THE MAKING OF A FEMALE REVOLUTIONARY

DURING THE NEAPOLITAN REPUBLIC OF 1799:

THE LIFE AND WORK OF ELEONORA DE FONSECA PIMENTEL

A Thesis

Presented to the faculty of the Department of History

California State University, Sacramento

Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

in

History

by

Francesca Maria Golia

SPRING 2016

© 2016

Francesca Maria Golia

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ii

THE MAKING OF A FEMALE REVOLUTIONARY

DURING THE NEAPOLITAN REPUBLIC OF 1799:

THE LIFE AND WORK OF ELEONORA DE FONSECA PIMENTEL

A Thesis

by

Francesca Maria Golia

Approved by:

______, Committee Chair Dr. Mona Siegel

______, Second Reader Dr. Jeffrey Wilson

______Date

iii

Student: Francesca Maria Golia

I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for the thesis.

______, Department Chair ______Dr. Aaron Cohen Date

Department of History

iv Abstract

of

THE MAKING OF A FEMALE REVOLUTIONARY

DURING THE NEAPOLITAN REPUBLIC OF 1799:

THE LIFE AND WORK OF ELEONORA DE FONSECA PIMENTEL

by

Francesca Maria Golia

Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel was no ordinary woman. Eighteenth-century Neapolitan intellectuals recognized her passion for learning and her poetic talent and welcomed her into their salons and academies at a very early age. Even the Bourbon monarchs of the Kingdom of Naples were impressed by her skill and appointed her as court librarian. Pimentel was able to infiltrate the masculine world of learning due the unique circumstances of the Italian Enlightenment, which was more open to permitting exceptional women an advanced education, and it allowed them to pursue their studies further than any other women of the eighteenth century outside of the Italian peninsula. However, as political events began to shift in Naples in response to the French

Revolution, many of the enlightened intellectuals, along with Pimentel, turned to revolutionary democratic ideals to improve the social, economic, and political condition of their state. Pimentel became increasingly involved in political affairs due to her advanced education and her notable reputation, as well as her lack of familial obligations that originated from her abusive husband and their eventual separation, allowing the intellectual community of Naples to accept Pimentel within the public political masculine sphere.

v In Italy, Pimentel’s story has been retold in the form of historical novels, theatrical productions, and to a lesser extent, scholarly research, which has often romanticized her image as a victim or martyr. Pimentel’s life and work has largely been ignored outside of Italy. This study sheds light on the historical context that gave rise to such a revolutionary female figure, whose life and work should be studied on an international level.

The changing political circumstances in Naples, stemming from the events of the French

Revolution created the perfect environment for Pimentel to emerge in her political role as writer, editor, and director of the newspaper Il Monitore Napoletano. Pimentel far surpassed even the most exceptional women of her time due to her political works and translations, her public role during the Neapolitan Republic of 1799, and her continuous fight to gain the support of the

Neapolitan citizens, becoming a true revolutionary heroine of the eighteenth century.

______, Committee Chair Dr. Mona Siegel

______Date

vi

To Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel and the countless female revolutionaries of the past,

whose stories have been so often overlooked and forgotten.

May you know that the day has come to remember even these things.

“Forsan haec olim meminisse iuvabit.” “Perhaps one day it will be enjoyable to remember even these things.” Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel

vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe a big thank you to my wonderful thesis advisors, Dr. Mona Siegel and Dr. Jeffrey Wilson, for their continuous guidance and support. Dr. Siegel in particular, thank you for believing in me even when I was ready to quit. You have challenged me to become a better writer and historian.

I would also like to thank Dr. Michael Vann for pushing me outside of my comfort zone and helping me to find my voice.

Most importantly, I have to thank my father for not only proposing Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel as a topic of research, but also for instilling in me a true passion of history and learning. And of course I am forever indebted to my mother and my best friend, whose unwavering love and support have sustained me and allowed me to reach my dreams. To my soon-to-be husband, John, thank you for your patience, love, and encouragement.

viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

Dedication ...... vii

Acknowledgments ...... viii

Chapter

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Historiography ...... 3

Eighteenth-Century Naples ...... 8

Naples’s Female Revolutionary ...... 12

2. A NEAPOLITAN POET IN THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS ...... 16

The Italian Enlightenment ...... 16

Pimentel’s Early Life and Poetic Works ...... 22

3. THE MAKING OF A REVOLUTIONARY ...... 33

Pimentel and the Neapolitan Enlightenment ...... 34

The Origins of the Neapolitan Republic of 1799 ...... 40

4. A REVOLUTIONARY JOURNALIST ...... 49

Revolutionary Editor ...... 50

Pimentel, Il Monitore Napoletano, and the French ...... 53

Pimentel and the Popolo ...... 58

Pimentel and the Counter-Revolution ...... 65

5. CONCLUSION ...... 73

Bibliography ...... 83

ix 1

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

June 13, 1799, marked the end of the Neapolitan Republic.1 The army of the Santa Fede, led by Cardinal Ruffo and composed of the counter-revolutionary Sanfedisti reached the city of Naples. The republicans only held out for a week until they agreed to a capitulation on June 21, 1799. As these events transpired, the female revolutionary,

Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel sat aboard a ship in the Gulf of Naples hoping to reach

France and live the rest of her life in exile. Tragically, Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson and

King Ferdinand IV of Naples did not honor the capitulation. The State Council charged

Pimentel, along with eight thousand other republican revolutionaries with treason. On

August 20, 1799, Pimentel was sentenced to death by hanging. She maintained her courage until the very end and her last request was for a cup of coffee. Pimentel’s only worry was that she would expose her undergarments while hanging. As she approached the scaffold in the bleak Piazza del Mercato, Pimentel quoted Virgil in Latin and expressed her last hope, “Perhaps one day it will be enjoyable to remember even these things.”2 Pushed from a ladder while the tirapiedi clung to her feet, Pimentel’s body hung for an entire day in the public square before being laid to rest. In the end, five hundred

1 Also known as the Parthenopean Republic, which the French named to refer to the ancient Greek colony of Parthenope, located on the same site as the future city of Naples.

2 Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel, quoted in Vincenzo Cuoco, Saggio Storico sulla Rivoluzione Napoletana del 1799, ed. Fausto Nicolini (Bari: G. Laterza e Figli, 1929), 208. All translations are my own unless otherwise stated.

2 revolutionaries were exiled, several thousand imprisoned, and 216 executed.3 Pimentel was the only woman hanged for her participation in the Neapolitan Republic of 1799 as the director, writer, and editor of the republican newspaper Il Monitore Napoletano.4

Living within the public masculine political sphere also meant dying a very public death, similar to her male contemporaries. The dream of establishing a republican government held by so many Neapolitan Enlightened intellectuals came to a quick and violent ending.

During her early life, Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel adhered to a traditional female role of her time by writing poetry, generally considered a calling suitable for aristocratic women of the eighteenth century, dedicating many of her poems to the royal family. As she became involved with the Enlightened intellectual community in Naples,

Pimentel’s writing shifted to more political works endorsing Enlightened monarchies and reforms. She married at the age of twenty-five and experienced both motherhood and loss when her firstborn son died after eight months. A short period later Pimentel had two miscarriages caused by her abusive husband and eventually, with help from her father, obtained a separation. Without any family obligations, Pimentel dedicated herself fully to writing and translating political and economic works in support of Enlightenment values.

Pimentel’s aristocratic roots, her advanced education, her highly esteemed reputation as a poet and Enlightened intellectual, her lack of familial obligations, and her increasingly

3 John Robertson, “Enlightenment and Revolution: Naples 1799,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 10 (2000): 19, accessed July 21, 2015, http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 3679371.

4 The restored Bourbon monarchy also sentenced to death Luisa Molina Sanfelice, however she died a more honorable death by guillotine due to her noble title. Pimentel’s aristocratic lineage originated in Portugal, therefore the Kingdom of Naples refused to recognize her as nobility at the time of her death due to her foreign title.

3 political and economic works allowed her to supersede traditional gender roles and successfully infiltrate the masculine political sphere by becoming the director, writer, and editor of the newspaper Il Monitore Napoletano during the Neapolitan Republic of 1799.

Historiography

The historiography of Pimentel’s involvement in the Neapolitan Republic of 1799 begins with Benedetto Croce, a famous turn-of-the-century Neapolitan philosopher and historian, who was the first to extensively research Pimentel’s life and work. Croce first published the book, La Rivoluzione Napoletana del 1799: Biografie, Racconti, Ricerche, a study specifically concerning the events of the Neapolitan Republic.5 He discussed different individuals and their story to trace the origins of the revolutionary movement in

Naples. It was originally written to celebrate the centennial of the Neapolitan Republic of

1799, highlighting the significance of the events that took place. Croce took a deep interest in Pimentel, publishing another work exclusively regarding her works with excerpts of the newspaper Il Monitore Napoletano, as well as several of Pimentel’s poems, translations, and letters.6 He heavily relied on the work of Vincenzo Cuoco, a contemporary writer and historian during the Neapolitan Republic of 1799. Croce speaks of Pimentel with the highest regard exclaiming, “I have always paid homage to this woman of strong and noble character, of passionate heart, of Portuguese family, she

5 Benedetto Croce, La Rivoluzione Napoletana del 1799: Biografie, Racconti, Ricerche, 4th ed. (Bari: G. Laterza e Figli, 1926).

6 Benedetto Croce, ed., Il Monitore Republicano del 1799: Articoli Politici Seguiti da Scritti Vari in Verso e in Prosa della Stessa Autrice. (Bari: G. Laterza e Figli, 1943).

4 completely dedicated herself to the civil progress of her adopted country, and she wanted the country to be free, and for liberty she worked and wrote, and for liberty she died on the scaffold.”7 While attributing Pimentel’s genius to her political and social work, Croce neglected her early poetic compositions and considered her to be merely a minor

“metastasian” poet, simply following in her mentor’s path.8 It is also important to note that Croce, writing in 1889, idealized the Neapolitan Revolution of 1799 as a heroic tragedy and attempted to reestablish the greatness of Southern Italy by regarding

Pimentel as an exceptional woman and model for all.

Other scholars have followed in Croce’s footsteps. Franco Schiattarella was the first to study the legal case of Pimentel’s separation from her husband after court documents regarding the separation were found in the archives.9 Although he included a significant component to her story by addressing how personal events affected her character and intellectual development, he portrayed Pimentel as a victim, heavily focusing on her personal anguish rather than on her literary and political accomplishments.10 Annarita Buttafuoco also refers to the separation proceedings, but

7 Ibid., 5.

8 Metastasian poetry is fashioned after the style of Metastasio, the Italian court poet in Vienna who Pimentel admired and often corresponded with.

9 Franco Schiattarella, La Marchesa Giacobina: Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel (Naples: Schettini, 1973).

10 Once reinstated, the Bourbon monarchy ordered all documents concerning the Neapolitan Republic of 1799 to be destroyed. The legal separation proceedings have survived because they were kept separate in the archives, listed under civil cases rather than criminal cases, making Schiattarella’s work possible.

5 unlike Schiattarella, she attempts to unite the private and public spheres in her historical biography of Pimentel.11 She does not revere Pimentel or place her on an unreachable pedestal; on the contrary, she concentrates on the problematic instances in Pimentel's life that depict her as a common woman and thus make her relatable to other women of our time. She discusses in detail the suffering Pimentel endured in her private life, which significantly contributed to her political growth and shaped her personal and political views— those of a woman, although of noble birth, who committed herself to the causes of the Republic and fought for the lower classes. Buttafuoco argues that Pimentel's gender and her private experiences, as well as the socio-cultural and political conditions in Naples, need to be taken into account to fully comprehend her political role. While she takes a feminist perspective, writing in the late 1970s, Buttafuoco does not claim

Pimentel a feminist since she never explicitly fought for women’s rights. Rather, she juxtaposes the exceptionality of Pimentel as a public figure and her revolutionary acts with her common experience as a female suffering in her private life.

Pimentel’s life and lasting political contributions to the field of journalism have gained more public attention in recent years. The bicentennial of the Neapolitan Republic in 1999 and the commemoration of 150 years of Italian national unity in 2011 stimulated new works, including musicals and theatrical productions. Two historical novels that have garnered considerable fame are Enzo Striano’s Il Resto di Niente: Storia di

Eleonora Pimentel Fonseca e della Rivoluzione Napoletana del 1799 published in 1986

11 Annarita Buttafuoco, “Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel: una donna nella Rivoluzione,” Nuova Donnawomanfemme DWF (April-June 1977): 51-92.

6 and Maria Antonietta Macciocchi’s Cara Eleonora: Passione e Morte della Fonseca

Pimentel nella Rivoluzione Napoletana published in 1993.12 Striano focuses on

Pimentel’s sexuality as a central theme, detracting attention from her revolutionary acts.

While Macciocchi based her novel on primary source research, she also fictionalized certain accounts. She depicts Pimentel as a victim of a patriarchal world in her public life due to her role in the revolutionary government and also because she was a strong intellectual female leader. While both novels romanticize the main character, they also introduce Pimentel to a much wider audience. However, to bring justice to Pimentel’s life and ultimate sacrifice, one must turn to scholarly monographs and anthologies that are based on accurate research and strive to bring light to Pimentel’s true character and vision.

Popularized by these novels, Pimentel’s life gained the attention of various scholars who pursued her true identity, labeling her a poet, a journalist, a revolutionary, or a martyr. Elena Urgnani’s work encompasses all aspects of Pimentel, both her personal life and professional works, with particular focus on her poetry that she believes Croce underestimated.13 Urgnani’s research is the most comprehensive, painting a striking picture of Pimentel as a brave revolutionary. She emphasizes Pimentel’s early poetry and role as a writer, which made possible her activity as an intellectual and gave life to

12 Enzo Striano, Il Resto di Niente: Storia di Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel e della Rivoluzione Napoletana del 1799 (Milan: Rizzoli, 1998); Maria Antonietta Macciocchi, Cara Eleonora (Milan: Rizzoli, 1993).

13 Elena Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria e Politica di Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel (Naples: La Città del Sole, 1998).

7

Pimentel’s later political participation in the Neapolitan Republic. In her concluding remarks Urgnani states that her work may not be groundbreaking, but she hopes to have saved Pimentel’s true image from the darkness that so many libraries sentenced her to.14

Mario Battaglini, unlike Urgnani, focuses on Pimentel’s political work, completing a thorough study of Il Monitore Napoletano.15 He quotes Macciocchi while claiming that other scholars, such as Croce failed to discuss Pimentel’s “immense solitude as a woman, in her singular destiny to overcome all the men of her time.” 16 Battaglini therefore centers his research on Pimentel’s famed political work, which truly set her apart from other women of her time. Raffaele Giglio, in his short introductory essay “Una Donna

‘Rivoluzionaria’” has a different view of Pimentel.17 While Giglio does not deny

Pimentel’s strength as a woman and a revolutionary, he emphasizes her femininity and maternal instincts that he believes she maintained throughout her political and social endeavors. He describes Pimentel as the “sweet and tender adoptive mother of the

South,” who suffered from watching the poor conditions of the lower class and dedicated

14 Ibid., 364.

15 Mario Battaglini, ed., Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel: Il Fascino di una Donna Impegnata fra Letteratura e Rivoluzione (Naples: Generoso Procaccini, 1997).

