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Arms and the Woman ARMS AND THE WOMAN Classical Tradition and Women Writers in the Venetian Renaissance • FRANCESCA D’ALESSANDRO BEHR THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS COLUMBUS Copyright © 2018 by The Ohio State University. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: D’Alessandro Behr, Francesca, author. Title: Arms and the woman : classical tradition and women writers in the Venetian Renaissance / Francesca D’Alessandro Behr. Other titles: Classical memories/modern identities. Description: Columbus : The Ohio State University Press, [2018] | Series: Classical memories/modern identities | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017058977| ISBN 9780814213711 (cloth ; alk. paper) | ISBN 0814213715 (cloth ; alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Italian literature—Women authors—History and criticism. | Women and literature—Italy—History—16th century. | Women and literature—Italy—History—17th century. | Women—Italy—Venice—History—16th century. | Women—Italy—Venice— History—17th century. | Women—Italy—Venice—Social conditions—16th century. | Women—Italy—Venice—Social conditions—17th century. | Fonte, Moderata, 1555– 1592—Criticism and interpretation. | Marinella, Lucrezia, 1571–1653—Criticism and interpretation. Classification: LCC PQ4063 .D35 2018 | DDC 850.9/9287094531—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017058977 Cover design by Janna Thompson-Chordas Text design by Juliet Williams Type set in Adobe Minion Pro A Chiara, pars alia mei CONTENTS • Acknowledgments vii INTRODUCTION 1 PART I · FEMALE FIGHTERS: ON WOMEN, WAR, AND PIETAS CHAPTER 1 Lady Knights and Pietas 33 CHAPTER 2 Women and Compassion 63 PART II · LOVERS AT WAR: VIRGIL, OVID, AND RESISTANCE CHAPTER 3 Epic and Elegy 97 CHAPTER 4 Love and Lamentation 108 PART III · WOMEN IN THE GARDEN: ENCHANTRESSES ERINA AND CIRCETTA CHAPTER 5 Ancient and Modern Prototypes 153 CHAPTER 6 Away from the City 185 CHAPTER 7 Fonte’s Enchantress and Beyond 221 EPILOGUE 231 Bibliography 245 Index 277 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS • IF MY ATTRACTION to ancient epic was kindled from the very early years of my life when my mom and dad gave me a narrative version of the Aeneid as a gift, my interest in Renaissance romance epics written by women was sparked by Valeria Finucci’s article on Moderata Fonte dating back to 1994. Eventually my interest in women’s production of epic was nourished during a 2003 NEH Summer Institute titled “A Literature of Their Own? Women Writing: Venice, London, Paris, 1550–1700” (Chapel Hill, NC), organized by Dr. Albert Rabil and lead, for the Italian section, by Virginia Cox and Anne J. Schutte. The writing of this book allowed me to join these two passions together. My research for this monograph has been made possible thanks to several grants obtained from my institution, the University of Houston, including a Faculty Development Grant (2001), a Women Studies Summer Grant (2004), a Small Grant (2012), and a Sabbatical Leave (Spring 2013). I am very grateful to all of those in my college who have believed in this project and supported me with the means to make it possible. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Giorgio Cini Foundation for the Residential Scholarship during the Summer of 2012 that enabled my serene sojourn at the Centro Vittore Branca on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. During the many years spent working on this book, I have also enjoyed the intellectual support, advice, and encouragement of many colleagues, rela- tives, and friends. They know who they are, and I owe a lot to all of them. • vii • viii Acknowledgments A heartfelt thanks goes to Series Editors Richard Armstrong and Paul Allen Miller, as well as to OSUP Editors, Tara Cyphers, Lindsay Martin, and Eugene O’Connor; above all, to Eugene, who demonstrated enthusiasm for the topic at an early stage and later on chose excellent blind readers to review my manu- script. Gratitude is also owed to Wolfgang Haase, former editor of the Interna- tional Journal of the Classical Tradition, who read my reflections on the ending of the Floridoro and encouraged me to develop them. Of course, the present volume could not have become a reality without the constant support of my family both in the United States (my treasured Tom, Gervin, and John-Paul) and in Italy (all my beloved Italian relatives). Since this book has been written to be accessible to experts as well as nonexperts, it contains English translations of Italian, Latin, and Greek. For Enrico, Nobiltà, and Merito—the texts that I explore in more detail together with the Floridoro—I acknowledge that I have employed published transla- tions (Marinella 2009; Marinella 1999; Fonte 1997); however, my use of them is minimal enough in proportion to the whole in order to count as fair use. INTRODUCTION • AS A WOMAN of the late Renaissance, the Venetian Moderata Fonte was not allowed to attend school, but Niccolò Doglioni, her principal