow Berkeley italianisti were a source of continual intel- lectual stimulation, while providing much-needed social diversion and support at just the right moments: Andre Barashkov, Angela Matilde Capodivacca, Jonathan Combs-Schilling, Susan Gaylard, Amyrose Gill, Janaya Lasker-Ferretti, Tony Martire, Scott Millspaugh, Tamao Nakahara, Jessica Otey, Marco Ruffini, Nora Stoppino, Silvia Valisa, Maurizio Vito, Karina Xavier, and Irene Zanini-Cordi. A special grazie del cuore to Stephanie Malia Hom, Rhiannon Welch, and Rebecca Falkoff – my muliebris respublica and partners in crime. My studies at Berkeley were enhanced by other close friends and colleagues whom I still hold dear: Mark and Kimberly Allison, Penelope Anderson, Craig Davidson, Alan Drosdick, Sarah Engel, Mia Fuller, Stephanie Green, Kristine Ha, Slavica Naumovska, and Rob Schipano. While writing a monograph is a solitary and often isolating expe- rience, I greatly benefited from the many conversations I had about this project with trusted friends and colleagues alike. I would like to xii Acknowledgments thank Susan Gaylard and Nora Stoppino, who provided invaluable cri- tiques of my book project in the early stages of the writing process. Unn Falkeid, Faith Harden, Paul Hurh, Silvia Valisa, and Gur Zak read and meticulously commented on chapter drafts. The two anonymous read- ers for the University of Toronto Press gave generous and thoughtful feedback that helped me to see more clearly the project from an external perspective. Their insights have undoubtedly made this book better. I am also grateful to Beppe Cavatorta, David Lummus, and Maurizio Vito for their help with my translations, though any errors remain my own. My Hellenist colleague and friend John Bauschatz provided the English translations of Poliziano’s and Alessandra Scala’s Greek epi- grams, which are part of our current collaboration on an English trans- lation and edition of Poliziano’s Greek poetry. Finally, working with the University of Toronto Press has been one of the best editorial ex- periences I could imagine, thanks to the expert guidance of Suzanne Rancourt. She has been a great supporter of this project from the begin- ning, an indispensable interlocutor during the revisions process, and a steadying hand throughout. Special thanks go to Anne Laughlin, who shepherded this book through production, Margaret Allen for her keen eye and invaluable revisions during copy-editing, and TextFormations for building the index to this book. I could not have survived the Arizona summers and the so-called “dry heat” without the support of my earliest Tucson friends and col- leagues – Megan Campbell, Andrea Dallas, Juan Diaz, Allison Dushane, Mike and Laura Lippman, Clint McCall, Ander Monson, Manuel Muñoz, and Jonathon Reinhardt – who share in my every success. My colleagues in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Arizona have been a continual source of support for me. I want to especially thank Lise Leibacher – senior faculty mentor par excellence, cherished colleague, and friend – who has had my back from the first day I stepped onto campus and whose own professional successes in- spire me. Je te remercie du fond du cœur. I would like to thank my family for their immeasurable support and love: my parents, David and Liana Astorga Feng, who instilled in me a passion for reading and other cultures; and my brother and sister-in-­ law, Nick and Meredith Feng, and twin nieces, Harper and Hayden, for keeping me grounded and constantly entertained. Rob and Tracy Hurh Prescott have been my strongest supporters from among my in-laws, and for that I thank them. Acknowledgments xiii Finally, Paul Hurh has been on this journey with me since we first met on the steps of Dwinelle Hall in the summer of 2002. He read more of this manuscript than should ever be asked of an academic spouse, without giving it a second thought. I will never be able to fully express my gratitude for his unwavering support, optimism, and love. He is my North Star, in more ways than one. WRITING BELOVEDS Humanist Petrarchism and the Politics of Gender Introduction Itaque tibi spondeo fide Athica … tibi iuro me tuam dulcem memoriam inter arcana pectoris servare. I promise you, therefore, with Attic faith – in the event you would not believe me without this vow – by wind and earth I swear to you that I preserve your sweet memory within the secret places of my heart.1 Lauro Quirini to Isotta Nogarola, mid-1400s Sollicitata precibus tuis, non potui non obtemperare tibi, Germana, cujus ad amatum vultu[m], atque ordinatos mores ante animu[m] semper fero. While I have worried about your request, I could not refuse to oblige you, sister, whose dear face and orderly ways I always carry with me in my heart.2 Laura Cereta to Nazaria Olympica, 1486 La vostra immagine, come che io l’abbia sempre nel cuore, pure ho io carissima sopra quanti doni ebbi giammai. Your image, despite my always carrying it in my heart, I truly cherish more than any other gift I have ever received.3 Pietro Bembo to Maria Savorgnan, 1500 I carry your image in my heart. In three very different letters of early modern Italy, one to an intellectual peer, another to a friend, and the third to a lover, this singular conceit emerges as a point of intersection and intertextual resonance, pursuing different aims through a single 4 Introduction model: Italian poet laureate Francesco Petrarca’s lyrical model of un- requited love. When Petrarch described his beloved Laura as “’l bel viso leggiadro che depinto / porto nel petto, e veggio ove ch’io miri” (“that lovely smiling face, which I carry painted in my breast and see wherever I look”),4 he turned the figure of the unattainable beloved into the ubiquitous source of poetic inspiration. This conversion – turn- ing person to image, image to possession, and possession to projection – underlies Petrarch’s tremendous influence on Renaissance poetics throughout Europe. Thus when these three letters invoke that trope, they also elicit other defining characteristics of Petrarch’s love poetry: the silent, chaste beloved’s war against the wounded poet-lover, the tension between sacred and profane love, the paradoxical state of in- ner turmoil that can only be expressed through oxymora, and idealized female beauty and virtue. I carry your image in my heart is a declaration of Petrarchan love and all that it entails. In each of the three epistolary excerpts above, the imitation of this iconic Petrarchan trope is uniquely unexpected. The fifteenth-century­ humanists Lauro Quirini (1420–75) and Laura Cereta (1469–99) trans- late vernacular lyric verses into Ciceronian Latin and apply them to their respective social realities.