16 Ibid., 42.

17 Raffaele Giglio, “Una Donna ‘Rivoluzionaria’,” in Eleonora di Fonseca Pimentel: Una Donna tra le Muse: La Produzione Poetica, eds. Raffaele Giglio, D. De Liso, R. Esposito Di Mambro, D. Giorgio, S. Minichini, and G. Scognamiglio (Naples: Loffredo, 1999).

8 her life fighting for them.18 He attempts to place an unconventional woman within the confines and terminology of a traditional role.

Scholars have opted to study different aspects of Pimentel’s life and work. Some chose to emphasize her political contribution to Neapolitan eighteenth-century society, which set her apart from most women of the time. The focus on her political career led other scholars to highlight her poetic literary work, predating her revolutionary writing in the newspaper, in order to understand her evolution as an intellectual, proto-feminist, and revolutionary. This study asserts the importance of incorporating both Pimentel’s early life and education and the larger political and economic situation in Naples to fully comprehend Pimentel’s radical transition from monarchist poet to revolutionary republican during the Neapolitan Republic of 1799.

Eighteenth-Century Naples

To understand the distinct environment that gave rise to the Neapolitan Republic of 1799 and made possible the revolutionary acts of Pimentel, one must begin with a firm understanding of the reforms undertaken by the Bourbon monarchy. The Bourbon monarchy’s rule over the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of Sicily began in 1734 with the expulsion of the Austrian Habsburgs by the Bourbon King Charles.19 Charles built grand palaces, elaborate villas, and elegant hunting lodges, as well as hospitals,

18 Ibid., 9.

19 King Charles took the title Charles VII in Naples and Charles III in Sicily, although he is often referred to by the title of Charles III after becoming king of Spain.

9 orphanages, and schools for the poor, sculpting Naples into one of the greatest cities in

Europe. When King Charles became king of Spain in 1759, he left his son King

Ferdinand IV to rule the Kingdom of Naples.20 Charles left Ferdinand with the difficult task of asserting the Bourbon monarchy’s authority over Naples.21 However, Ferdinand proved a weak ruler and relied completely on his father for counsel, communicated by

Bernardo Tanucci, the chief minister in Naples.

In 1768 King Ferdinand married the Austrian Archduchess Maria Carolina as part of a Spanish alliance with Austria. Maria Carolina wasted no time in asserting her power as queen, and shortly after giving birth to her first son in 1775, she exercised her right to become a member of the Council of State. Within a year she designed the downfall of

Tanucci, regardless of his service to the Bourbon monarchy for thirty years.22 The dismissal of Tanucci symbolized the end of Spanish influence in Naples, causing a rift between King Charles and King Ferdinand.23 While King Ferdinand spent most of his time hunting, Maria Carolina took the reigns to the throne and planned to imitate reforms introduced in Vienna by her brother, the Enlightened despot Emperor Joseph II. Her mother, the Austrian Habsburg Queen Maria Theresa also acted as a model of

20 King Ferdinand is generally known by his Neapolitan title, rather than his title as Ferdinand III in Sicily until the Act of Union in 1816, when he became King Ferdinand I.

21 John A. Davis, Naples and Napoleon: Southern Italy and the European Revolutions, 1780-1860 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 22-23.

22 Ibid., 22-23.

23 Catherine Mary Charlton Bearne, A Sister of Marie Antoinette: The Life-Story of Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1907), 84-85.

10 enlightened absolutism by initiating reform policies in the Lombardy region, which led

Enlightenment thinkers to support further reforms in the area.24 Queen Maria Carolina appointed John Acton as minister in 1778 to help “assert the power of the monarchy over the feudal nobility and the Church and build a dynastic army and navy.” 25 Not only did the Queen oversee the expansion of the military, she also promoted other reforms, such as the revocation of the ban on Freemasonry, the reduction of taxes, the establishment of secular schools, the building of museums, and additions to the university.26 In 1789 she founded the Royal Silk Works as part of the San Leucio colony, a utopian community with the aim to improve the quality of fabrics using the most modern techniques. The regulations introduced three years later made San Leucio rather unique. Silk workers and their families “were provided with housing, schools, and medical services, while strict equality between sexes was to be observed and dowries were banned.” 27 As an advocate of enlightened despotism, Queen Maria Carolina used ideas and practices of the

Enlightenment to not only attain reforms but also increase the monarchy’s autocracy in

Naples.

After the end of the Seven Years War in 1764, Naples experienced a period of peace that lasted until 1792, becoming the perfect setting for experiments in absolutist

24 Spencer M. Di Scala, Italy: From Revolution to Republic, 1700 to Present (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), 7.

25 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 24.

26 Bearne, A Sister of Marie Antoinette, 82.

27 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 31.

11 reform and intellectual debates of the Enlightenment. Many of the Bourbon monarchy’s reforms aligned with the values expressed by scholars of the Enlightenment. Therefore, the royal family won the support of many of the top Neapolitan intellectuals of the time.

Queen Maria Carolina personally managed the renovation of Neapolitan court life. She was a patron of the arts and invited academics, such as Gaetano Filangieri, Domenico

Cirillo, and Giuseppe Maria Galanti to her salon.28 While the upper-class intellectuals supported the reforms implemented by the monarchy, the lazzari, the poorest of the lower classes composed of unemployed, uneducated individuals also backed the royal family.

Named after Lazarus due to their common state of undress, the lazzari numbered a total of forty thousand in Naples, a city with a population of 311,000 towards the end of 1765, which was three times the population of Rome.29 Naples “owed its size to its position as the seat of government, its appeal as a residential center for nobility that refused to manage its lands, and its attraction for enormous numbers of peasants abandoning the land to find work as servants or to beg.” 30 The lazzari were fiercely loyal to the Bourbon monarchy since their livelihood depended on various charities and welfare programs the royal family provided. They specifically loved King Ferdinand who took leisurely strolls among them and spoke their dialect.31

28 Bearne, A Sister of Marie Antoinette, 80-81.

29 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria e Politica, 21-22. In the Gospels, Lazarus is the subject of a miracle conducted by Jesus who brought him back to life three days after his death.

30 Di Scala, Italy: From Revolution to Republic, 12.

31 Bearne, A Sister of Marie Antoinette, 88-89.

12

The context of a bustling region overseen by a royal couple attempting to bring its citizens enlightened reforms, provides the backdrop to Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel’s transformation into a republican heroine. Both the Italian Enlightenment and the French

Revolution played substantial roles in shaping the political, economic, and social situation in Naples, giving birth to republican values and revolutionary figures. Pimentel was the only female revolutionary to fully participate in the political masculine sphere during the Neapolitan Republic of 1799, becoming a proto-feminist due to her unique achievements for her gender.

Naples’s Female Revolutionary

Scholars have often divided Pimentel’s life and work into categories of poet, writer, intellectual, wife, journalist, political revolutionary, victim, and martyr. This study will focus on the transformation of Pimentel from a court poet, praising the Neapolitan monarchy, to a revolutionary journalist supporting the Neapolitan Republic of 1799.

Various conditions both private and public allowed her to make such a significant shift from traditional aristocratic court poet to radical republican heroine. First, the unique characteristics of the Italian Enlightenment allowed Pimentel to obtain an education and participate in salons and academies, as well as assume a position as court librarian. Her noble origins, education, and early poetic works allowed her to establish a notable reputation as an exceptional learned woman of the eighteenth century among the intellectual community in Naples and with the royal family. Second, after years of personal hardship ending with the separation from her husband, Pimentel was left without

13 children or a family to care for. Her deep pain and suffering, portrayed in several sonnets, shed light on her maternal longing. When Pimentel could not fulfill the traditional female role of mother due to circumstances outside of her control, she chose to fully embrace the political world. It became acceptable for Pimentel to devote herself completely to her studies not only because of her respectable character and her lack of familial obligations, but also because she received a monthly stipend from the Kingdom of Naples that allowed her financial stability and independence. Third, the French Revolution had a dramatic effect on the political events in Naples. King Ferdinand and Queen Maria

Carolina abandoned enlightened reforms and implemented more absolutist policies from fear of diminishing their authority over the kingdom. The intellectual community in

Naples was forced to turn against the monarchy after losing all hope in the possibility of establishing an Enlightened monarchy in Southern Italy. The changing political circumstances in Naples, stemming from the events of the French Revolution created the perfect platform for Pimentel to emerge in her political role as director of the newspaper

Il Monitore Napoletano.

As an exceptional woman of the Italian Enlightenment, Pimentel was already able to transcend certain limitations established for many European women of the eighteenth century by pursuing an education, participating in salons, becoming a member of two academies, and assuming the position of court librarian. However, she was the only

Neapolitan woman of her age to delve further into the masculine public sphere by heading her own newspaper and contributing to the realm of politics, which was truly symbolic of her success in superseding gender boundaries. Pimentel’s male

14 contemporaries elected her to direct the official newspaper of the Neapolitan Republic, giving her a platform to publicly voice her political opinions and criticisms like no other woman had before. Pimentel did not feel the need to fight for women’s rights, especially in the Italian peninsula, because she had already assumed a role so far removed from the traditional female norm. She allowed her life and actions to speak rather than her words.

Instead, she turned her attention to more urgent matters, such as the education of the lower classes and the survival of the Neapolitan Republic.

Despite her unique achievements as a woman, Pimentel’s political identity was as a republican, not as a feminist. Due to her success in superseding gender boundaries, in large part because of the unique characteristics of the Italian Enlightenment, Pimentel took on more pressing issues and attempted to transcend Neapolitan class-based assumptions and earn the support of the lower classes in the intellectual’s fight for democracy. Pimentel exceeded the achievements of many individuals of her time because she achieved political authority as a woman. She was also one of the few republicans who realized that the Neapolitan Republic could only be successful with the support of all citizens. Pimentel became a republican heroine due to her continual fight for the

Neapolitan Republic as well as for equality and liberty for all citizens, a fight that in the end cost her dearly.

This study addresses the causes of Pimentel’s increasing involvement in economic and political affairs, as well as the factors that allowed Pimentel to successfully supersede eighteenth-century traditional gender roles in Europe. The second chapter analyzes

Pimentel’s early life and poetry within the context of the Italian Enlightenment. Her

15 nobility coupled with the distinctive features of the Italian Enlightenment allowed

Pimentel to make a name for herself among the Neapolitan intellectual community and the royal family. Pimentel’s strength and political consciousness began to develop during the most difficult time in her life because of her depraved husband. The third chapter discusses the events leading to the Neapolitan Revolution and the significant shift

Pimentel made from court poet to revolutionary journalist as a response to the monarchy’s efforts in asserting its authority after the French Revolution. The fourth chapter focuses on Pimentel’s newspaper, Il Monitore Napoletano in order to evaluate her political goals, criticisms, and opinions regarding the newly created Neapolitan

Republic. By analyzing her republican values and her constant push to reform, one realizes the deep passion she felt for the Republic and its citizens. The last chapter concludes by emphasizing Pimentel’s importance as a revolutionary heroine of the

Neapolitan Republic, as well as her role as a proto-feminist due to her exceptional accomplishments for her sex, almost unheard of in Italy during the eighteenth century.

16

Chapter 2

A NEAPOLITAN POET IN THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS

The unique freedom women experienced during the eighteenth-century Italian

Enlightenment was incomparable to any other European country. Not only could women contribute to salon discussions and present their scholarly works, they could also pursue university degrees and participate in various academies. Relatively few women, however, were able to take advantage of such opportunities. Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel was one of the exceptional women of the eighteenth century who was uniquely well positioned to participate in the Enlightenment movement in Italy. Her aristocratic Portuguese origins and family’s wealth allowed her the chance to pursue an advanced education. Pimentel’s apparent talent permitted her to build an intellectual reputation prior to the revolutionary events. Her personal hardships and suffering also contributed to the development of her political consciousness and outlook on life.

The Italian Enlightenment

In the eighteenth century, Enlightenment ideas originating in France spread throughout

Europe and ignited a spirit of political, economic, and social reform. Not only men but also a growing number of women participated in discussions regarding Enlightenment values and principles, and the topic of women’s education dominated many conversations. Intellectuals in Italy increasingly viewed offering women at least a limited education as reasonable on the basis that it provided women the skills to manage the

17 household economy as well as ensuring the welfare of the nation’s youth.32 The limited academic preparation that most intellectuals broadly accepted for aristocratic women was restricted to “feminine” subjects, such as righteous literature, sacred history, moral philosophy, rudimentary arithmetic, and in some cases contemporary novels and a brief introduction to natural sciences.33 However, there were numerous cases of women who surpassed such limitations regarding their education. Elena Cornaro Piscopia was the first woman in Europe to earn a degree in philosophy, which was granted by the University of

Padua in 1678, signaling a narrow opportunity for learned women to enter the confines of academic establishments.34 Both male and female scholars referred to her as a rare example of an intelligent and gifted individual to further the debate in favor of educating women. In 1723, Padua’s Academy of the Ricovrati, which was among the first European academic institutions to give women honorary membership, held a public debate discussing the decorum of educating women in the liberal arts and sciences. The

Ricovrati published an amended version of the debate in 1729 that incorporated opposing views of women’s educability and intellect, demonstrating women’s increasing presence and influence in academic institutions.35

32 Rebecca Messbarger, “The Italian Enlightenment Reform of the Querelle des Femmes,” in The Contest for Knowledge: Debates over Women’s Learning in Eighteenth-Century Italy, ed. and trans. Rebecca Messbarger and Paula Findlen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 6.

33 Ibid., 15.

34 Ibid., 7.

35 Marianna D’Ezio, “Italian Women Intellectuals and Their Cultural Networks: The Making of a European ‘Life of the Mind’,” in Political Ideas of Enlightenment Women: Virtue

18

The Italian Enlightenment thus created a unique environment for wealthy aristocratic women to not only receive an education and participate in salons but also the opportunity to become members and founders of literary and scientific circles called academies. In other parts of Europe, women were excluded from the newly created scientific and literary academies due to a long established custom of banning women from universities.36 In these countries, salons partially filled this void, giving educated women a controlled, social space where they could participate in intellectual exchanges while still in a private domestic setting.37 In contrast, in eighteenth-century Italy, a growing number of women achieved greater authority and acceptance within the public academic world.38 By 1728, seventy-four women had already been admitted to various

Italian academies.39 Cristina Roccati was elected as member of the Accademia degli

Unanimi of Salò and Diamante Medaglia Faini was elected to the Academy of Rovigo.40

Bianca Laura Saibante Vannetti founded the Academy of the Agiati of Rovereto and

and Citizenship, ed. Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt, Paul Gibbard, and Karen Green (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 111.

36 Di Scala, Italy: From Revolution to Republic, 16.

37 D’Ezio, “Italian Women Intellectuals and Their Cultural Networks,” 120.

38 Messbarger, “The Italian Enlightenment Reform of the Querelle des Femmes,” 7.

39 Paula Findlen, “Introduction: Gender and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Italy,” in Italy’s Eighteenth Century: Gender and Culture in the Age of the Grand Tour, Paula Findlen, Wendy Wassyng Roworth, and Catherine M. Sama, eds. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 18.