biographer, recounts how she demanded that her brother share his grammar books and 1 explain what he learned at school. His lectures made a strong impression on the girl, who eventually began to study independently. Soon she could read and even compose in Latin. This anecdote inspired my research, whose goal is to reveal the intellectual empowerment that knowledge of the classical tradition (Greek and Roman 2 literature) granted women during the Early Modern Age. A good education, 1. “When her brother came home from school (he was at grammar school by this stage), little Modesta would come up and pester him to show her and explain to her what he had been taught that day; and she would so fervently impress what he said on her memory that she retained a great deal more of what he had learned than he himself did. And she threw herself into the study of letters that with the help of the grammar books she read and committed to memory and Saraceni’s arpicordo (harpsichord), she could soon read any Latin book very fluently and could even write fairly well in Latin” (Fonte 1997: 34–35). Moderata Fonte is the self-chosen pseudonym of Modesta da Pozzo. In her edition of Il merito, Virginia Cox observes about the harpsichord that although generally considered an instrument, it is here a kind of language-learning aid; what this arpicordo really is and how it works remains obscure. Another instance of secondhand learning (through that of her brothers) is documented by Stevenson 2005: 309 for Martha Marchina (1600–42). 2. I use the term Renaissance with reference to the period of time between 1300 and 1650 in Europe that was typified by a cultural rebirth related to the rediscovery of the classics and that fostered ideals of human excellence in several fields (e.g. fine arts, literature, philosophy, • 1 • 2 Introduction which in those days coincided with reading the classics, gave women a con- textualized and relativist perspective about their society, its configuration, and agendas. These women employed canonical texts normally used to reinforce their inferiority and the status quo to opposite ends, namely, the establishment of their own worth as women. They envisioned societies structured according to ethics different from those of their societies. Women’s lives in Renaissance Italy were predictable: they were expected to produce and raise children (preferably males). Few were offered the chance to study, and those who were would be schooled at home with their broth- ers’ tutors. In his famous study of the Italian Renaissance, Jacob Burckhardt was struck by the seeming abundance of brilliant women during the period, in which he believed that the Italian intellectual arena was open to women 3 on the same terms as to men. Recent scholars have been more careful in assessing the situation, noting that this phenomenon was more apparent than real. New studies on women and education during the Early Modern Age emphasize the general decline in opportunities for women as compared to men; the greater effect of family, class, and city on women’s education; the small number of women who actually received an education along humanist 4 lines; and the obstacles such women encountered. For instance, in the Quat- trocento, the female humanists Isotta Nogarola, Cassandra Fedele, and Laura Cereta devoted their lives to study, but despite their intellect—or because of it—they were criticized and pressured to marry or enter convents. Marriage and motherhood were considered antithetical to scholarly pursuits, proper only for men. Nogarola and Fedele could choose this latter option only when civic humanism). I also refer to aspects of the age and of the thinking of the subjects of this study, relative to political, social, economical, technological, scientific, and religious phenom- ena that reveal less obvious patterns of progressive transformation, and that are distinct from, if not entirely disconnected from, humanist inspiration. These aspects of the study are properly considered phenomena in the development of Early Modern Europe. Therefore in this book I use both terms (Renaissance and Early Modern), given that the nature of my argument is poised between historicist and presentist interests. On the one hand, I highlight texts and ideas which anticipate modernity and postmodernity; on the other, I focus on the reception of Classi- cal learning as the cultural matrix underlying developments of human discovery, self-discovery, and empowerment. For this problematic issue, see Dubrow 1994: 1025–26; Marcus 1992; Muir 1995, esp. 1090–110; King 2003: viii–xiii; Starn 2007. Concerning presentism, see Past and Pres- ent 234.1 (2017), which is dedicated to the topic in general. 3. “To understand the higher forms of social intercourse at this period, we must keep before our minds the fact that women stood on a footing of perfect equality with men” (Bur- khardt 1878: 396). Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien appeared in 1860 and was translated into English in 1878.
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