40 D’Ezio, “Italian Women Intellectuals and Their Cultural Networks,” 114.

19

Clelia del Grillo Borromeo established the Academy of the Vigilanti.41 Maria Maddelena

Morelli Fernandez was crowned in 1776 as poet laureate of the Arcadian poet improvisers, the only woman in Italy to ever achieve this distinction.42 As the century advanced, more and more women, Italian and foreign alike, were inducted into the most prestigious Italian scientific and literary academies. French and British women who were limited by their gender from joining academies at home received greater recognition of their scholarly works in Italy. For example, Émilie du Châtelet, Voltaire’s lover and a published physicist was prohibited from joining the Paris Academy of Sciences and could not even attend the sessions of the Academy; however, she was elected to the Bologna

Academy of Sciences in Italy.43

Beyond the academies, several exceptional women were able to pursue university degrees and lecturer positions. Laura Bassi Veratti became the second woman to receive a university degree in philosophy in 1732 at the University of Bologna. The

Bolognese Senate appointed her lecturer of universal philosophy that same year and designated her an honorary member of the Bolognese Academy of Sciences. In 1776 she was named professor of experimental physics in the Institute of Sciences and eventually

41 Messbarger, “The Italian Enlightenment Reform of the Querelle des Femmes,” 9.

42 Ibid.

43 Leigh Ann Whaley, Women’s History as Scientists: A Guide to the Debates (Santa Barbara: ABC Clio, 2003), 130 and 137.

20 received one of the highest salaries at the institution, earning 1200 lire a year.44

Following in Bassi’s footsteps, legal scholar Maria Pellegrina Amoretti, the Newtonian philosopher Cristina Roccati, and the classics scholar Clotilde Tambroni also received university professorships.45 Anna Morandi Manzolini also became a lecturer of anatomical design at the University of Bologna due to her internationally acclaimed anatomical wax models.46 Maria Gaetana Agnesi became the first woman to publish a mathematical book on calculus in 1748 and two years later declined Pope Benedict XIV’s offer of becoming chair of mathematics at the University of Bologna.47 All of these learned women, whose scholarly works gained them true merit and promoted them to positions in academic institutions during the Italian Enlightenment, created a model of educated womanhood that challenged and reformed stereotypes of femininity. The public display of female intellectual talent also generated backlash due to the perceived threat to the traditional female roles of wife and mother.48

Regardless of the fame and talent of various exceptional women during the eighteenth-century Italian Enlightenment, the vast majority of Italian women— even

44 Messbarger, “The Italian Enlightenment Reform of the Querelle des Femmes,” 8; Di Scala, Italy: From Revolution to Republic, 16.

45 Messbarger, “The Italian Enlightenment Reform of the Querelle des Femmes,” 8.

46 Ibid., 9.

47 Massimo Mazzotti, “Maria Gaetana Agnesi: Mathematics and the Making of the Catholic Enlightenment,” Isis 92, no. 4 (December 2001): 658, accessed February 7, 2016, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3080337.

48 D’Ezio, “Italian Women Intellectuals and Their Cultural Networks,” 120.

21 among the upper class— were unable to surpass gender boundaries. The Italian peninsula’s fascination with its female poets, scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers was, in the end, a celebration of their uniqueness. The fame of a few women did not make academia and the public sphere a comfortable place for all women seeking to display their talents.49 While support for women’s education gained new acceptance during the

Italian Enlightenment, “the object and nature of women’s formal instruction continued to reflect traditional notion of women as the keepers of the domestic space.” 50 In the eighteenth century society continued to push women to remain in the domestic sphere due to their usefulness in managing the household and raising their children, regardless of the political and economic reforms taking place. Although many intellectuals viewed misogynistic opinions and texts as trivial and outdated, misogyny from the previous century did not vanish during the Italian Enlightenment.51 True acceptance and power within academic establishments was reserved for very few women who showed remarkable talent. Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel was one of those unique women who pursued an education and was praised for her genius, helping explain her initial rise to literary fame. However, Pimentel became one of the only women of the time to participate in the political realm, making her story unique among Italian Enlightenment women.

49 Findlen, “Introduction: Gender and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Italy,” 20.

50 Messbarger, “The Italian Enlightenment Reform of the Querelle des Femmes,” 15.

51 Ibid., 6.

22

Pimentel’s Early Life and Poetic Works

Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel was born in Rome in 1752 to a respectable noble family of

Portuguese origins. Pimentel and her family, although living on the Italian peninsula, continued to hold strong ties to Portugal. In fact many of her contemporaries referred to her as “the little Portuguese.”52 Under the instruction of her uncle, Abbot Antonio Lopez,

Pimentel began to study the classical languages of Latin and Greek, as well as mathematics and natural history. Once her family moved to Naples in 1760, Pimentel continued her education in one of the burgeoning capitals of Europe with instruction from the top intellectuals of the time. In addition to her knowledge of classical languages, she began to study the modern languages of Portuguese, Italian, French, and English.

Pimentel studied math and astronomy with Vito Caravelli, chemistry with Falaguerra, mineralogy with Melchiorre Delfico, and Greek with Gianvincenzo Meola. She also studied botany and philosophy, and even assisted the scientist Lazzaro Spallanzoni with his research and findings on lymphatic vessels. By 1768, Pimentel gained a reputation for herself, circulating in many of the salons of Naples and meeting prominent intellectuals such as the philosopher Gaetano Filangieri.53

By the early age of sixteen, Pimentel joined two literary academies due to the success of her poetry. The Duke of Belforte, Antonio di Gennaro nominated Pimentel to join the Academia Napoletana dei Filaleti, and only a few months later she also became a member of the more prestigious literary circle of the Arcadia di Napoli. Pimentel’s

52 Croce, La Rivoluzione Napoletana del 1799, 3.

53 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria e Politica, 24.

23 earliest work was a poem, “Il Tempio della Gloria” [“The Temple of Glory”], written to celebrate the wedding of King Ferdinand IV to Maria Carolina in 1768. In 1775, Pimentel wrote the dramatic cantata, “La Nascita di Orfeo” [“The Birth of Orpheus”] to celebrate the birth of the monarchs’ firstborn son, Prince Carlo, heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, who would die three years later. By dedicating several poems to the royal family, Pimentel won the favor of Queen Maria Carolina, who elected her to the prestigious position of court librarian.54 In 1779 Queen Maria Carolina established the

Reale Accademia di Scienze e Belle Lettere [Royal Academy of Science and Literature] and Pimentel composed a sonnet celebrating its opening. While it was very common for

Italian poets to praise one’s sovereign using classical models and Arcadian poetry in the eighteenth-century, Pimentel managed to use these occasions to advance her own reputation and career.55

During this courtly phase of her life, Pimentel dedicated much of her poetry to the royal family, which won her praise not only from the monarchy but also from renowned intellectuals of the time. She modeled her poetry after the Italian court poet in Vienna,

Metastasio, and corresponded with him until his death. In a letter written on July 11,

1776, Metastasio called Pimentel “the most amiable muse of the Tagus,” referring to a

54 Ibid., 26-27.

55 S.N. Cristea, “Poetic Theory in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Italy,” The Modern Language Review 65, no. 4 (October 1970): 795, accessed February 18, 2016, http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 3722554.

24

Portuguese river and alluding to her origins.56 As Pimentel published more poetic works, she received even more recognition and praise. Pimentel kept in close contact with the

Venetian scientist, Abbot Alberto Fortis. Emanuele Campolongo published an epigram in

1781, “Sepolcretum amicabile” in which he celebrated Pimentel as the best and sweetest among the muses.57 Francesco Mazzarella Farao dedicated his translation from Latin of the “Batracomiomachia” to Pimentel in 1789.58 The Duke of Belforte dedicated a sonnet to Pimentel in his book of poems published in 1796. He noted her “already mature and delicate style” and claimed that “one day you [Pimentel] will prove to the world that the female genius is not secondary in adding glory to the crown.”59 Pimentel also corresponded with Voltaire and sent him a sonnet. While these letters have never been found, Voltaire dedicated the sonnet, “Beau rossignol de la belle Italie” [“Sweet nightingale of the beautiful Italy”] to Pimentel, which suggests their relationship.60

Highly esteemed by contemporary intellectuals, Pimentel gained more confidence in her skills and literary work. She gradually wrote about more political topics, using her poetry as an outlet to support certain reforms. Pimentel dedicated the play, “Il Trionfo della virtù” [“The Triumph of Virtue”] published in 1777 to the reforming prime minister

56 Ibid., 370.

57 Francesco D’Episcopo, ed., Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel: Tra Mito e Storia (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2008), 12.

58 Battaglini, Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel, 161.

59 Antonio di Gennaro, Il Sonetto è tratto da Poesie di Antonio di Gennaro duca di Belforete (Naples: 1796), quoted in Battaglini, Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel, 162.

60 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 338.

25 of Portugal, the Marquis of Pombal, who would lose his position the same year. Pombal introduced various reforms and encouraged policies that limited the privileges and rights of the nobility and the clergy. In her play, Pimentel celebrated such reforms as the abolition of slavery in Portugal and Pombal’s support of the university and of commerce.61 In 1782, Pimentel wrote a cantata, “La Gioia d’Italia” [“The Joy of Italy”] to honor the visit of Catherine II of Russia’s son, which gave Pimentel a pretext to celebrate Catherine the Great for her enlightened reformist policies.62 In fact, Pimentel presented this cantata to the court the same year she wrote the sonnet “Alla Cesarea

Imperial Maestà di Caterina II Imperatrice Autocratrice delle Russie” [“To the Imperial

Caesarean Majesty Catherine II Autocratic Empress of Russia”]. In the sonnet, Pimentel once again praised Catherine the Great for her reforms and urged Queen Maria Carolina to follow her example in Naples.63 Pimentel also dedicated a sonnet in 1789 to King

Ferdinand praising him for establishing the colony of San Leucio.64 The adulation of one’s sovereign in the eighteenth century was a way for intellectuals of the time to promote reforms and celebrate the progress made during a period when enlightened

61 Ibid., 134-135.

62 Ibid., 172.

63 Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel, “Alla Cesarea Imperial Maestà di Caterina II Imperatrice Autocratrice delle Russie,” in Raffaele Giglio, D. De Liso, R. Esposito Di Mambro, D. Giorgio, S. Minichini, and G. Scognamiglio, eds., Eleonora di Fonseca Pimentel: Una Donna tra le Muse:La Produzione Poetica, (Naples: Loffredo, 1999), 110.

64 Pimentel, “Componimenti Poetici di Santo Leucio,” in Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 97-99.

26 absolutism was gaining momentum.65 The growth of Enlightened reform movements throughout Europe served as a period of political education for Pimentel, raising her hopes for a more egalitarian government.

While Pimentel’s literary work and talent were increasingly celebrated, within her private life she suffered terrible losses. After a three-year engagement to her cousin ended, Pimentel’s father secured her marriage to another noble family that also had origins in Portugal. The marriage contract between Pimentel and Pasquale Tria de Solis, a lieutenant in the Neapolitan army, was stipulated on April 20, 1777.66 As part of the agreement Pimentel’s father gave her a trousseau and a monetary dowry of 4000 ducats.

Solis also promised to give his future wife fifty ducats a year as a gift for her to purchase

“lace and pins.” 67 According to Neapolitan law, a wife with a dowry was entitled to receive a certain amount of money from her husband for the purchase of small items for personal use. Pimentel’s dowry was already ensured with her mother’s death in 1771. She had left a provision in her will that allowed Pimentel to only receive her inheritance if she were to marry. Pimentel’s mother awarded to her three sons only what they were legally entitled to, and all of the remaining assets would go to Pimentel. However, if Pimentel

65 Croce, La Rivoluzione Napoletana, 11.

66 Schiattarella, La Marchesa Giacobina, 34.

67 Ibid.

27 died without children or decided to enter a convent, all assets would be returned to the family.68 On February 4, 1778, at the late age of twenty-five, Pimentel married Solis.69

Marital problems began early for the couple, as Pimentel moved in with her husband and his four sisters. Pimentel and Solis came from two very different families; the Fonseca family had close relationships with diplomats, lawyers, and scholars, while the Tria family, and especially Pimentel’s husband kept company primarily with people of the lower classes like shopkeepers and low ranking military personnel.70 Solis grew jealous of Pimentel’s meetings and many correspondences with intellectuals often in foreign languages he could not understand, which led to violent outbursts and physical abuse. The four sisters-in-law only exacerbated tensions within the household by opening

Pimentel’s letters and giving them to Solis as supposed proof of his wife’s infidelity. In eighteenth-century Italy, unmarried women were often forced into religious life so that they would not burden their families, making Pimentel’s living arrangements, surrounded by and competing with female family members, quite unusual.71 Pimentel took the initiative to improve her living situation and obtained an audience with General John

Acton, the minister of war, to whom she explained her situation, complained about her

68 Ibid, 27.

69 Ibid, 31-33.

70 Ibid, 69.

71 Gianna Pomata, “Family and Gender,” in Early Modern Italy: 1550-1796, ed. John A. Marino (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 78.

28 sisters-in-laws’ "unruly and proud character" and lamented her husband's indifference.72

She asked him to intervene and stop the constant torment. General Acton had a conversation with her husband and conveyed that his behavior had to change. After this incident Pimentel’s sisters-in-law decided to leave their shared home to live in a nearby monastery.73

Regardless of all her marital problems, Pimentel continued to be a good wife even under such terrible circumstances and gave birth to a son in 1778, who died only eight months later. Devastated by her son’s death, Pimentel sought solace in her poetry.74 She wrote five sonnets in her son’s memory, revealing her deep pain and anguish. By 1779,

Pimentel suffered two miscarriages, barely surviving the second. She wrote an elegiac ode, styled after Petrarch, lamenting her miscarriages.75 The ode was quite remarkable for the time because Pimentel wrote a very detailed account of her experience using medical terminology with neoclassical metaphors and expressions. She discussed how for ten days she could not feel her child move and how her water broke, but she did not experience contractions. Pimentel wrote in verses 61 to 72:

Alas, the sweet hope cruel fate severed, and inside the enclosed prison the expected fruit killed.

72 Schiattarella, La Marchesa Giacobina, 39.

73 Ibid.

74 Ibid., 35-36.

75 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 156-172.

29

Ten times the frigid spouse marked the track, ten times Aurora76 gathered him in her sparkling arms; I, tired, in doubt, do not feel for nights, stirring inside me sweet and slow movement.77

Through such vivid descriptions the reader feels Pimentel’s suffering and vulnerability.

Even critics like Benedetto Croce who considered most of Pimentel’s poetry rather common and bland, found her sonnets written in response to her son’s death and her ode about her miscarriages very significant due to their distinctive style and personal themes.78

As a woman Pimentel felt like a failure: unable to have children, mistreated by her husband, and judged by the community. Solis also incurred debt, requiring the family to move to the outskirts of Naples. This proved to be a crucial point in Pimentel’s life.

The formation of her political consciousness began to take shape while forced to live among the people of the lower class during one of the most difficult periods in her life.

Her political ideals and her passion for egalitarianism were born in these circumstances and continued to develop later in her life.79

76 Pimentel referred to Aurora, the Greek goddess of dawn to show the passing of ten days in which she did not feel the baby moving.

77 Pimentel, “Oda Elegiaca: di Altidora Esperetusa per un Aborto, nel quale fu Maestrevolmente Assistita da M.R Pean il Figlio,” in Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 167.

78 Ibid., 30.

79 Buttafuoco, “Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel: una donna nella Rivoluzione,” 75-76.

30

In 1784, six years into the marriage, Pimentel’s father asked for permission from the Sacro Regio Consiglio, one of the judicial institutions of the Kingdom of Naples, to allow his daughter to return to his home with her personal belongings. His request was granted and his daughter stayed with him until his death.80 The legal separation proceedings, currently held at the Naples State Archives, reveal the debt Solis accrued, his mismanagement of her dowry, his infidelity, his hatred of her involvement in

Neapolitan intellectual circles, and the physical beatings she endured, which led to her first miscarriage.81 During the separation proceedings Pimentel declared that her husband had not supported her financially as stipulated in the marriage contract, rather he had squandered all of their assets.82 Solis and other witnesses testified that Pimentel dedicated too much time to her studies and correspondences, thus neglecting her duties as a wife and homemaker.83 Her proud and arrogant character did not make her a submissive wife, but Solis still declared he was against a separation and that he wanted to take his wife back only after she had spent time in a convent in order “to moderate her behavior and to learn a healthy doctrine and her duties.” 84 During all the difficult years of marriage,

Pimentel had always tried her best to maintain her marriage, paying for her husband’s

80 Schiattarella, La Marchesa Giacobina, 67.

81 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 30-31.

82 Schiattarella, La Marchesa Giacobina, 71.

83 Ibid., 82.

84 Ibid., 85.

31 debts and even opening her home to a woman with a young child, at first not aware that she was his mistress.85

At the end of the proceedings the judge was confronted with a difficult decision.

While the judge seemed to have favored Pimentel’s case, he could not ignore the fact that she did not conform to the social standards of the time. By law the judge was obligated to ask both parties to reconsider and asked the husband to reconcile with his wife.86

Unexpectedly, Solis consented to the separation request, gave up any legal action and declared that his wife was an honest woman of impeccable behavior.87 Pimentel’s father died in May 1785 and the court officially granted Pimentel’s separation on June 26, 1785.

Elena Urgnani does not believe these events to merely be a coincidence; she suspects

Pimentel paid Solis with money from her father’s inheritance in order for him to accept the separation.88 While fathers’ wills privileged the first-born son required by the law of primogeniture, in the eighteenth century there was a growing desire among Neapolitan families to balance the distribution of property and assets among their children, explaining Pimentel’s access to funds at this critical juncture in her life.89 An increasing number of lawsuits contesting women’s exclusion from inheritance pitted Roman law

85 Ibid., 75.

86 Ibid., 88.

87 Ibid.

88 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 31.

89 Pomata, “Family and Gender,” 81-82.

32 against municipal law due to inconsistencies between the two law codes.90 Annarita

Buttafuoco reminds readers that the idea of Pimentel using her inheritance to buy off her abusive husband is only a hypothesis, and that Solis could have continued the separation proceedings in order to take Pimentel’s inheritance money. She also suggests that

Pimentel’s father may have bribed Solis prior to his death, although there is no clear evidence.91

Upon officially separating from her husband, Pimentel resumed her studies. Since her father had died a month earlier, Pimentel petitioned the court for a monthly allowance, which King Ferdinand granted on the basis of her financial distress and literary merits.92 Pimentel received about twenty-eight ducats a month, a sufficient amount to maintain an adequate standard of living.93 To express her gratitude she dedicated the cantata, “Il Vero Omaggio” [“The True Tribute”], to the royal couple, welcoming them back to Naples after their journey to Sicily. Most women in the late eighteenth century lacked the resources to pursue an independent career, but Pimentel was not an ordinary woman. With a secure income and without the responsibility of a family, Pimentel had the time to devote herself to intellectual and increasingly political pursuits.

90 Ibid., 82.

91 Buttafuoco, “Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel: una donna nella Rivoluzione,” 70-71.

92 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 31.

93 Schiattarella, La Marchesa Giacobina, 94.

33

Chapter 3

THE MAKING OF A REVOLUTIONARY

Having ensured her financial stability, Pimentel immersed herself in the male-dominated world of economics and politics throughout the decade leading up to the Neapolitan

Revolution of 1799. During this period, both the Bourbon monarchy and Neapolitan intellectuals jointly participated in creating an atmosphere of reform in Naples in an attempt to “tackle the immense edifice of ecclesiastical power, noble privilege, legal archaism, judicial oligarchies, defective administration, rejection of religious toleration, stagnant economic conditions, fiscal inefficiency, and relentless inequality.” 94

Intellectual reformers took it upon themselves to condemn the impoverishment and economic stagnation nowhere else so deeply entrenched as in Naples.95 They were able to fight economic malaise and ecclesiastical privileges without challenging the current ruling monarchs by blaming the pre-1713 Spanish Habsburg dynasty for Naples’s problems.96 The Bourbon monarchs realized the problems were urgent and turned to enlightened officials and scholars since there was no one else apart from the clergy with the proper educational background.97

As an Enlightened intellectual with a persistent desire for drastic reform in

Naples, Pimentel began translating and publishing her own work regarding political and

94 Jonathan I. Israel, Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750-1790 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 350.

95 Ibid., 366.

96 Ibid., 365.

97 Ibid., 368.

34 economic issues, hoping to influence the royal family. By the 1790s any progress made in

Naples came to halt as the Bourbon monarchy ended all reform movements and implemented increasingly absolutist policies as a reaction to the French Revolution. Such actions taken by the court strongly discouraged intellectual supporters, including

Pimentel, and led to a radicalization of educated individuals who found Jacobin and republican ideals appealing. In the end, Pimentel, like many of her male contemporaries, progressively became radicalized in response to the Bourbon monarchs’ failed attempts at reform and their increasingly despotic actions, taken in order to prevent revolutionary principles stemming from the French Revolution from spreading to Naples.

Pimentel and the Neapolitan Enlightenment

One of Pimentel’s most extraordinary contributions to improving Neapolitan fiscal stagnation was her book proposing to create a national bank. While it has not survived, there is proof that she authored this book. Giuseppe Gorani, a Milanese diplomat and

Enlightened intellectual who visited Naples from 1786 to 1788 expressed in a letter, “A

Neapolitan lady, who had first made herself known with some pleasant and ingenious poetry, then dedicated herself to dry studies but important ones, lady Eleonora de

Fonseca Pimentel, has written a book regarding a project of a national bank, with very profound ideas that might interest the men most educated in such matters.” 98 With this book, Pimentel demonstrated a deepening understanding of economic affairs. In her

98 Giuseppe Gorani, Mémoires secrets et critiques des cours (Paris: 1793), quoted in Croce, La Rivoluzione Napoletana, 19.

35 newspaper Il Monitore she continued to discuss various economic challenges the new

Neapolitan Republic faced. Given Pimentel's clear understanding of economic topics,

Gorani's claim appears plausible.

During the eighteenth century, Pimentel also joined a growing number of women in Europe who began translating works covering a wide array of topics in order to disseminate knowledge, enhance progress, and promote issues they felt passionate about.

While translation may seem a mode of reduced authorship, it also provided women a

“writing strategy that empowered (them) to assume a more central role in the published writings of the eighteenth century.”99 Translation could also only be successful if the translator understood the material clearly and deeply. Pimentel translated various works on highly controversial issues that reflected her own political opinion. However, according to Urgnani, Pimentel may have also chosen to translate various works out of financial need.100

Enlightened scholars, such as Filangieri, Delfico, Pagano, and Genovesi often debated limiting ecclesiastical power in Naples, a topic that Pimentel also became familiar with due to her involvement in intellectual circles. In the mid-1780s roughly a third of the land in the Kingdom of Naples belonged to the Church and was managed by

99 Marie-Pascale Pieretti, “Women Writers and Translation in Eighteenth-Century France,” The French Review 75, no. 3 (February 2002): 474, accessed February 7, 2016, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3132846.

100 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 34.

36

22 archbishops and 116 bishops and aristocratic abbots.101 The Bourbon monarchy sided with enlightened scholars and made limiting the power of the Church a top priority.

Disputes arose over the crown’s rights of appointment regarding clerical positions and over the decision to appropriate and sell monastic property in Calabria after the earthquake of 1784.102 Neapolitan Enlightenment reform succeeded best in its Church policy since the Church presented a more serious threat to Naples than it did to other

Italian states due to its long entrenched legal, social, organizational, and moral structures.103

Pimentel, as part of the educated Neapolitan enlightened elite, attuned to the religious, political, and social issues of her time, wrote on these issues with particular competence.104 In 1790 Pimentel translated “Nullum ius romani pontificis in Regnum neapolitanum” [“The Roman Pontiff has no right over the Neapolitan Republic”], a treatise written by Nicolò Caravita in 1707. Caravita, a Neapolitan lawyer and philosopher, asserted the independence of Naples from the Papacy and argued for the separation of church and state. Pimentel published the translated work, “Niun diritto compete al sommo pontefice sul Regno di Napoli” [“The Supreme Pontiff has no right over the Neapolitan Republic”], celebrating King Ferdinand and Queen Maria Carolina’s

101 Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 365.

102 Robertson, “Enlightenment and Revolution: Naples 1799,” 31.

103 Spencer M. Di Scala, Italy: From Revolution to Republic, 1700 to Present (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), 13.

104 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 33.

37 abolition of la Chinea, a feudal ritual that centered on the payment of tribute of the King of Naples to the Holy See.105 Pimentel supported the monarchy in challenging the Church as a political institution, putting herself in a dangerous position. The Catholic Church suspected Caravita of being an atheist and passed a decree in 1710 blacklisting his work.106 In her introduction Pimentel stated that she did considerable research on the topic against the papal investiture. She quoted various scholars who put forward similar arguments to those of Caravita, but she insisted that contemporary readers should study this particular work because Caravita explained the legal issue far better.107 There is no denying that Pimentel familiarized herself with the legal ramifications of the various arguments against papal sovereignty, although, the then nuncio to Naples stated a woman could not discuss such a legal issue, and therefore he credited Abbot Cestari with the translation.108

Pimentel translated other works that further involved her in political matters. In

1792 Pimentel translated and published a work written by the Portuguese Father Antonio

Pereira de Figueredo, “Analisi della professione di fede del Santo Padre Pio IV”

[“Analysis of the Profession of Faith issued by the Holy Father Pius IV”]. Pereira was born in Lisbon and was a staunch supporter of the prime minister of Portugal, the

Marquis of Pombal and his many reforms. His work discussed the relationship between

105 Ibid., 198-199.

106 Ibid., 33.

107 Croce, Il Monitore Republicano, 237-238 and 254-255.

108 Giglio et al., eds., Una Donna tra le Muse, 16 in footnote number 12.

38 intellectuals and faith. During the eighteenth century, the overly strict demands of obedience to the Church became a serious problem for Catholic intellectuals. Among those affected were the many abbots who participated in the Italian Enlightenment movement.109 Abbots occupied ecclesiastic positions within the church with limited duties, which allowed abbots to dedicate themselves to their studies with a certain amount of freedom.110 Pimentel wrote a preface and several notes to Pereira’s work in which she explained that people should distinguish between creed and dogma, and the opinion of church officials.111 While there is no doubt Pimentel translated the work, her name was not listed on the title page. Instead, Abbot Gennaro Cestari’s name appeared since he wrote the introduction to the translation. Urgnani states two possible explanations as to why her name is missing. First, the editor chose to exclude her name because she examined a theological topic, considered a highly inappropriate matter for women to discuss. Pimentel’s first translated work concerned a legal issue, which in theory was acceptable for women to debate, but ecclesiastical work was another matter. Second, by

1792, the French Revolution changed the political climate in Naples drastically. By this time, anonymity became crucial to one’s safety since enlightened intellectuals had come to be considered enemies of the monarchy.112 Despite the risks, Pimentel did not hesitate

109 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 216.

110 Ibid., 220.

111 Ibid., 223-224.

112 Ibid., 217-218.

39 to translate this work concerning a highly sensitive issue, marking her own political radicalization.

In 1792 Pimentel wrote her last literary work for the court, the oratorio “La

Fuga in Egitto” [“The Flight to Egypt”], which was a musical composition with a chorus and orchestra often based on Biblical events. The oratorio reflected her disillusionment with the royal family in Naples, which had failed to successfully implement any enlightened reforms.113 Both Croce and Urgnani believe this work to be an absurd and grotesque dedication to Carlotta di Borbone, daughter of Carlo IV of Spain. Princess

Carlotta, only seventeen at the time, held very conservative views that contradicted those of her liberal husband, King Giovanni VI of Portugal, who wanted to uphold the new constitution in Portugal after his return from Brazil.114 Pimentel more likely would have praised the work of King Giovanni than that of his conservative wife. Croce acknowledges Pimentel’s newfound political passion, but he downplays the ideological nature of her oratorio, claiming it is similar to her previous literary work.115 However,

Daniela de Liso indicates that Pimentel wrote the oratorio either as a result of a commission from the court in Lisbon or as an expression of her faith, since it was written after the translation of the work Analisi della professione di fede del Santo padre Pio IV, and it was the only sacred work she composed. Pimentel did not glorify the monarchy, which was portrayed through the words of the main character who characterized the

113 De Liso et al., eds., Una Donna tra le Muse, 294.

114 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 235.

115 Ibid., 236.

40 failures of the king as being so severe that they caused suffering to his subjects.116

Although “La Fuga in Egitto” is a common theme from the New Testament, Pimentel wrote it from a personal perspective, not only revealing her religious education, but also demonstrating her interpretation of faith as hope and refuge during difficult times.117 The oratorio further illustrated the pain Pimentel experienced after the loss of her son as well as her recourse to writing about the slaughter of the innocent and the suffering the mothers endured as a way to cope with her grief.118

The Origins of the Neapolitan Republic of 1799

With the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 the relationship between the

Neapolitan royal family and the enlightened intellectuals abruptly changed. Queen Maria

Carolina was alarmed when her sister, French Queen Marie Antoinette, along with King

Louis XVI were imprisoned in 1792.119 Their execution a year later compelled the

Neapolitan Bourbon monarchs to equate reform with revolution and made it almost impossible to support one without engaging in the other, pushing Naples closer to

France’s enemies.120 While the Bourbon court’s reform efforts continued in the 1790s, they obtained strong British backing due to the crown’s new struggle against the ideas of

116 De Liso et al., eds., Una Donna tra le Muse, 294.

117 Ibid., 274 and 276.

118 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 236-237.

119 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 72.

120 Robertson, “Enlightenment and Revolution: Naples 1799,” 40.

41 the French Revolution and the activism of the local Jacobins.121 Both the crown and the intellectual reformers agreed that feudalism was the root cause of various problems in

Naples.122 However, the Bourbon monarchy wanted to modify feudalism while the reformers wanted to abolish it completely.123 By the early 1790s, the reformers were frustrated at the lack of progress, and the monarchs had lost interest and came to rely on increasingly absolutist measures.124 The “largest reform initiative attempted by the monarchy and the final achievement of the alliance between the throne and the reformers” was the edict of 1792 that ordered the division of all common lands on the mainland of the Kingdom of Naples, which were to be allocated to those with noble titles.125 Despite the reformers’ best efforts, poverty increased in the provinces where entrenched economic policies benefited the propertied classes, rather than promote the general welfare, and exacerbated social tensions.

The professional and intellectual elites felt increasingly estranged from a process of reform dictated from above… Losing faith in the customary avenues for change, they began to seek new outlets for their aspirations in masonic lodges, provincial academies, and political clubs. Some even began to contemplate the possibility of change by other means: not through the existing state machinery, but in opposition to it. The outbreak of revolution in France in 1789 seemed to offer them their chance.126

121 Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 366.

122 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 48.

123 Ibid., 52 and 54.

124 Ibid., 56.

125 Ibid., 58.

126 Geoffrey Symcox, “The Political World of the Absolutist State in the Seventeenth and

42

The monarchy gave orders to close all Masonic lodges and in 1791 dissolved its anti- curial policies in order to repair relations with the Church.127 The discovery of a Jacobin conspiracy in 1794 led to the execution, imprisonment, and exile of its leaders and revealed the existence of two Jacobin clubs in Naples.128 Queen Maria Carolina, with the aid of her favorite minister, John Acton, divided Naples into police wards and set up a special Police Junta to investigate anyone suspected of having contacts with freemasons and Jacobins. The monarchy’s increasingly despotic actions left it with few supporters and a radicalized intellectual class, which placed greater financial strain on the city.129

Pimentel became further implicated in revolutionary activity during this period of hostility between the monarchy and the Neapolitan intellectual elite. By 1797, the court discontinued Pimentel’s monthly stipend. Only a year later, in October 1798, she was arrested and imprisoned at la Vicaria under suspicion of reading censored books and holding meetings in support of a revolution. Battaglini writes that the news of Pimentel’s arrest was reported in both Il Monitore di Roma and the Parisian Moniteur, an indication that she was not only well-known in Rome but also in France.130 During her imprisonment, Pimentel wrote two poems. The first one, the hymn “Inno alla Libertà”

Eighteenth Centuries,” in Early Modern Italy 1550-1796, ed. John A. Marino (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 121-122.

127 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 77.

128 Ibid., 76.

129 Ibid., 77.

130 Battaglini, ed., Il Fascino di una Donna, 13-14.

43

[“Hymn to Freedom”] she later recited at Castel Sant’Elmo at the proclamation of the

Neapolitan Republic. Unfortunately it has not survived. The second poem is the famous sonnet “Rediviva Poppea, Tribade Impura” [“Reborn Poppea, Impure Lesbian”], written against Queen Maria Carolina. In it, Pimentel warned the queen that while she may feel her power stable, circumstances may change and she may meet a similar ending as her sister.131 Pimentel also attacked the queen for not living up to the feminine ideal, since rumors circulated in Naples regarding a possible affair between Queen Maria Carolina and Lady Hamilton, the mistress of Lord Nelson. Many scholars attribute the sonnet to

Mario Pagano or Michelangelo Cicconi since there are multiple versions and none signed. However, Croce is convinced that Pimentel was the author because she herself claimed in issue fourteen of the newspaper Il Monitore Napoletano to have recited both the hymn and the sonnet at a meeting room of public instruction.132

During Pimentel’s imprisonment, political matters intensified. The French occupation of Rome, the declaration of a Roman Republic, and the arrest of the Pope in

1798 created a high state of alarm in Naples.133 That same year the Bourbon monarchs allowed the British Admiral Horatio Nelson to dock and repair his damaged ships after the Battle of the Nile against Napoleon Bonaparte, compromising the Kingdom of Naples

131 Giglio, De Liso et al., eds., Una Donna tra le Muse, 122-123.

132 Croce, La Rivoluzione Napoletana, 28; in footnote 2.

133 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 73.

44 since the Bourbon monarchs violated the armistice with France.134 The Neapolitan crown entered an alliance with Austria and England in 1798 and declared war on France.

Heavily influenced by the British envoy, Sir William Hamilton, King Ferdinand began an offensive on French forces in the Papal States. The Neapolitan advance was unsustainable and in less than a month the king’s forces retreated from Rome. The defeat deepened the impending financial crisis, which had much earlier roots. Queen Maria

Carolina’s and John Acton’s earlier attempts to reorganize the army and build a navy had placed massive strains on the monarchy’s finances with the Toulon expedition in 1794 worsening the situation.135 In Naples, the monarchs levied taxes on ecclesiastical revenues and an increasing number of religious houses were suppressed and their assets sold. “A forced loan was imposed on the city of Naples, another on the barons, while all churches were ordered to surrender their plate to the crown… These measures struck indiscriminately at the privileged orders and pushed through the absolutist measures that had been attempted but not implemented in the previous decade.” 136 The threat of famine also made matters worse. In 1793, evoking memories of the disaster of 1764, famine forced the city to incur debts to purchase grain abroad.137 It was only a matter of time before the economy would collapse under Bourbon rule.

134 Ibid., 74.

135 Ibid., 75.

136 Ibid.

137 Ibid., 75-76.

45

In late 1798, the Neapolitan royal family, along with Hamilton and his wife Lady

Emma, fled on Lord Nelson’s warships and headed towards Sicily, carrying with them all of the capital from the Neapolitan banks. The monarchy “thus left ‘the people’ in arms but under no legitimate authority; it virtually obliged the French to occupy the city; and it burdened whatever regime succeeded it with a heavy financial obligation.”138 The French revolutionary government, the Directory, had no intention of overextending its troops further south than Rome; however, the reckless actions of King Ferdinand provided the perfect opportunity for the French to establish another sister-republic in the Kingdom of

Naples.139 Napoleon Bonaparte had previously opposed the occupation of Rome and believed there would be no military advantages in invading Naples.140 The Bourbon monarchy left Marshall Pignatelli Strongoli as Vicar General with full powers over the

Kingdom of Naples. However, only a month after the royal family fled, Pignatelli signed an armistice with the French commander Jean-Antoine-Etienne Championnet, surrendering Naples to the French with an agreement that an indemnity of 2,500,000 ducats would be paid to the French.141

With the royal family gone and the arrival of French troops only days away,

Neapolitan republican patriots freed many political prisoners, including Pimentel in

138 Robertson, “Enlightenment and Revolution,” 18.

139 Ibid.,17.

140 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 78.

141 Ibid.

46

January 1799.142 Pimentel’s incarceration was crucial in reinforcing her political consciousness. Her commitment to liberty and equality stemmed from her interaction with members of the lower classes, not only during her prison sentence, but also during her previous period of economic difficulty due to her husband’s debt. Pimentel’s realization that a republic could not function successfully without greater support of the population was rooted in her experience with Neapolitan commoners, which also allowed her to perfect her fluency in the Neapolitan dialect.143

On January 22, 1799, at the fortress Sant’Elmo various middle-class women, as well as aristocratic patriots, members of the salons, intellectual women, and wives of leading Jacobins dressed as men and welcomed the French troops to Naples.144 However,

French troops were also met with popular resistance, since the Neapolitan people continued to pursue suspected Jacobins as the supporters of the French.145 In this atmosphere of confusion, the French General Championnet endorsed the immediate creation of a provisional government led by Neapolitan intellectual republicans.

While the French were instrumental in establishing the Neapolitan Republic of

1799, it was the local enlightened intellectual elite who took on the role of forming a

142 Croce, La Rivoluzione Napoletana, 28.

143 Buttafuoco, “Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel: una donna nella Rivoluzione,” 75-76.

144 Schiattarella, La Marchesa Giacobina, 147; Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 39-40.

145 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 80.

47 constitution and an efficient government.146 Carlo Lauberg was nominated to preside over a government comprised of fifteen members who formed six separate committees: executive, legislative, internal affairs, war, finance, police and justice.147 Former exiles dominated the provisional government and were referred to simply as Jacobins. ‘Jacobin’ was initially the term used by the royalists to denounce all the supporters of the Republic, but as divisions among the republicans grew, the moderates were referred to as ‘patriots’ and the radicals as ‘Jacobins.’ 148 Both factions included the educated middle-class as well as some wealthy nobles.149 The new Neapolitan Republic faced immense problems and few could agree on promising solutions. The people of Naples had to be appeased.

Measures to procure food supplies, restore the currency, and revive the economy were needed immediately. The provisional government also needed to assert its authority in the provinces, which had been thrown into utter disorder after the collapse of the monarchy.

The situation threatened to escalate into a civil war as towns and villages declared for and against the new government. The new Republic also had to raise 2,500,000 ducats from the capital and 15,000,000 from the provinces to pay the indemnity to the French

Directory.150

146 Robertson, “Enlightenment and Revolution,” 18.

147 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 81.

148 Ibid., 81; in footnote 57.

149 Ibid., 102.

150 Ibid., 82.

48

Pimentel, like so many of her republican contemporaries was aware of the difficulties of governing an uneducated population that adhered to traditional economic, political, and cultural institutions, and yet she embraced the challenges that lay ahead and participated fully in the Neapolitan Republic. Having experienced the stimulating intellectual culture of late eighteenth-century Naples, Pimentel shared in the atmosphere of Enlightenment, which arguably resulted in a greater challenge to economic and political models than in any other Italian state.151 Not until 1794, however did the impulse towards reform from above fade amidst the growing fears produced by events in

France.152 The French Revolution led the Bourbon monarchy to implement increasingly despotic measures, which in turn radicalized Neapolitan reformers, including Pimentel, into Jacobins and patriots. Along with her fellow Enlightened intellectuals, Pimentel responded to changing politics and expectations dictated from abroad and to the

Neapolitan monarchy’s failed attempts at home by embracing the new era of republican politics.

151 M.S. Anderson, “The Italian Reformers,” in Enlightened Absolutism: Reform and Reformers in Later Eighteenth-Century Europe, ed. by H.M. Scott (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1990), 71.

152 Ibid.

49

Chapter 4

A REVOLUTIONARY JOURNALIST

After the formation of the new Republic, Pimentel assumed her most significant role as the director, editor, and writer of the political newspaper, Il Monitore Napoletano. While the Monitore was the official periodic newspaper of the Neapolitan Republic, Pimentel was independent of any political factions and free to criticize the decisions of the government. She supported many of the Republic’s reforms but also criticized government officials’ decisions. With considerable editorial freedom, Pimentel openly questioned government policies, commented on the abuses of the French troops stationed in Naples, and discussed the misbehavior of several government representatives. At times she took a more radical position as compared to her colleagues, especially evident in her discussion on feudalism, which revealed her true Jacobin sympathies. However, her main goal as director and writer of Il Monitore was to convey the events and political decisions undertaken by the provisional government to the masses. She acknowledged the separation between classes within the Neapolitan population. She sought to educate the lower class with the intention to sway them to the Republic’s side rather than the traditional monarchal rule that they felt more comfortable supporting. Pimentel was one of the few people involved in the Neapolitan Republic who foresaw that the government could only prosper with greater support from its citizens. She fought until the very end for the Republic, its democratic values, and the rights of its citizens, well aware of the risks and dangers the future could hold.

50

Revolutionary Editor

Shortly following the creation of the provisional government, Pimentel was appointed to head the official newspaper of the Neapolitan Republic. On January 29, 1799, Carlo

Lauberg, the future president of the Neapolitan Republic, published a notice stating that by February 2 a newspaper would be issued, which would publish and discuss all the decisions and policies introduced by the new government.153 Though the precise mechanism by which Il Monitore was established is unclear, Mario Battaglini believes

Lauberg founded the national newspaper but, as president, was far too occupied to head it himself.154 However, Elena Urgnani criticizes Battaglini for primarily crediting Lauberg as the founder of the newspaper, arguing there is no evidence of his direct contribution to the newspaper.155 She states:

Prudence would have prevented men of talent from cooperating, therefore it was decided that only those who wanted would have put down their signature, but there was a need for a responsible director: Eleonora was chosen, supported by Championnet, because she gave the most reassurance: of competency, of prudence, of capability, but also of objectivity and of distance from executive bodies. 156

Urgnani does not specify who elected Pimentel, she only states that General

Championnet supported her nomination. Battaglini also discusses a reference made by

Giuseppe Galanti in his “Memorie storiche del mio tempo” [“Historical Memories of my

153 Battaglini, ed., Il Fascino di una Donna, 15.

154 Ibid., 16.

155 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 257.

156 Ibid., 40.

51

Time”] to Pimentel by stating, “Il Monitore […] was given to Eleonora Fonseca

Pimentel…”157 Again, Galanti’s quote supports the notion that the newspaper was left to

Pimentel, but there is no indication who had made such a decision, whether it was

Lauberg, Championnet, or various prominent figures in charge of the provisional government. While the method of her appointment is disputed, the significance of her selection lies in the fact that male intellectuals saw her as qualified due to her class and education, as well as her already established and highly esteemed reputation. The government also wanted the director of the newspaper to be someone capable of holding newly elected officials accountable while also holding the best interest of Neapolitan citizens as a priority. Both Urgnani and Battaglini emphasize that Pimentel maintained considerable political freedom due to her lack of affiliation to any political faction.

Pimentel’s independence was one of the main reasons she was elected to head the newspaper.158 In the end, Pimentel made the final decision and chose to step-up to a public platform with two specific intentions in mind: first to urge the government to continue reforms and second, to defend the Neapolitan people and their needs.159

Pimentel dedicated the rest of her life to publishing and writing articles for Il

Monitore Napoletano, which became the official newspaper of the Neapolitan Republic of 1799. The first issue of the Monitore was published on February 2, 1799. In total, the

157 Giuseppe Galanti, “Memorie storiche del mio tempo,” quoted in Mario Battaglini, ed., Il Fascino di una Donna, 15.

158 Ibid., 16; Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 258.

159 Battaglini, Il Fascino di una Donna, 32.

52 paper appeared in thirty-five issues, the last one issued June 8, 1799. It was modeled after the French newspaper, Gazette Nationale ou Le Moniteur Universel, more commonly known as the Moniteur. The Monitore Napoletano was published on Tuesdays and

Saturdays. The articles in the Monitore Napoletano did not have titles and unlike other newspapers of the time, such as the Monitore di Roma, it contained advertisements for newly published books and their sale, although very rarely did it include personal announcements.160 Gennaro Giaccio printed the first twenty-five issues and the Stamperia

Nazionale, which was previously the Stamperia Reale or the royal press and headed by

Gaetano Carcani, printed the remaining issues.161 Battaglini mentioned that there were two editions of the newspaper, one for the city of Naples and one for the provinces.162 In the paper, the new government provided news concerning official announcements and laws of the Neapolitan Republic, while any news regarding France came directly from the

French government. Pimentel was the primary journalist and writer concerning events in the city of Naples. Writing about the provinces proved problematic since she was unable to travel or hire other journalists; therefore, she relied on people who wrote her letters from the provinces or on word of mouth to cover national events. On April 16, 1799,

Pimentel asked the citizens not to send contrasting news because in the end she would be

160 Ibid., 30.

161 Ibid., 29.

162 Ibid., 31; Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 260; footnote on page 41.

53 unable to identify which source was reliable.163 Since letters had been the dominant form of writing in the eighteenth century, it is not surprising that early journalism had epistolary origins, acting as a forum for its readers and creating a critical and interactive public.164

Pimentel, Il Monitore Napoletano, and the French

As editor of the Neapolitan Republic’s newspaper, Pimentel initially sought to legitimate the new government by tying it to the other great revolutionary regimes of the day, particularly France. Pimentel had two differing views regarding the French; on one hand she was enthusiastic and recognized them as “la grande Nation,” on the other hand she fought against their arrogance and corruption.165 In the first issue published on February

2, 1799, Pimentel welcomed the Neapolitan Republic, exclaiming: “We are free at last, and the time has come when we, too, can utter the sacred words liberty and equality and proclaim to the Mother Republic as her worthy children; to the free states of Italy and

Europe as their worthy fellow brothers.”166 Pimentel chose to represent the new

Neapolitan Republic as childlike to emphasize its lack of maturity and its dependence on

163 Battaglini, ed., Il Fascino di una Donna, 31.

164 Dena Goodman, The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 136-175.

165 Battaglini, ed., Il Fascino di una Donna, 32.

166 Pimentel, Il Monitore Napoletano, no. 1, February 2, 1799, in Antonio Lerra, ed., Monitore Napoletano (2 Febbraio – 8 Giugno 1799): L’antico nella Cultura Politica Rivoluzionaria (Manduria: Piero Lacaita, 2006), 1.

54 the “Mother Republic.” She described the events that led to the proclamation of the

Neapolitan Republic on January 21, 1799, only possible with the arrival of the French army.

While applauding the French for their involvement in establishing the Neapolitan

Republic, Pimentel also voiced her radical republican values, which differed from those of the French Directory and at times also contrasted those of the provisional government.

In the supplement of issue number two of the Monitore, published on February 5, 1799,

Pimentel printed a letter she wrote to Lauberg commenting on the emblem the provisional government had already chosen for the new Neapolitan Republic. This emblem was very similar to the one in France. In the letter, Pimentel critiqued the already chosen emblem and began to express her political views that were at odds with—and more radical than—the French Directory and the Neapolitan provisional government. She gave a detailed description of an emblem she proposed, which she felt would better represent the new Neapolitan Republic and delineate it from the revolutionary government in France. Her emblem had classical origins and portrayed a young man dressed in a Roman toga with his right foot stepping scornfully on the symbols of weakness and wealth, his left hand resting on a spade while the right one holds a sword with its tip pointed to the ground.167 The depiction of a young man represented the newborn Republic, but his strength and virility symbolized the political and ideological maturity of Naples, referring to the greatness of the Ancient Roman Republic. For

167 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 2 supplement, February 2, 1799, in Lerra, ed., Monitore Napoletano, 29.

55

Pimentel, it was important to not only give credit to the French for helping establish a republic in Naples, but also to differentiate this new Neapolitan Republic from the French

Directory.

For the Neapolitans, as for the French, shaping a new political regime meant giving tangible form to political ideas through the use of symbols and language. Pimentel was not only establishing her own revolutionary voice but was also helping to define the new Republic and address the complex relationship between the Neapolitans and the

French, who acted as both liberators and occupiers. Pimentel, like so many of her fellow revolutionaries “did not just seek another representation of authority, a replacement for the king, but rather came to question the very act of representation itself.” 168 New symbols and language became the most popular means to challenge the legitimacy of a traditional government by diffusing the ideals and principles of the new provisional government.169 Pimentel emphasized the right of every citizen in a democracy to petition and have the opportunity to express one’s opinion. Therefore, Pimentel exercised her right to design and propose an emblem of her choosing that she felt better represented the

Neapolitan Republic. As part of her vision she explained that “each citizen is represented in his duties and responsibilities as a cultivator and protector of the soil he occupies and the country he lives in.”170 This letter to Lauberg was also significant because Pimentel

168 Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 88.

169 Ibid., 54-55.

170 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 2 supplement, February 2, 1799, in Lerra, ed., Monitore Napoletano, 29.

56 signed her whole name, one of the few times she did so, normally only writing her initials. She dropped her aristocratic title by taking out the “de” and declared herself a citizen equal to all other fellow citizens of the Republic.171 Words and names that were associated with “the Old Regime and tainted with royalism, aristocracy, or privilege, became taboo.”172 Revolutionary symbols and language were instruments of political and social change that expressed the interests and ideological position of the revolutionaries and the new Neapolitan Republic.173

Pimentel not only critiqued the emblem of the new Neapolitan Republic, she also criticized some members of the French army, among them General Duhesme.174 He had supposedly appropriated seven thousand ducati from the procaccio of Lecce. In the following issue, number fourteen, Pimentel retracted her accusation about the general due to misleading facts. While retracting this information, she also insisted, “My responsibility is to report the public news and public facts… to recount a fact in its simplicity.”175 Pimentel felt torn between praising the French for their help in

171 Croce, ed., Il Monitore Republicano del 1799, 21.

172 Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class, 20.

173 Ibid., 24.

174 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 13, March 16, 1799, in Lerra, ed., Monitore Napoletano, 146.

175 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 14, March 23, 1799, in Lerra, ed., Monitore Napoletano, 157-158.

57 establishing a republic in Naples and reprimanding them for their actions that often harmed the city and its citizens.

Pimentel criticized and applauded the French due to their complex role in both facilitating and meddling in the affairs of the Neapolitan Republic. The French General

Championnet formally established a provisional republican government in Naples on

January 23, 1799, pending approval from Paris. That approval never arrived.176 The

French Directory refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the new Neapolitan regime on the grounds that Championnet had had no authority to establish the provisional government. The French government thereafter closely monitored political affairs in

Naples.177 On February 27, the Directors arrested Championnet and forced him to return to France for disobeying orders. He was succeeded by his rival, General MacDonald, who remained in command until ordered to leave the city in early May.178 Neapolitan patriots had been fortunate in dealing with Championnet, who was more republican than his commanding officers in the Directory. As soon as General MacDonald assessed the political situation in Naples, he immediately complained about the ineffectiveness of the provisional government and blamed Championnet for creating much of the confusion by ignoring the ruling that in all ‘occupied territories’ a Civil Commissar should be in charge

176 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 81.

177 Ibid., 84.

178 Ibid., 83.

58 of public administration.179 MacDonald only added to the inefficiency of the Neapolitan

Republic by postponing approvals and reorganizing the provisional government so that the Executive Commission would have no powers to issue orders without the approval of the Civil Commissar.180 Both the radical Jacobins and the moderate patriots became impatient with the French bureaucracy, which seemed to only halt attempts at reform.

Pimentel’s editorial freedom allowed her the possibility to publicly express and evaluate the dual role of the French, as both liberators and occupiers of Naples.

Pimentel and the Popolo

For Pimentel the most important reason for establishing and writing the Monitore

Napoletano was for the popolo, or the people. Urgnani explains that the newspaper was created with a specific political intention: to make known to the most citizens possible the events and decisions of the government.181 It was essential for Pimentel to always act for the popolo, revealing her desire and determination to win universal support for the

Republic among all social classes.182 She refused to believe that any informed citizen would choose to live in a monarchal regime. Therefore, she sought to use the Monitore as a vehicle of popular education and to advance laws that she saw to be in the interests of both the lower classes and the Neapolitan state. Pimentel was one of the few

179 Ibid., 85-86.

180 Ibid., 86.

181 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 258.

182 Battaglini, ed., Il Fascino di una Donna, 33.

59 revolutionaries who realized that the Neapolitan Republic needed the backing of not only enlightened educated individuals, but also the support of the lower class in order to make any progress. Starting with issue number twenty-six, published on Thursday, May 9, she added the line “Majestas Populi” to Il Monitore Napoletano, a significant addition because it underlined the role people had in the Republic. Pimentel believed that the lower-class citizens, or plebe, lived in a state of ignorance. They could only be elevated to the dignity of the popolo once they had received an education.183 The lazzari, unemployed and uneducated individuals who resorted to begging, composed the lowest strata of society and made up a large part of the plebe. Most of the lazzari were counter- revolutionaries, supporting the return of the Bourbon monarchy. Pimentel stated, “This part of the population needs to be called plebe until a better education may elevate it to the true dignity of the Popolo…”184 She felt that an education would provide the plebe with the ability to better understand political matters, enabling the lower class to realize that the Neapolitan Republic was a better proponent of their interests than the Bourbon monarchy.

Pimentel recognized that cultural unity was a prerequisite for a successful democracy, which meant informing all citizens, in whatever dialect they spoke, as well as providing a popular education. On February 9, she discussed a vast separation among the citizens primarily due to a lack of a common language. On March 5, she made an official proposal to the government to create a smaller newspaper, or a gazzetta, in the local

183 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 3, February 9, 1799, in Lerra, ed., Monitore Napoletano, 31.

184 Ibid.

60 dialect to be published every week in order to persuade the counter-revolutionaries in the provinces to support the government. She knew that much of the rural population was also illiterate and suggested that the newspaper be read on Sundays after lunch in all churches, in both the cities and the provinces, by citizens to be paid by the city municipality. Pimentel emphasized the importance of reaching the people at any cost due to her belief that “theoretical instruction produces some philosophers, only practical education establishes nations.”185 While this newspaper in dialect was never published,

Pimentel praised Giacomo Antonio Gualzetti in the Monitore Napoletano on May 25 for writing a pamphlet in the Neapolitan dialect.186 Although Pimentel hoped for unity among the population with the education of the plebe and the full fledged support of the masses, in the end the Republican government failed to implement any of her ideas, and political and class divisions continued to threaten the fragile Republic.

Despite her ongoing sympathy for the popolo of Naples, Pimentel fundamentally could not accept that truly informed citizens would choose monarchy over democracy. As such, she used her paper to promote policies that she believed would fuse the lower- class’s loyalty to the Republic. She stated on March 5, 1799:

While wailing against the painful effects of the spoiled nature of an absurd political system that lasted for centuries, and the recent corruption of a government, the most deeply corrupted among all tyrannical governments, we take comfort in the thought of a happier future, characterized, and

185 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 10, March 5, 1799, in Croce, ed., Il Monitore Republicano, 63.

186 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 31, May 25, 1799, in Croce, ed., Il Monitore Republicano, 148-149.

61

corrected and ruled by the healthy laws of the Republic, and thus directed not to tear apart the nation, but to support and defend it. 187

Pimentel believed that people who had the same rights under one government should not be fighting amongst themselves. In her articles, she attempted to show the counter- revolutionaries, many of whom were lazzari, that the republican government was acting in their favor. She continuously tried to unite the Neapolitan population behind the provisional government. For example, when Pimentel reported on the fighting taking place in the provinces between the French army and the counter-revolutionaries, she attempted to understand the causes for the lazzari siding with the monarchy rather than simply declaring them traitors or uncivilized. To win monarchists over to the Republic, she suggested in issue number five to create “ministers of peace”: representatives of the citizens who would join the French army and who were empowered to excuse towns for siding with the counter-revolutionaries if they declared their loyalty to the Republic. In a letter addressed to the legislative commission, Pimentel also voiced her opposition to the establishment of a National Guard on horseback.188 Rather, she wanted the National

Guard to be open to all young men. A National Guard on horseback would mean that only those who had the means to buy a horse could join, which would oppose the principle of equality among all classes. The Neapolitan republican government, she believed, could gain the trust of the people in the provinces by making them aware of

187 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 10, March 5, 1799, in Lerra, ed., Monitore Napoletano, 101.

188 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 21, April 20, 1799, in Croce, ed., Il Monitore Republicano, 115.

62 new laws and policies that would benefit them and not the upper class.189 Pimentel always supported policies that she saw as in the best interests of both the popolo and the plebe, and she emphasized such laws, like the abolition of feudalism, in her newspaper in order to win the favor of the people.

Pimentel hoped that the abolition of feudalism could sway the rural population to support the Republic. Long before reporting on the abolition of feudalism in the Monitore

Napoletano, Pimentel had already denounced the feudal system in her preface to her translation of Caravita’s “Nullum jus pontificis.” In it, she stated that for future generations the feudal system will be reason for astonishment and laughter.190 One of the first legislative laws the Neapolitan Republic government passed was the abolition of the law of primogeniture—inheritance by the firstborn child—on January 29, 1799, which

Pimentel reported with clear approval. Pimentel mentioned that the Legislative

Commission met in two public sessions and many other private sessions to discuss various proposals regarding the abolition of feudalism.191 In her quite lengthy account concerning the different views expressed, Pimentel reported the opinions of the main proponents of the law, Giuseppe Cestari and Mario Pagano. While both agreed that the feudal system needed to be abolished, the debate centered on the question of whether the

189 Battaglini, ed., Il Fascino di una Donna, 34-37.

190 Pimentel, “Introduzione alla Dissertazione del Caravita: La Questione dell’Indipendenza del Regno di Napoli dalla Santa Fede,” 1790 in Croce, ed., Il Monitore Republicano, 255.

191 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 18, April 9, 1799, in Croce, ed., Il Monitore Republicano, 84.

63 feudal barons should be compensated for the loss of their lands. Cestari was against any compensation, arguing the barons’ property was the result of tyranny and oppression, and thus it was right to give it back to the nation.192 Both Lauberg and Paribelli agreed with his position. Mario Pagano in his proposal wanted to establish a Commission that had to verify the barons’ property deeds while also abolishing any feudal right.193

Pimentel clearly supported Cestari by reminding readers at the end of her article that the Normans had introduced the feudal system to Naples, while Charlemagne introduced it to the rest of Italy.194 She expressed her desire to see the free nation of

Naples rectify this historic injustice under the protection of their former oppressors, the

French. Throughout her discussion about the abolition of feudalism, Pimentel empathized with the Jacobin radicals.195 The final version of the law was published on April 27,

1799, in issue number twenty-four of the Monitore. The law abolished noble titles and related jurisdictions. All feudal lands were to be transferred to the communes. The

Republic, however, never enacted the law because only a few months later, counter- revolutionary forces invaded Naples. By then many of the rural citizens had grown dissatisfied with the Republic’s anti-feudal campaign, since many of the nobles had fled, leaving citizens in the provinces without work.

192 Ibid., 85.

193 Ibid., 88.

194 Ibid., 94.

195 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 87.

64

In matters of religion, as with those of property and privilege, Pimentel emphasized the role of the state in promoting harmony among all Neapolitan citizens.

She saw another opportunity to persuade the plebe to join the revolutionaries’ cause by emphasizing the fact that many of the bishops and priests supported the Neapolitan

Republic.196 Pimentel exaggerated her case. Members of the Catholic Church were in fact divided, although most sided with the Bourbon monarchy. Nonetheless, with the establishment of the Neapolitan Republic, Pimentel believed that the Neapolitan priests should have absolute independence from the Roman curia and that they should only adhere to the law of the Republic.197 While such a policy was fundamentally at odds with

Catholic practice, Pimentel explained that the Republic’s values of fraternity and equality were similar to the gospel, and she noted the Republic had gained the support of many clergy members. She mentioned on February 19 that a group of priests and bishops went to General Championnet to thank him for helping win the liberty of the nation. Pimentel emphasized that while in other countries, like France, the clergy had created many obstacles for the newly established government, in Naples, the republican government was able to find common ground with the Church.

In highlighting the compatibility between religion and republicanism, even to the point of distorting the truth, Pimentel clearly understood the importance of maintaining traditions and religious functions for the people. In fact, she criticized the government for

196 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 11, March 9, 1799, in Croce, ed., Il Monitore Republicano, 64.

197 Pimentel, quoted in Battaglini, ed., Il Fascino di una Donna, 37-38.

65 not sending representatives to attend the miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of St.

Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples. General Championnet attended an unscheduled performance of it the same day he entered the city, and General MacDonald attended the scheduled miracle in May.198 The liquefaction of Saint Gennaro’s blood was scheduled to take place three times a year. Pimentel exclaimed on May 9, 1799, “Even San Gennaro has become a Jacobin! So let the first Voice of the People be heard! Can any Neapolitan not be what San Gennaro is? Long Live the REPUBLIC.”199 While Pimentel was not interested in the religious celebration as such, she realized the political implication of acknowledging tradition and the opportunity government officials missed by not participating in such an important event that could have swayed the people of Naples to join the republicans’ side.200 In the end however, Pimentel’s continuous efforts to promote policies that would lessen class divisions and acquire the support of the popolo were in vain due to the counter-revolutionary movement, which was gaining more and more ground each day.

Pimentel and the Counter-Revolution

Popular armed resistance never ceased during the short-lived Neapolitan Republic. By the end of February, Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo and his army of the Santa Fede [Holy Faith],

198 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 101.

199 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 26, May 9, 1799, in Croce, ed., Il Monitore Republicano, 125.

200 Battaglini, ed., Il Fascino di una Donna, 37-38.

66 primarily composed of counter-revolutionary lazzari and criminals, landed in the southern region of Calabria and began sweeping through the provinces, making their way north to Naples.201 Many larger towns in the provinces declared loyalty to the Republic, although anti-republican sentiment already began to spread in late January and February due to the arrival of agents from the provisional government in Naples. The provisional government was forced to send ‘democratizers’ to reorganize provincial administrations and to raise taxes due to the French Directory’s fiscal demands, leading to an immediate response in the provinces to ally with the royalists.202 On April 2 Admiral Nelson’s

British warships had begun to blockade the Bay of Naples in an effort to restore the

Bourbon monarchy to the throne. The blockade in turn encouraged an abortive anti- republican conspiracy within the city.203 The French General MacDonald reported to

Paris that the French position in Naples was no longer secure after the blockade set by

British forces. He ordered that grain from the region of Apulia be sent to Rome to supply his retreating army, even if it meant letting the citizens of Naples starve.204 By the end of

April, the French Directory was forced to withdraw its armies from the Italian peninsula

201 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 89.

202 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 88 and 98.

203 Robertson, “Enlightenment and Revolution: Naples 1799,” 18.

204 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 90.

67 due to the Russian-Austrian offensive in the north and the Bourbon royalist forces fast approaching Naples from the south.205

Although the provisional government took the initiative in organizing its own defense, the French withdrawal only led to the radicalization of the Neapolitan

Republic.206 At first a sense of urgency led to an upsurge of legislative activity and an increase in efforts to win over the lazzari; however, the government’s policies took a more repressive turn after the discovery of a royalist conspiracy.207 A Committee of

Public Safety was organized on April 12 to impose severe police restrictions. At the same time, a Patriotic Society, modeled after the Jacobin Club in Paris, was established to interrogate all public officials. Tensions between republican factions escalated and, on

May 26, some patriots accused various Jacobin leaders of imitating Robespierre’s Reign of Terror in Paris.208 In May, the provisional government tried one last time to restore people’s confidence and alleviate popular discontent. The Republic abolished consumption taxes on wheat, seized the property of the monarchy to guarantee bank deposits, announced a radical reform of the judiciary and legal systems, and sequestered the lands and goods of those who fled with the royal family to Palermo.209 However, all

205 Ibid., 87-88.

206 Robertson, “Enlightenment and Revolution: Naples 1799,” 18.

207 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 91.

208 Ibid.

209 Ibid.

68 initiatives came far too late. Both external and internal threats proved too much for the young Neapolitan Republic, whose French allies withdrew at its most critical moment.

Even as Cardinal Ruffo’s army gained more ground in the provinces, Pimentel used her paper to instruct Neapolitans to fight for liberty and independence. Upon the withdrawal of French troops, the French Civil Commissar Abrial told the provisional government before leaving that now it was free to act as it wished.210 Rather than panicking, Pimentel hailed the French withdrawal as the moment when the Republic was finally free to prove itself, writing on May 11, 1799:

Patriots, citizens of the Neapolitan Nation, you are now finally in control of your own destiny and have the opportunity that other reborn Nations have vainly desired: this is the moment to show your wisdom, to unite your minds, your strength and will so that you may soon proclaim your Constitution… From this moment you have the opportunity to show the august French Nation and the whole of Europe whether or not you deserve to be a free People…211

Pimentel fought for freedom and equality until the very end, but by this time Naples was under blockade by Nelson’s warships, was without food or currency, and was threatened by Cardinal Ruffo’s rapidly advancing army of Sanfedisti.212 Pimentel wrote on June 8 that “war is endemic,” and she ended the issue with the latest news of the fighting,

210 Ibid., 90.

211 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 27, March 11, 1799, in Lerra, ed., Monitore Napoletano, 295.

212 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 101.

69 promising to give more details later.213 However, this was to be the last issue of Il

Monitore.

In the final issues of the newspaper, Pimentel had slowly shifted her attention from news concerning the city of Naples to foreign news, laws, and proclamations.214

While Pimentel refused to abandon her high hopes for the city of Naples, she also began to advocate for the revolutionary potential of a united Italy. She stated in issue number twenty-eight, published May 14, 1799:

The current position of Italy does not represent a disadvantage. Italy will remain a warrior nation, it will fight for itself and not through another’s girded iron: one will come to understand the great truth, that a state does not defend itself very well if not through its own forces, and that an independent and free Italy is a valuable ally: depending on others it is a burden, because one cannot love freedom halfway and it won’t generate its miracles, except among nations that are absolutely free.215

She emphasized the notion that while Naples should not rely on foreign powers to free itself from the confines of monarchal absolute power or to implement democratic values, neither should the Italian peninsula. Only through the unification of the Italian peninsula could its republics truly claim freedom for their citizens and independence from foreign influence. Pimentel also stated in issue number thirty-one, published a week and a half later:

213Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 35, June 8, 1799, in Croce, ed., Il Monitore Republicano, 169 and 172.

214 Maria Rosaria Pelizzari, “Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel: morire per la rivoluzione,” Storia delle donne 4 (2008), 114.

215Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 28, May 14, 1799, in Croce, ed., Il Monitore Republicano, 133-134.

70

Follow the example, o magnanimous Neapolitan Youth, of the Greek valor… However, be aware, o magnanimous youth, that your homeland is not only Naples, but the homeland of each citizen is the entire Republican state… Therefore, take up arms, enroll, go to all those agitated districts of the Republic; … it is your shame that you are in Naples, and there are still insurgents in the state. Go, fight, and win; and then being the one to bring back those great days of Attica… and united with your fellow citizens you will lay the foundation for the GREAT ITALIC UNION, and by proving yourself the powerful arm of Italy, they will speak of you, and of your fellow citizens in the same way as the great Father of history spoke about the Athenians.216

Pimentel advocated the Neapolitans to fight not only for their own freedom, but also for a superior purpose, the unification of Italy, which would benefit all citizens of the Italian peninsula. The failure of the Neapolitan Republic of 1799 illustrated that the Italian sister-republics could not stand alone. Only with the unity of the Italian republics and solidarity amongst Italian citizens could foreign rule successfully come to an end, resulting in the development of democratic representation.217

By June 13, 1799, the Neapolitan Republic had officially come to an end with the signing of an armistice between Cardinal Ruffo and the patriots. Active support for the

Republic was very limited by this point, most of it limited to well-educated enlightenment scholars and forward-looking officials of noble-birth.218 The vested interests of the nobility, of the church, and of the very numerous lawyers, were insurmountable and powerful, preventing the provisional government from making any

216 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 31, May 25, 1799, in Lerra, ed., Monitore Napoletano, 348- 349.

217 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 98.

218 Anderson, “The Italian Reformers,” 72.

71 real changes.219 Vincenzo Cuoco, a contemporary writer and historian during the

Neapolitan Republic of 1799 explained in his book Saggio Storico sulla Rivoluzione

Napoletana del 1799 that the Neapolitan Revolution failed because it was a “passive revolution,” never gaining the support of the masses.220 Cuoco blamed the leaders of the provisional government who he claimed were self-serving aristocrats who blindly supported the French authorities in imposing reforms based on foreign models ill-suited to the political and cultural realities of Naples. However, Cuoco’s account and interpretation of events were written at a time when any direct accusations against the

French would have been dangerous. In reality, it was the French who forced the Republic to accept the conservative French constitution of Year III, who made financial stability impossible, who imposed an unmanageable reorganization of provincial administrations, and who refused to allow the Republic to raise its own army.221 The failure of the

Republic seemed inevitable; however, such circumstances did not ultimately mean the easy surrender of republicans. Pimentel, along with a handful of fellow republicans foresaw the need for an “active revolution” and attempted to overcome popular passivity.

While the terminology of the Republic’s constitution and the proposals of the provincial administration originated from French models, local republicans made a conscious attempt to adapt them to unique Neapolitan circumstances.222 Pimentel emphasized the

219 Ibid., 70.

220 Cuoco, Saggio Storico sulla Rivoluzione Napoletana, 90.

221 Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 97.

222 Robertson, “Enlightenment and Revolution: Naples 1799,” 23.

72 role of religion in the Republic by addressing the liquefaction of Saint Gennaro’s blood as well as the planting of liberty trees with priestly or episcopal benedictions in order to gain the support of the people. She also highlighted the need for education reform and the printing of material in dialect. In the end, however such attempts proved futile since the provisional government, which was under the direct influence of the French Directory, implemented few of Pimentel’s ideas. Even with the withdrawal of French troops and the failure of the Neapolitan Republic, Italians learned a valuable lesson and realized the many benefits unification could hold, a lesson that would prove important in the century ahead. In asserting the potential of a united Italy, Pimentel the revolutionary helped leave a lasting mark on Naples and beyond.

73

Chapter 5

CONCLUSION

As a product of the eighteenth-century Italian Enlightenment, Eleonora de Fonseca

Pimentel pursued an education unaffordable to lower-class citizens and previously prohibited to many of her sex. Participating in the top Neapolitan intellectual circles,

Pimentel, like her male colleagues, also became frustrated with the Bourbon monarchy and the cessation of reform following the French Revolution. Her highly esteemed reputation, her intellectual capabilities, her lack of familial obligations, and her lack of political affiliations made Pimentel the only woman suitable in Naples to head the

Republic’s official newspaper. Although Pimentel assumed a public political role as director of Il Monitore, she never became an advocate for women’s rights. Rather, she focused all of her attention on more urgent matters due to the constant threats to the

Neapolitan Republic. Pimentel was more concerned in gaining the support of the lower classes to stabilize the provisional government, revealing her true devotion to revolution across class and gender lines. Due to the unique circumstances of her time and location, and despite her inattention to issues of sexual equality, Pimentel became a proto-feminist.

She earned this title due to her active participation in revolutionary citizenship rather than in overt demands for female rights of citizenship. She came to epitomize a woman who put her love of country above all else, even her own life.

In the thirty-five issues of the Monitore, Pimentel only wrote on two occasions about particular women. In issue number fourteen she briefly mentioned a woman by the name of Laurent Prota, who publicly spoke against egoism that “eats away at the true tree

74 of liberty” and who suggested ways to increase public wealth through agriculture and commerce.223 More notably, on April 13 she gave a lengthy account of a plot against the

Neapolitan government, which was revealed and prevented by Luisa Molina Sanfelice. In the article, Pimentel also named the traitors whom government officials arrested and imprisoned, emphasizing her disdain and contempt for these traitors of the Republic and celebrating the woman who foiled their plans. She exclaimed, “how many levels below dementia is he who seeks to live under a King like Ferdinand.”224 In fact, Sanfelice was uninterested in political matters and inadvertently revealed the plot to burn Naples while the British invaded to her republican lover, Ferdinando Ferri. The conspirators gave

Sanfelice a ‘safe-conduct pass’ since she was married to an aristocratic royalist, which she was to use to escape the city. In order to save her lover’s life, Sanfelice gave him the pass.225 Once the Bourbon monarchy returned to power in Naples, Sanfelice was instantly sought out and condemned to death by the State Council. She pretended to be pregnant, which only postponed her death by guillotine. Sanfelice’s death upset many Neapolitan elites since she was well-liked by both republicans and monarchists. Even Princess Maria

Clementina, wife of the heir to the throne, intervened and asked for clemency. People indirectly held Pimentel responsible for the hanging of Luisa Sanfelice, because she had made her involvement known in the newspaper and turned her into a hero.

223 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 14, March 23, 1799, in Croce, ed., Il Monitore Republicano, 71.

224 Pimentel, Il Monitore, no. 19, April 13, 1799, in Croce, ed., Il Monitore Republicano, 98.

225 Schiattarella, La Marchesa Giacobina, 167.

75

The Bourbon monarchy only sentenced to death two women, Pimentel and

Sanfelice. They held contrasting roles during the Neapolitan Republic of 1799, therefore they have also been portrayed and remembered differently. Urgnani believes that

Pimentel’s intellect and her complete devotion to the Neapolitan people and the Republic made the uneducated masses living during her time uncomfortable. They more easily accepted the more traditional feminine figure of Sanfelice.226 Sanfelice fit the mold of the feminine innocent victim, while Pimentel played a leading part in the Republic, making her death fitting for many counter-revolutionaries.

Nowhere did Pimentel publicly state her support for gender equality, nor did she pay particular attention to women during the Republic; rather, she focused on political reforms for the entire population without making gender distinctions. In fact, Pimentel allowed the publication of an advertisement of a booklet in her newspaper entitled,

“Dell’anima delle donne e della libertà del vestire” [“Of the Soul of Women and the

Freedom of Dress”] in which the anti-feminist author theorizes the inferiority of women.227 The advertisement of this booklet and lack of commentary does not signify that Pimentel was an anti-feminist. Rather, we are left wondering why Pimentel remained silent about an issue that so closely influenced her life, while she was so outspoken and critical of reforms affecting the Republic and the lower class. Annarita Buttafuoco believes that an intelligent woman like Pimentel was certainly aware of the arguments surrounding women’s political rights. Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of

226 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria e Politica, 44.

227 Buttafuoco, “Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel: una donna nella Rivoluzione,” 90.

76

Women was published in Italian in Naples in 1794. Newspapers in other republican governments in Northern Italy also published articles regarding women’s role in government. For example, Giuseppe Natale Gioannetti wrote the article “Selva di

Pensieri di un Democratico Bolognese” [“A Multitude of Thoughts of a Bolognese

Democrat”] published in the Quotidiano Bolognese in which he advocated for the increased participation of women in public life.228 If Pimentel was in fact familiar with such gender discourses, then why was she completely silent on the topic of women’s rights?

Pimentel likely did not discuss the possibility of gender equality for several reasons. First, the short-lived Neapolitan Republic, lasting no longer than five months, did not give Pimentel the time or opportunity to address gender issues.229 She focused on what she felt were more urgent matters, such as political and economic reforms that would help unify the Neapolitan people and create a strong Republic. The Neapolitan

Republic was quite unstable since its creation in January 1799. Already in February

Cardinal Ruffo led the counter-revolutionary Sanfedisti army north from Sicily on behalf of the Bourbons. On April 2, English warships appeared in the Bay of Naples and by the end of the month the French left Naples.230 Pimentel’s priority was to safeguard the

Republic and gain the trust of the lazzari and the popolo. Since Pimentel advocated for

228 Ibid.

229 Ibid., 91.

230 Robertson, “Enlightenment and Revolution,” 18.

77 the education and equality of the Neapolitan people, she did not differentiate between men and women.

Second, Italian society and Enlightenment thinking allowed women certain freedoms not granted to women in many other European nations. Italian women of noble birth could pursue an education as well as acquire public recognition for their literary, artistic, scientific, or even political works. “Perhaps one of the reasons the Italian peninsula did not produce a Mary Wollstonecraft or an Olympe de Gouges, women we associate with the origins of modern feminism, was because the society of eighteenth- century Italy had given women a role, albeit limited and largely ceremonial, in its leading educational and cultural institutions.”231 Examples of women in Italy stepping outside the domestic sphere abound. Women such as Elena Cornaro Piscopia, Maria Maddelena

Morelli Fernandez, Laura Bassi Veratti, Maria Pellegrina Amoretti, Cristina Roccati,

Clotilde Tambroni, Anna Morandi Manzolini, and Maria Gaetana Agnesi are examples of exceptional women thriving in intellectual society as well as in many educational fields.

The achievements of such women can be attributed to the salons and academies, which began to accept the widespread participation of women in the eighteenth century. “The case of Fonseca Pimentel demonstrates that admission to Arcadia (and more generally to the academies and the salons of the eighteenth century) truly permitted women to approach and diffuse new ideas, and take on new roles and new responsibilities.”232

231 Findlen, “Introduction: Gender and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Italy,” 21.

232 Elisabetta Graziosi, “Revisiting Arcadia: Women and Academies in Eighteenth- Century Italy,” in Italy’s Eighteenth Century: Gender and Culture in the Age of the Grand Tour,

78

Pimentel’s early success as a poet allowed her to rise within the academies and participate in the salons of Naples. She used various translations and the newspaper as platforms to make her voice heard, while other women in Naples could freely express themselves in meeting rooms of public instruction, the Sala d’Istruzione Pubblica.

Pimentel became increasingly involved in political, legal, and economic affairs and could operate within the Neapolitan masculine culture due to unique socio-cultural conditions.

While the Italian Enlightenment provided women greater freedom to participate in intellectual circles, voice their opinions, and publish scholarly works, social boundaries continued to exist. Karen Green explains: “There remained significant social barriers to women’s open participation in intellectual affairs. But a modus operandi was widely adopted which accepted that, so long as women were sufficiently modest, so long as their intellectual aspirations did not overreach appropriate feminine bounds, enlightened, modern society would welcome their participation.”233 Her aristocratic origins permitted

Pimentel the finest education, which allowed her to excel as a poet, considered an acceptable feminine aptitude. Pimentel’s failed marriage and lack of children resulted in the opportunity to pursue her interests outside of the domestic sphere. Due to her remarkable intellect and reputation, as well as her unique personal hardships and inability to live a traditional female lifestyle, the male republican intellectuals welcomed

Pimentel’s participation in political affairs, allowing her to successfully supersede gender

Paula Findlen, Wendy Wassyng Roworth, and Catherine M. Sama, eds. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 124.

233 Karen Green, A History of Women’s Political Thought in Europe, 1700-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 250.

79 boundaries of the time. A greater acceptance of educated women within the Italian

Enlightenment movement allowed Pimentel to emerge as a highly regarded intellectual; however, she remained unique: the first female revolutionary in Italy to pay a heavy price for stepping outside of the acceptable female roles.

While there were women who participated in the intellectual world and became experts in the scientific and philosophical fields, Pimentel was the only woman in revolutionary Italy to actively contribute to the political domain. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, Caterina Cracas was the director of the Roman periodical Il

Caracas. The better-known Elisabetta Caminer Turra collaborated with her father in the publication of the Venetian literary journal, the Giornale enciclopedico in the eighteenth century. After her father’s passing, Turra oversaw the family publishing house, the

Stamperia Turra for fifteen years. However, the Giornale enciclopedico primarily issued articles reviewing major literary, scientific, and philosophical works issued in and outside of Italy.234 While there were other female journalists in Italy, Pimentel was the only one writing about political and economic matters in an official government newspaper. She was a rare example of a woman who superseded gender boundaries by completely immersing herself in the public political world. Pimentel’s life and work were truly unique for eighteenth-century Italian women. As a product of an already distinct

Enlightenment environment, Pimentel surpassed all other women within the Italian peninsula due to the revolutionary circumstances in Naples as well as her passion and

234 Messbarger, “The Italian Enlightenment Reform of the Querelle Des Femmes,” 9-10.

80 endless determination to fight for reform and democratic values that would benefit the lives of many Neapolitans. In the end, Pimentel came to resemble many of the revolutionary women in France who “in discourse and act, they forced real, if short-lived and incomplete, transformations and expansions of the meaning and practice of citizenship and sovereignty.”235 Although Pimentel never explicitly wrote to defend women’s rights, her actions and life’s work define her as a proto-feminist.

Several scholars have labeled Pimentel as a victim or a martyr; rather, her death catapulted her as the heroine of the Neapolitan Republic of 1799. While Pimentel may have been a victim of her abusive husband and of the reinstated Bourbon monarchy, she never lived her life as an anguished casualty. Labeling Pimentel a victim discredits many of her accomplishments and her life’s work, making her appear weak and passive. Rather than a victim or a martyr, Pimentel became the female protagonist of a story with a tragic ending. She chose to write, edit, and direct Il Monitore Napoletano, knowing the danger it could present. She vehemently fought for the Republic and the people of Naples until the very last issue of the newspaper. Pimentel’s unwavering appeal for a revolution across class and gender lines distinguishes her as a true revolutionary. Vincenzo Cuoco, a contemporary of hers, was the first to discuss her political participation during the

Republic, and in his opinion, she assumed this role for love of country and remained

235 Darline Gay Levy and Harriet B. Applewhite, “Women and Militant Citizenship in Revolutionary Paris,” in Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution, eds. Sara E. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 98.

81 brave until the very last moments prior to her death.236 Pimentel petitioned the State

Council to be beheaded, however her request was denied on the basis that she did not derive from the aristocracy of Naples and that the guillotine was reserved only for the local nobility. Hanging an aristocratic woman of noble Portuguese origins was considered a disgrace at the time. Croce believes Pimentel’s death sentence came directly from the royal family as vengeance for her inflammatory sonnet “Rediviva Poppea, Tribade

Impura” [“Reborn Poppea, Impure Lesbian”], accusing the queen of being a lesbian.237

Such a bold attack on the Queen made Pimentel a prime target of the Bourbon monarchs when they successfully returned to the throne after the failure of the Republic.

Regardless, Pimentel maintained her courage until the very end, hoping her death would be remembered by future generations and quoted Virgil, “Perhaps one day it will be enjoyable to remember even these things.”238 However, Pimentel’s last words seemed to go unheard by the plebe she fought so fiercely to defend. After her death the Neapolitan people sang in their native dialect:

Where is lady Eleonora gone, who used to dance on the stage: and now she's dancing in market square! And cannot dance anymore!

Long live the Holy Pope, who sent us the cannons, to chase away the Jacobins!

236 Cuoco, Saggio Storico, 208.

237 Croce, La Rivoluzione Napoletana, 29; in footnote 2; Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 103.

238 Cuoco, Saggio Storico, 208.

82

Long live the gallows and Master Donato: praise to Saint Antonio!

Traitors, go down! Over the Bridge: you cannot steal anymore!239

Pimentel’s image has changed considerably since her death. She has come to play a larger role in scholarship on eighteenth century Italy; however, historians outside of

Italy have often overlooked the importance of her complete devotion to republican ideals and to the people of Naples due to the short-lived nature of the Neapolitan Republic.

Many gender historians have, for the most part, ignored Pimentel’s life and work because she never explicitly fought for women’s rights like other prominent female figures of her time, Mary Wollstonecraft and Olympe de Gouges. Pimentel was a true revolutionary woman due to the economic and political subject of her work as well as her exceptional life and brave choices, incomparable to any eighteenth-century Italian woman. She acts as a rare model of an extraordinary revolutionary figure not only because of her participation within the masculine sphere as a female writer and activist, but also because she excelled within this world. The remarkable life of Pimentel should not only be celebrated in her country of origin but also recognized by historians worldwide.

239 Urgnani, La Vicenda Letteraria, 347-348.

83

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Battaglini, Mario, ed. Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel: Il Fascino di una Donna Impegnata fra Letteratura e Rivoluzione. Naples: Generoso Procaccini, 1997.

Croce, Benedetto, ed. Il Monitore Republicano del 1799: Articoli Politici Seguiti da Scritti Vari in Verso e in Prosa della Stessa Autrice. Bari: G. Laterza e Figli, 1943.

Cuoco, Vicenzo. Saggio Storico sulla Rivoluzione Napoletana del 1799. 2nd ed. Edited by Fausto Nicolini. Bari: G. Laterza e Figli, 1929.

D’Episcopo, Francesco, ed. Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel: Tra Mito e Storia. Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2008.

Giglio, Raffaele, D. De Liso, R. Esposito Di Mambro, D. Giorgio, S. Minichini, and G. Scognamiglio, eds. Eleonora di Fonseca Pimentel: Una Donna tra le Muse: La Produzione Poetica. Naples: Loffredo, 1999.

Lerra, Antonio, ed. Monitore Napoletano (2 Febbraio – 8 Giugno 1799): L’antico nella Cultura Politica Rivoluzionaria. Manduria: Piero Lacaita, 2006.

Secondary Sources

Acton, Harold. The Bourbons of Naples (1734-1825). London: Methuen, 1956.

Anderson, M.S. “The Italian Reformers.” In Enlightened Absolutism: Reform and Reformers in Later Eighteenth-Century Europe, edited by H.M. Scott, 55-74. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1990.

Bearne, Catherine Mary Charlton. A Sister of Marie Antoinette: The Life-Story of Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1907.

Bock, Gisela. Women in European History. Translated by Allison Brown. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.

Buttafuoco, Annarita. “Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel: una donna nella Rivoluzione.” Nuova Donnawomanfemme DWF (April-June 1977): 51-92.

84

Cristea, S.N. “Poetic Theory in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Italy.” The Modern Language Review 65, no. 4 (October 1970): 793-802. Accessed February 18, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3722554.

Croce, Benedetto. La Rivoluzione Napoletana del 1799: Biografie, Racconti, Ricerche. 4th ed. Bari: G. Laterza e Figli, 1926.

Davis, John A. Naples and Napoleon: Southern Italy and the European Revolutions (1780-1860). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

D’Ezio, Marianna. “Italian Women Intellectuals and Their Cultural Networks: The Making of a European ‘Life of the Mind’.” In Political Ideas of Enlightenment Women: Virtue and Citizenship, edited by Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt, Paul Gibbard, and Karen Green, 109-121. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013.

Di Scala, Spencer M. Italy: From Revolution to Republic, 1700 to Present. Boulder: Westview Press, 1995.

Findlen, Paula. “Introduction: Gender and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Italy.” In Italy’s Eighteenth Century: Gender and Culture in the Age of the Grand Tour, edited by Paula Findlen, Wendy Wassyng Roworth, and Catherine M. Sama, 1- 31. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009.

Findlen, Paula. “Science as a Career in Enlightenment Italy: The Strategies of Laura Bassi.” Isis 84, no. 3 (September 1993): 441-469. Accessed February 7, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/235642.

Forgione, Mario. Donne della Rivoluzione Napoletana del 1799: Protagoniste, Antagoniste, Testimoni, Vittime Ignote o Dimenticate. Naples: Tempolungo, 1999.

Giglio, Raffaele. “Una Donna ‘Rivoluzionaria.’” In Eleonora di Fonseca Pimentel: Una Donna tra le Muse: La Produzione Poetica, edited by Raffaele Giglio, D. De Liso, R. Esposito Di Mambro, D. Giorgio, S. Minichini, G. Scognamiglio, 7-17. Naples: Loffredo, 1999.

Goodman, Dena. Becoming a Woman in the Age of Letters. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009.

Goodman, Dena. The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.

85

Graziosi, Elisabetta. “Revisiting Arcadia: Women and Academies in Eighteenth-Century Italy.” In Italy’s Eighteenth Century: Gender and Culture in the Age of the Grand Tour, edited by Paula Findlen, Wendy Wassyng Roworth, and Catherine M. Sama, 103-124. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009.

Green, Karen. A History of Women’s Political Thought in Europe, 1700-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Higonnet, Patrice. Goodness Beyond Virtue: Jacobins during the French Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Hunt, Lynn. Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

Israel, Jonathan I. Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750-1790. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Jones, Verina R. “Journalism, 1750-1850.” In A History of Women’s Writing in Italy, edited by Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood, 120-134. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Kale, Steven. “Women’s Intellectual Agency in the History of Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century French Salons.” In Political Ideas of Enlightenment Women: Virtue and Citizenship, edited by Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt, Paul Gibbard, and Karen Green. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013.

Levy, Darline Gay and Harriet B. Applewhite. “Women and Militant Citizenship in Revolutionary Paris.” In Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution, edited by Sara E. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine, 79-101. Oxford: Oxford Univeristy Press, 1992.

Macciocchi, Maria Antonietta. Cara Eleonora. Milan: Rizzoli, 1993.

Mazzotti, Massimo. “Maria Gaetana Agnesi: Mathematics and the Making of the Catholic Enlightenment.” Isis 92, no. 4 (December 2001): 657-683. Accessed February 7, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3080337.

Messbarger, Rebecca. “The Italian Enlightenment Reform of the Querelle Des Femmes.” In The Contest for Knowledge: Debates over Women’s Learning in Eighteenth- Century Italy, edited and translated by Rebecca Messbarger and Paula Findlen, 1- 22. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

86

Oddens, Joris, Mart Rutjes, and Erik Jacobs, eds. The Political Culture of the Sister Republics, 1794-1806. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2015.

Pelizzari, Maria Rosaria. “Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel: morire per la rivoluzione.” Storia delle donne 4 (2008): 103-121.

Petraccone, Claudia. Napoli nel 1799: Rivoluzione e Proprietà: Una Ricerca su Borghesia e Nobiltà nel Mezzogiorno d’Italia. Naples: Morano Editore, 1989.

Petrovich, Vesna Crnjanski. “Women and the Paris Academy of Sciences.” Eighteenth Century Studies 32, no. 3 (Spring 1999): 383-390. Accessed March 24, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30053914.

Pieretti, Marie-Pascale. “Women Writers and Translation in Eighteenth-Century France.” The French Review 75, no. 3 (February 2002): 474-488. Accessed February 7, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3132846.

Pomata, Gianna. “Family and Gender.” In Early Modern Italy: 1550-1796, edited by John A. Marino, 69-81. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Robertson, John. “Enlightenment and Revolution: Naples 1799.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 10 (2000): 17-44. Accessed July 21, 2015. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/3679371.

Russell, Rinaldina, ed. The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1997.

Sama, Catherine M. “Liberty, Equality, Frivolity! An Italian Critique of Fashion Periodicals.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 37, no. 3 (Spring 2004): 389-414. Accessed March 2, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25098066.

Schiattarella, Franco. La Marchesa Giacobina: Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel. Naples: Schettini, 1973.

Striano, Enzo. Il Resto di Niente: Storia di Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel e della Rivoluzione Napoletana del 1799. Milan: Rizzoli, 1998.

Symcox, Geoffrey. “The Political World of the Absolutist State in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” In Early Modern Italy 1550-1796, edited by John A. Marino, 104-122. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Urgnani, Elena. La Vicenda Letteraria e Politica di Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel. Naples: La Città del Sole, 1998.

87

Vitti, Alicia. “Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel: Ritratto di una Donna Rivoluzionaria.” PhD diss., Middlebury College, 2005.

Whaley, Leigh Ann. Women’s History as Scientists: A Guide to the Debates. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio, 2003.